EU/ EC funding - an opportunity for the Constellation or not?

[Gaston]

Dear Transfer team members,

I have been looking into the possiblity for EC funding of the approach. I know that in some cases, the EC already finances Malaria or AIDS Competence. One example is through Ibrahim Kamara for PLAN in Sierra Leone. The EC was very enthusiastic about funding the approach.

I started with exploring concrete avenues (1 page) and my reflections (1 page). Please have a look and provide your valuable thoughts on this.

Thank you,
Gaston

[Gaston]

Some ideas from Ibrahim Kamara, coach in Sierra Leone who go European Commission funding for AIDS Competence at scale:

Question 1: Which call did you respond to?
Non State Actors' Call (It was not a country specific call)

Question 2: With whom did PLAN partner and how? - Government/Ministry of Health through the National Malaria Control Programme and the District Health Management Team; Youth organization at district level and Local NGO (a Child-to-Child organization)>

Question 3: How you presented the approach in the proposal? - As an Monitoring and Planning tool used to help communities plan their programmes andalso help help monitor their progress. The stimulant put in the proposal is that the competence process promotes: change of mindset from expert mentality to self contribution,promotes and increases community involvment, participation, utilizationof services, ownership and sustainability of interventions carried out using the competernce approach mainly through the use of the self-assessment tool.

Question 4: What scope of implementation you proposed. What was your strategy for scale? - We did not put it as a project rather it was included in the projects we marketed to EC as an approached used to change expert mentality that will lead to increased particpation, ownership and sustainability of the actions/interventions. the actual activities included training of District Facilitators and cascade vtraining of community facilitators who in turn carry out community self-assessment on malaria, HIV/AIDS or Child health and develeopment depending on the project for which they are engaged/involved.

The implications for the Constellation according to me:

1. Partner, especially with governmental organizations and others that plan to submit a proposal
2. Monitor the 'non-state actors' calls
3. Don't propose our approach in isolation, but link it meaningfully with service delivery IN the same proposal. Make it a package (like in PNG with UN trust fund, Cameroon R9 Malaria, Togo Red Cross)
4. A unique selling point of the approach is its unique measuring progress capacity (of social change) through the self-assessment tool. We can emphasize this more as it's a EC priority.

What do you think?