Annual Report
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Resilience and Economic Growth in the Sahel - Enhanced Resilience REPUBLICS OF NIGER and BURKINA FASO REGIS-ER Annual Report OCTOBER 1, 2018 TO SEPTEMBER 30, 2019 November, 2019 Cooperative Agreement No. 625-A-14-00001 Blvd. Mali Béro, Rue IB-73 B.P. 12 909, NIAMEY Tel.: (227) 20.35.16.48 Table of Contents I. Executive summary .............................................................................................................................................................3 II. Overview of indicators on Sustainability Strategy : Successful Activities and Local Institutions ..........................................................................................................................................................................................6 III. Achievements of Local Institutions .....................................................................................................................9 Local Institution 1 - Municipal Councils (CMs) ............................................................................ 9 Local Institution 2: Citizen Working Groups (CWGs) and Local Development Committees / Village Development Councils (CLDs / CVDs) ...........................................................................12 Local Institution 3: Service Provider Platforms -- Community-Based Solution Providers (CBSPs) and Local Resource Persons (PRLs) .............................................................................................18 IV. Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Capitalization .......................................................................... 23 Monitoring and Evaluation .......................................................................................................... 23 Learning and Capitalization ......................................................................................................... 24 V. Securing land tenure for women ............................................................................................................................. 28 VI. Cross-cutting activities ............................................................................................................................................. 31 Communications ...........................................................................................................................31 Implementation of the Environmental Mitigation and Monitoring Plan (EMMP) .................... 32 VII. Project management .................................................................................................................................................. 34 Program Support .......................................................................................................................... 34 Grants Management ..................................................................................................................... 35 Cost Share ..................................................................................................................................... 35 Effects of the Security Situation on Project Management and Operations ................................. 36 VIII. Appendices ........................................................................................................................................................................ 38 Annex 1: Table on Indicators of Project Performance ................................................................. 39 Annex 2: Status of the PCPRs....................................................................................................... 67 Annex 3: Success story.................................................................................................................. 69 1 Annex 4: List of communes of non-concentration where exit ......................................................71 and capitalization workshops took place in March-April 2019 .....................................................71 Annex 5: Recommendations of the participants presented before the Minister of Agriculture and Hydro-Agricultural Development .................................................................................................71 Annex 6: Commitments made by the DFSAs at the September 2019 workshop to share REGIS- ER’s experience on PCPRs in Maradi and Zinder Regions ........................................................ 73 Annex 7: Collaboration with Other Projects and Government Technical Services...................... 74 List of tables: Table 1: Status of Indicators related to the Sustainability Strategy on Successful Activities as of 30 September 2019 Table 2: Status of Performance Indicators related to Local Institutions (ILs) Table 3: Summary of contracts signed with the Citizen Working Groups and the CVD / CLD Table 4: Summary of contracts signed with platforms and community CBSPs and PRLs Table 5: Estimate of turnover (turnover) from services provided by the CBSPs according to the type of activity during the fiscal year 2019 Table 6: Success stories developed in FY19 Table 7: Summary of new sites secured in Niger during 2019 in the communes of concentration Table 8: Status of APFRs as of July 31, 2019 (source: SFR in three communes) Table 9: Estimated revenue generated in relation to the issuance of APFRs in the communes (source: ONF- BF) Table 10: Summary of national media coverage Table 11: Breakdown of project staff at key stages of 2019 Table 12: List of sub-grants and large grants closed as of September 30, 2019 Table 13: Local and international implementing partners extended through September 30, 2020 Table 14: Summary of Cost Share Contributions as of 30 September 2019 2 I. Executive summary Implementation of the Sustainability Strategy In Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19), REGIS-ER completed its transition from direct field implementation (by program) to an implementing mode outlined in its sustainability strategy and based on coaching three local institutions (IL) in its 13 communes of concentration. (The format of REGIS-ER’s Quarterly and Annual Reports in FY19 reflect this change.) The project signed coaching contracts with all three ILs (listed below) in each commune in order to help them achieve their objectives, including taking ownership of the consolidation and scaling-up of successful resilience activities and best practices, and improve their performance, including providing support to communities on the journey to self-reliance. This report summarizes REGIS-ER’s performance in terms of achieving its contractual targets/indicators, and those which are related to the successful activities and local institutions: - Municipal Councils (CM): After having coordinated the development of Commune Resilience Plans (Plan Communal pour la Promotion de la Résilience, PCPR), the CMs of the 12 initial communes of concentration started using this document with projects and partners that intervene in their communes and government technical services. Seven CMs have officially adopted their PCPR, and four others will validate their PCPR soon. (The case of Gayéri, the other commune of concentration, is explained in the report.) CMs have taken strategic ownership and have begun to coordinate initiatives to promote resilience in their communes, not only by seeking partners, but also by guiding those partners that wish to intervene in their communes. Filingué, the thirteenth commune of concentration, was added during the second quarter of FY19 and has reached the first stage of developing its PCPR. - Citizen Work Groups (CWG) and their partners at the community level, Local Development Committees (Niger) and Village Development Councils (Burkina Faso) [CLD / CVD]: CWGs made progress in terms of their operating capacity (holding regular meetings, planning, monitoring, and evaluating activities) and institutionalization (recognition of their roles by communes and communities). They now occupy a major place in the communes, serving as a link between the CLD/CVDs and the CM. REGS-ER’s close at hand coaching of the CLD/CVDs has also helped to revitalize these village structures which now have the capacity and motivation to contribute to the development of their village not only in a technical sense, but are also accountable to their communities and the CWG. Beyond the resilience sector, CWGs and CLDs / CVDs have become real drivers of local development and social cohesion in their communes and communities. - Service Provider Platforms: These platforms have significantly improved their operational capacity and visibility with local stakeholders. They relied on the support of the CLD/CVDs to provide information on the aggregated input needs of their villages for the main growing season and for livestock activities. This allowed the platforms to obtain their first bulk orders. Individual Community-Based Solution Providers (CBSPs) and Local Resource Persons (PRLs) also provided goods and services to members of their communities through individual orders. In FY19, REGIS-ER also reviewed its monitoring and evaluation system and identified 18 performance indicators to better measure progress throughout the implementation of its sustainability strategy (Stratégie pour le Renforcement de la Durabilité, SRD). Two key studies enabled one to evaluate the efficiency of REGIS-ER's investments and capacity building efforts as well as the changes attributable to project activities and the degree of ownership by change agents: NCBA CLUSA’s Outcome Harvesting study and the external “Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) of USAID Resilience