FOR BETTER MOBILIZATION OF INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS: THE EXAMPLE OF THE NOUS CIMS FOUNDATION IN SENEGAL

Pape Makhtar, country representative, Senegal.

Partnership is the relationship between two or more organizations or entities for the implementation of a project or program. It should be based on equal cooperation and mutual trust, respect for commitments, transparency and reciprocity. The partnership between NGOs and public institutions remains complex due to the different roles and complex prerogatives that both parties must manage intelligently to end positional disputes and favor action.

The public institution remains the architect of public development policy and the guarantor of its proper execution. At the decentralized level, it ensures the proper implementation of the policies and strategies defined by the central government and ensures the coordination, support, follow-up and control of the activities of the various actors. A role both as a partner and as an agent of execution, follow-up and control that must be balanced.

NGOs, for their part, support the efforts of the State and public institutions with resources and technical support, and capitalize on the experience gained from their many interventions. In the majority of cases, they are relays within the framework of development cooperation.

In this partnership relationship, both parties should, in principle, gain: NGOs can influence state policy by meeting the demands of interest groups, while the administration acquires knowledge and assistance in finding solutions. “Although these relationships do not in themselves contain factors of inequality, it is undeniable that the state is in a position of strength compared to NGOs. That is why they are constantly in a situation of imbalance: they must demand that their opinion be taken into account while the State can choose to pay attention to them or ignore them. ” ( Fuszara, 2005, p. 256).

Thus, collaboration between these two partners must be conditioned by the independence of each, which is not acquired when one of them (in this case the State) assumes a controlling role and claims the prerogative to put an end to the intervention of the other.

Distrust and doubt

Collaboration between public institutions and NGOs is not always good and very often remains precarious. Although it is considered an open secret, some mistrust and doubts have been observed in the collaboration between institutional partners and NGOs on both sides, making the working relationship complex and difficult.

On the one hand, public institutions claim a certain authority in terms of defining public development policy: the public partner thus relies on its knowledge of the local environment and its role as a public force of governance and guardian of national sovereignty in terms of public development policy. Even if public institutions receive support in implementation, they jealously guard their mission of monitoring the conformity of NGO interventions with the policies defined by the State and the sound management of resources. It is also up to them to ensure scrupulous compliance with the laws and regulations governing NGO interventions.

As for NGOs, they want to be critical and reserve the right to give their opinion and not blindly follow public initiatives. The singularly demanding attitude of some NGOs, the development of programs and projects often considered out of step with public policies, the weak involvement of public authorities in the definition of their intervention strategy, among others, lead us to consider this partnership as an unfortunate necessity.

The public partner is suspicious of what it considers to be support guided by the interests of a donor and not an intervention based on the real needs expressed by the communities. NGOs, for their part, remain concerned about the management capacity of the public authorities, the correct use of resources and live with the weight of their commitments to donors and the search for a real impact of their intervention on the life of communities.

However, once this collaboration is successful, it leads to synergy and complementarity in the interventions based on the exchange of experiences and knowledge and a transfer of skills for better sustainability of the knowledge acquired. This, combined with the participation of the communities through a strong commitment and a good ownership of the interventions, undoubtedly generates a positive and lasting impact.

Collaboration with public institutions in the case of the Nous Cims Foundation:

Nous cims Foundation supports development efforts by funding projects for the benefit of national and local NGOs for a sustainable improvement of the living conditions of populations. The funded projects focused on diverse areas, including education, nutrition, women’s empowerment, support to vulnerable groups, preparation for socio-economic reintegration of children in detention, employability and training of young professionals, etc. These multiple interventions were spread across more than ten locations throughout the country: an ambition that required optimal harmonization to achieve impact.
For this reason, the foundation has launched the definition of a new territorially and thematically oriented strategy as of 2022.
After a careful assessment of the needs, priorities and representativeness of CSOs, the departments of Pikine and Saint Louis were selected as Model Zones for an intervention that aims to be inclusive and have a real impact on the lives of the populations. This strategic exercise thus becomes a painstaking process, an important work of identification and mobilization of stakeholders, but also of exchange, research and production. In this sense, the institutional partner must be present from the beginning to the end of the process to better play its role in supporting and monitoring development initiatives.

• From diagnosis to strategy validation:

From diagnosis to validation and refinement of the new strategy, the foundation demonstrated openness towards the stakeholders identified (CSOs, communities, institutional partners, private sector, populations, etc.). At this crucial stage, the institutional actors responsible for public policy had an important role to play. Thus, an initial mapping of institutional partners was carried out in order to have a complete directory of decentralized services at the level of our Model Zones. This work, carried out in collaboration with the central level (Ministry and General Directorates, etc.), was an important step in the implementation of a good diagnosis. Thus, the institutional part of this work focused on the inventory of the policies so far developed by the State and its decentralized services, the actions implemented, the difficulties encountered; a definition of the strengths and weaknesses of the public policies developed on our intervention themes. This work also allowed us to have references in terms of statistical data for a better follow-up. All this information combined with that received from civil society actors, community actors and other development agencies allowed us to have a real situation of the policies implemented so far, but also of the challenges for a better impact. In this desire to establish an intervention with a sure impact and benefiting from a good appropriation by the populations, the partners, in particular the public institutions, considered it necessary to carry out additional studies to highlight the underlying reasons for the difficulties of certain interventions and the expectations of the populations on the policies, projects and programs developed. Collaboration with institutional partners greatly facilitated this research work with their involvement in the validation of the TOR, the search for the necessary authorizations and implementation. This is the case of the participation of the nutrition research laboratory of the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar, a reference in the field, the health districts of Saint Louis and Pikine and Mbao in the context of the diagnosis of the nutritional status of children, the IEFs of Saint Louis and Pikine as part of the performance assessment and the employment centers of Saint Louis and Pikine for issues related to the employability of young people with the study of promising niches.

Thus, the partners drew on the diagnosis enriched by the results of studies and research conducted in the intervention areas to develop theories of change that would serve as a reference for the Foundation’s program in Senegal. This strategic development work was the work of different partners who played an important role. Going back to the participation of institutional actors, this allowed, beyond the technical contribution, to keep the program aligned with public policies, thus minimizing difficulties with the institutions at the time of its implementation. These theories of change were validated by various stakeholders, including public institutions, before being translated into an action plan.

• In execution, follow-up and dynamization:

This purely strategic stage is followed by the implementation of the program. The Nous cims foundation is not an entity of execution and implementation, but of financing and technical support, so it is committed to make available to the partners the economic means and technical support for the execution of this program. As a result, the foundation is responsible for financing, within its means, the initiatives of national and local NGOs derived from the program. Even if public institutions cannot benefit from direct funding, they play an important role in the validation of project proposals and their implementation. It is in this context that the foundation requires for any project proposal a letter of agreement signed by the institutional representative working on the issue and a diagram of the implementation collaboration.

In addition, for a continuous dynamization of this fruitful synergy and a better follow-up of the program, three thematic groups are created in each Model Zone for the follow-up of the technical aspects and a driving group for the supervision of the program. Public institutions are automatically responsible for coordinating the thematic groups to maintain this prerogative of policy and strategy guarantor at the intervention zone level. Although they play an important role in the development of our program, the thematic groups remain dynamic bodies associated with the program and will in no way parallel or replace the sectoral groups often set up by the public authorities.

Complementary support

Civil society organizations and public authorities should in no way be considered as rivals or in competition. If the idea of improving the living conditions of populations remains their sole objective, these actors should demonstrate complementarity in their actions, and this remains possible through open collaboration and transparency in management.

Institutions should therefore be more open to NGOs, remain accessible, available and willing to support projects and programs. They should also make available non-confidential data and information and ensure harmonization and good coordination of interventions, all within the framework of a winning partnership.

We, the other actors of civil society, must understand that we support the efforts of the public authorities and can never replace the State or assume its prerogatives. In this sense, it is our responsibility to align ourselves with the global policies and strategies defined by the State that welcomes us and gives us the fullness to exercise. Our projects and programs all have a useful life with a defined budget at the time when the burden of the State remains intact and is part of an eternity, as long as the nation exists the State and the public authorities will have the responsibility to meet the needs of the populations. Therefore, it is our responsibility to align ourselves with state policies, which in no way means blindly following them. In fact, we have much to contribute through active participation in defining policies and promoting decisions in favor of the causes we defend. Let us defend an exercise that should in no way be the exclusive responsibility of civil society, but rather a collegial action with all the actors involved, particularly the communities.

Ultimately, it is necessary, even essential, to maintain a frank and sincere collaboration among all stakeholders, including public institutions, at all stages to achieve useful and sustainable interventions with a real impact on the lives of communities.