USAID/Guinea: USAID/Guinea Selects Consortium To Implement DG Strategy

MARCH 16, 2007

USAID/Guinea Selects Consortium
To Implement DG Strategy

A consortium of seven international and Guinean NGOs has been selected to implement programs in support of USAID/Guinea's strategy 'Advancing Democratic Governance.'

CONAKRY -- A seven-member consortium, including two Guinean non-governmental organizations, has been selected to implement a 31-month plan of multi-sectoral interventions as part of USAID/Guinea’s strategy to advance democratic governance in Guinea. The cooperative grant agreement is valued at $22.9 million.

Led by RTI International of Research Triangle Park, NC, the consortium’s approach “targets the fundamental issue facing Guinea: governance that benefits the few, at the expense of the many, and obstructs the stability and development of the nation and its people,” according to the consortium’s proposal.

“We aim, therefore, to improve the lives of many through strategic, multi-sectoral interventions that produce tangible benefits for the population, while simultaneously strengthening the fabric of governance required to sustain and extend these benefits to all citizens,” the proposal states.

USAID/Guinea Mission Director Jack Winn said the RTI consortium’s program will build on the mission’s previous activities in support of democratic institutions, such as parent-teacher associations, community health committees and forest co-management groups.

“The consortium’s proposal is responsive to the mission’s comprehensive strategy to strengthen Guinea’s democratic institutions by promoting good governance and combating corruption in the education, health and agriculture sectors," Winn said.

The project's name -- Faisons Ensemble or "Working Together" -- underscores the consortium's intention to assemble diverse players from government, civil society, business and the media to participate in its activities.

Emphasizing its regional approach, the consortium’s activities will be targeted in Conakry, Upper Guinea and Forest Guinea. Overall, the program is intended to directly impact 80 rural development committees, 80 civil society organizations (CSO) and more than 400 community-based organizations, plus independent media within these jurisdictions.

The program also targets 10 vanguard ministries or ministry services, national institutes, agencies and commissions and is expected to reach thousands of national, regional and local CSOs by working through CSO networks, coalitions, federations, and umbrella organizations.

Members of the RTI consortium include:

The African Center for Training and Development
Enterprise Works/Volunteers in Technical Assistance
The Center for Communication Programs at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health
The Mano River Women’s Peace Network
Population Services International
World Education Inc.

RTI said the consortium “will use proven strategies that strengthen government capacity, accountability, and effectiveness while developing civic capacity to hold government to account and take an active role in building a stronger Guinea.”

The RTI consortium defined its three guiding principles as follow:

1. Democratic governance grows strongest from the base, in the communities where people live, and is sustained with reinforcement from the top. Local government and civil society groups (e.g., community health committees) most directly impact the lives of citizens and are where democratic governance can most readily bring tangible and achievable results. Government policies are critical to support citizen participation in choice and action, so they too are targeted.

2. Partnership of government, civil society, business, and the media is a key to progress. Guinea’s legacy demonstrates clearly that government, working alone, can neither build nor sustain healthy, prosperous communities. Likewise, civil society, the private sector, or media, acting alone, cannot achieve significant results.

3. Governance champions from government, business and civil society, at local and national levels, can serve as the vanguard producing tangible benefits and modeling effective partnerships. USAID/Guinea assistance has produced a base of these champions. Our approach marshals this vanguard using techniques that have proven effective in Guinea, West Africa and beyond.

The RTI consortium’s technical interventions will support outcomes across targeted sectors and the USAID/Guinea’s four DG goals:

Improved Effectiveness of Government Institutions and Decentralization and Local Service Delivery
Greater Visibility and Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption Efforts
Increased capacity and effectiveness of Civil Society, working through strong CSOs and CBOs that are well managed and participate, demand accountability and transparency in service delivery, and advocate for good governance.
Increased Citizen Access to More Diverse Sources and Types of Information

The core technical interventions identified by the consortium include:

Identifying and working with vanguard partners, from the government and civil society, who will incubate and cascade governance and service improvements
Providing unified and demand-driven technical assistance through a menu of interventions. Core menu items will focus on assistance to strengthen government and CSO capacities and will include training in leadership and management, communication, transparent, participatory performance budgeting, advocacy and communication, conflict management and dispute resolution, and ethics, to name a few.
Providing innovation incentives to spark, support, and sustain innovation in services in the project’s targeted sectoral areas and across the spectrum of democratic governance practice.

RTI has been active in Guinea since 1997, leading the Education Management Decentralization component of USAID/Guinea’s support to the Ministry of Pre-University and Civic Education.

Story by Richard Stirba