Working Group Purpose
The IDWG is aimed at creating a platform for CBNRM Support Organisations and government technical staff, responsible for supporting conservancy institutional development and governance to share experiences, approaches, methodologies and materials. The working group will act as a forum for discussion and debate on institutional development issues. It will facilitate more cost effective and accountable service delivery, management systems and locally appropriate performance monitoring and evaluation systems in conservancies. Ultimately, the working groups strives for increased ownership and commitment to CBNRM by Namibia's rural communities.
Focal areas
- Strengthened institutional capacity in conservancies, i.e.:
- Skills development for conservancy employees, i.e. managers / coordinators (managerial and leadership), administrators (office and overall administration), book keepers (day to day financial administration), etc.
- Development and provision of management tools (i.e. checklists, dashboards, frameworks, etc)
- Financial management, including budgeting and reporting.
- Benefits and sustainability planning; and distribution management.
- Enhanced communication skills to engage effectively with external partners, i.e. government, private sector, NGOs, researchers, media, etc.
- Strengthened conservancy governance, i.e.:
- Development of standardised training modules: Training of conservancy committees re their roles and responsibilities, including orientation / induction of new committees.
- Conservancy Constitution Compliance: Enhanced understanding of the conservancy constitution amongst leaders and members alike, including revisions as needed to ensure compliance.
- Inclusive development approaches: Facilitate broad based member engagement in decision-making, including women, youth, marginalised groups etc.
- AGM compliance monitoring: Support the conduct of effective AGMs.
- Financial governance – Strengthening member involvement in financial decision making.
- Assist in the implementation of the SOPs.
- Facilitate access to HIV and AIDS support services.
- Facilitate applied research on critical conservancy management and development issues identified by conservancies and stakeholders, including the capture and use of socio-economic development data, particularly in relation, but not limited to benefits distribution.
Mode of operation
- The IDWG will have capacity to support the NGO’s and MET in implementing the WG workplan. This entails:
- Resource mobilisation to fund agreed activities to be carried out at field level, including time costs of field officers.
- Coordination of available funding streams to avoid duplication and facilitate optimum reach in geographic and thematic scope; serve as platform to scale up experiences from ‘pilot’ projects.
- Contracts awarding and oversight, to assist with the monitoring of deliverables and achievement of agreed targets.
- The IDWG will facilitate / support the maintenance of an information depository for conservancy institutional and governance documents and reports; i.e. constitutions, benefits distribution plans and benefits tracking tools1, etc.
- This will include coordination of data collection, using standardised templates; and contributing to a uniform reporting system.
- Support integrated audits and adaptive management in conservancies.
- Support the coordination and implementation of standardised internal financial management systems and simplified external audits and financial reports
- The IDWG will continually strengthen the competencies (knowledge, skills, attitudes) of its member organisation staff through:
- Development, testing, monitoring, evaluating and rolling out of institutional development approaches, processes, methodologies and systems.
- Development of training materials and facilitating training of trainers programmes.
- Facilitating ongoing mentoring and support to field based support organisation staff; including development and implementation of a mentorship training programme for CBOs, NGO and MET staff/managers.
- Hosting and reporting arrangements
- The IDWG will be hosted by the Namibia Development Trust, where the Coordinator and Assistant will operate from.
- The Working Group Coordinator will be selected by the Working Group, through a competitive recruitment process and recommended to the NACSO Executive Committee for appointment.
- The Coordinator will compile working group reports as needed and present it first to the Working Group for technical review before it is presented to the NACSO Executive Committee for approval.
- The Working Group, through its Coordinator, will serve as link between field partners and the CBNRM Committee established by the PS from MET.
1 There is need to assist conservancies to track benefits for their reporting purposes and integrating distribution plans with a very simple tracking tool which can then be used to report back at AGMs
