2. Effectiveness and Local Partnership

“Irish Aid will support organisations that are committed to the efficient utilisation of scarce resources through cooperation with partners in civil society. Mobilisation of national and local resources will be encouraged. Irish Aid is also conscious of the need for accountability for the use of public funds to the Irish public ... [including] ... strategic accountability for the quality and effectiveness of programmes funded. This includes downward accountability.” (Irish Aid Civil Society Policy, pg. 10)

DOWNLOAD FULL POLICY (WORD DOCUMENT)
SERVE believes that its interventions represent good value for money and that funding received from donors is used efficiently. SERVE asks all partners for detailed budgets and subsequent reports on allocations are measured against these budgets.

In the vast majority of cases SERVE’S partners have delivered successful projects on or under budget. In many cases SERVE supports component parts of large projects for which other funding has been secured which improves accountability and reduces risk.
SERVE’S partners mobilise local resources in their projects and this has been proven to significantly enhance the effectiveness of projects. For example, Tapologo trains and employs local women as Home Based Care Givers to run its Community Outreach programme in Rustenburg’s squatter camps. These women have detailed knowledge of their own communities and can identify and help people that this programme would not normally reach. In Zimbabwe and Mozambique, Young Africa has mobilised business people and entrepreneurs in communities to run franchises at Young Africa centres and train young people as part of their business. In Parnaiba, Brazil, the successful Barefoot Lawyers Project has mobilised and trained 70 Barefoot Lawyers in the past three years who are acting as legal advocates for people in a marginalised community.

SERVE strongly believes that it must be financially accountable to the Irish people on the use of its resources. We must be accountable on funding received from donors and for money donated to SERVE by supporters throughout the year.

SERVE gets its accounts audited every year and makes these available on our website and submits them to donors as requested.

SERVE’S partners play a key role in this process and as detailed earlier SERVE requires that all partners report regularly on funding received.

SERVE also undertakes monitoring visits to ensure that funds are being spent appropriately.

The quality and effectiveness of programmes that SERVE fund is as important as financial accountability.

SERVE has worked with partners, and will continue to work with them, to stress the importance of having realisable and measureable outcomes for projects.

SERVE’S partners have responded to this by providing achievable targets in their three year plans. SERVE is working with partners to strengthen their capacity to monitor and evaluate project implementations and to focus more on the long term outcomes of interventions.
As previously mentioned, all SERVE’S partners are ultimately responsible to the communities where they work. There is a high degree of community members being involved in the implementation and monitoring of projects. For example, in Mozambique, Young Africa works very closely with and reports to the local tribal chief in Beira. In South Africa, both Tapologo and Tsholofelo, have a very close working relationship with the tribal authorities – the Royal Bafokeng Nation.