Reflections from CORAT Africa Experiences By Dr William O. Ogara Executive Director, Consultancy and Research, CORAT AFRICA March 1, 2011 5/1/2015 Sustainability

Reflections from CORAT Africa Experiences

By Dr William O. OgaraExecutive Director, Consultancy and Research, CORAT AFRICA

March 1, 2011

04/18/23Sustainability of HIV Work in UBS-Reflections from

CORAT Africa Experiences 1

1. INTRODUCTION2. CASE STUDY3. REVISITING THE CONTEXT OF HIV4. PERSISTING ORGANIZATION

CHALLENGES OF HIV WORK 5. REVISITING SUSTAINABILITY IN ITS

BROADER SENSE 6. TOWARDS A CONCEPTUAL

FRAMEWORK ON SUSTAINABILITY7. SOME KEY STRATEGIES FOR

SUSTAINABILITY



1. INTRODUCTION

The “Rap” Story

The CORAT Story and UBS relationship

Considerable focus has often been on how donor funds have been used.

Growing realization that sustainability is more than money. This is the gist of my presentation. Welcome!



THE UZIMA CASE STUDY

What do we learn?



3. REVISITING THE CONTEXT OF HIV The HIV/AIDS pandemic in Sub-

Saharan Africa remains a long-term development challenge

The manner of funding the work remains short term and unpredictable



Prospects for Sub-Saharan Africa reaching any of the MDG goals will require a sustained response to HIV/AIDS.



PERSISTING CHALLENGES OF HIV WORK IN AFRICA

SHORT TERM NATURE OF HIV FUNDING National government budgets continue to

give inadequate priority to HIV work. This is in addition to the volatility and unpredictability of international aid and the reality of aid.

Moreover, the scale-up in treatment, prevention, aining, drugs, and other expenditures that are recurrent in nature and extend beyond the horizon of most of the sources of external assistance available.



We are aware that many countries continue to search for creative ways of sustained funding of HIV work against the adverse effects of aid uncertainty.

Cost-saving innovations could also contribute to improving the sustainability prospects



A General Lack of Business Culture Most churches are eager to have investments,

but the general trend is that these well-intended institutional income-generating activities turn out to become income-sinking due to the general lack of business culture.

Profit-making ventures could hardly be carried out effectively in the traditional culture of the Church.

It is possible and is in fact desirable for a church to embark effectively on investments, but it has to learn to adopt appropriate approaches and policies. A few churches are showing results.



POOR ACCOUNTABILITY FOR FUNDS

Financial management is a general area of weakness.

The following observation is typical, “in all the evaluations, accounting system is either absent or not followed at all.

Recording of transactions is poor.

Reports are very much delayed and in some cases very poor. This makes accountability a tricky business. Accounting staff are not well qualified.



REVISITING SUSTAINABILITY IN ITS BROADER SENSE

The CORAT Africa Experience

Think about intangible factors are prominently at play. The basic ingredient for the sustainability of the Church is ‘faith’ in the heart of the individual – confessing faith in Christ.



WHAT IS BEING SUSTAINED?

The Program work The first category is Outreach services of the churches consists mainly

of social development and formal evangelization. The social ministry gets the greater mention in the course of CORAT’s work, but it is also needful to take note of the complaints by church leaders about inadequate funding for evangelistic work.

The Institution Itself

The other aspect is on institutional sustainability where special attention needs to be given to two particular groups. Also in this category are specialized service organizations such as Pan-African christian training institutions, radio stations, publication centers, bible translation organizations as well as Boys & Girls Brigades, Scripture Union, etc. Religious orders also fall into this category.

The Individual Concerns The third category is focusing on the individual whose needs are

equally important and yet tend to be ignored. The challenge here is that individuals can sometimes put forward demands that are not financially sustainable.



LEVELS OF SUSTAINABILITY-A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK-

At the lowest level is the organization that depends on external funds for normal internal operating expenses and for the “outreach” tasks of gospel proclamation and social ministry.



Next is a barely surviving organization which is able to fund only the “strictly internal matters”. It is able to cover its pastoral services and its core personnel and internal administrative expenses all from its in-house sources of income, but it relies on external funds for the ‘outreach services’ of evangelisation and social development work.



At the third level is the self-reliant

organization which covers, not only its internal expenses from own funds, but is also able to fund at least some amount of outreach services.



At the forth level, is the high-capacity

self-reliant organization that is able to fund internal needs and, not only is it active in self-funded evangelistic and social development programmes but it also has scope to effectively use resources from external agencies to expand these outreach services. Obviously, Level 3 is the basic minimum acceptable state. Level 4 is the stage which is ideal.



SOME KEY STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABILITY

1. Clear, shared focused vision and mission



2. Clear Identity & sense of ownership



3. Committed, visionary governing body



4. Dynamic technical & managerial leadership



5. Clear Funding strategies for the work



6. Appropriate staffing structure



7. Policies, procedures & control systems



KEY QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTIONS

What rings true to this presentation?

What further strategies would you like to recommend for UBS HIV work in Africa?



“You don’t go about changing a winning team until the game is over”



THANK YOU

DR William O. Ogara



Documents

Reflections from CORAT Africa Experiences By Dr William O. Ogara Executive Director, Consultancy and Research, CORAT AFRICA March 1, 2011 5/1/2015 Sustainability