ALPI –GHANA

 

 

 

 

 

GHANA COUNTRY PLAN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2005 – 2007)

CONTEXT

 

The African Liaison Program Initiative (ALPI) is a tripartite effort to improve the effectiveness of US assistance to Africa. ALPI creates a venue, outside of the traditional procurement sphere, for African NGOs, US PVOs, and USAID, three key stakeholders in the development of Africa, to collaboratively, in a tripartite effort, identify, discuss and address common challenges at the policy, practice, and operational relationship levels.

 

The emphasis of ALPI is at both the country level where the three stakeholder groups come together for dialogue and collaborative work and in the US, where policy and practice discourse is informed by country experiences.

 

 

The GCT is made up of the Pan African Organization for Sustainable Development, the Secretariat for the team (POSDEV) – an African NGO consortium Organization with its headquarters in Ghana and registered in Ghana, The Ghana Association of Private and Voluntary Organizations in Development (GAPVOD) - a national NGOs network; CARE International and Opportunities Industrialization Centre International (OICI), Catholic Relief Services representing international NGOs and the Team Leader of the USAID, Democracy and Governance Team.

 

ALPI activities in Ghana were identified through a participatory process defined by the GCT and implemented by POSDEV. The identified activities will be implemented through country action plans over a two-year period. For their longer-term impact and sustainability, ALPI activities are expected to have synergetic (convergence of operational activities) and strategic (mutually reinforcing results) linkages with existing development goals, priorities, and operations of participating organizations.  (See Annexes 1 and 2 for details of plans)

 

 

Operating Principles of ALPI

 

ALPI is guided by the following operating principles:

 

  1. Equitable power relationships demonstrated through transparent and participatory decision-making mechanisms.

 

  1. Mutual accountability as addressed through donors’, implementers’, and beneficiaries’ needs and interests.

 

  1. Shared ownership of programs evidenced through joint program design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and feedback on technical/sectoral strategies.

 

  1. Mutual respect and trust evidenced through better knowledge and understanding of each partner’s organizational realities and recognition and value of its competencies and contributions (individual skills, comparative advantage of the partnership). 

 

  1. Shared values as assessed through the convergence of partners’ organizational vision, culture, and operational priorities.

 

  1. Balanced flow of information as demonstrated through the level of two-way availability, access, flow, and exchange of critical programmatic and institutional information through program reports, annual reports, solicitations/offers of sectoral/technical knowledge, and briefs on external but relevant contacts/communications. 

 

 

Goal

 

All parties to the ALPI in Ghana have committed themselves to strengthening development relationships among African NGOs, US PVOs and USAID/Ghana, thereby improving the effectiveness of development policies and programming under US foreign assistance to Ghana. 

 

 

Objectives

1) Increase information exchange and knowledge sharing;

2) Expand tripartite partnership learning experiences through the ALPI country team model;

3) Engage in joint actions to advocate for issues and concerns of mutual interest.

 

 

 

GHANA PROGRAM

 

In Ghana the country team has developed activities with the specific objectives of

 

  • Enhancing the policy framework governing the NGO sector in Ghana. To this end the GCT is supporting the national umbrella organization to pursue the adoption of an NGO/Government policy by government and ultimately the development of an NGO bill more acceptable to the NGO community. To reinforce this advocacy initiative, the GCT is also seeking to address the issue of self-regulation of NGOs by developing and executing an NGO Standards project as a major part of its country plan. This project aims to strengthen public confidence in the integrity, accountability as well as the quality and development effectiveness of NGOs and Civil Society Organizations intervening in Ghana’s development, as well as reinforce and link up organizations that share a common set of values and are committed to ethical conduct in their practice

 

  • In addition, GCT is using the ALPI framework to enhance mutual professional exchanges to promote program synergies within country irrespective of the origin of funding. It is anticipated that this exchange will broaden the scope of the ALPI to involve other stakeholders in the dialogue on relationships between development practitioners.