Happy rabbit rabbit to you all!!! It's hard to believe that it is already July for two important reasons 1) My birthday is in 5 days, wooo!!! and 2) My birthday marks the half way point of my time in Uganda. I feel so much like I am just getting started on so many of the things I want to do here. With July's arrival also comes the realization that I very much owe you all an update on what I've been doing. Mostly, I've been working on the NGO Scorecarding project and a project about the effect of sexual gender based violence (SGBV is the developmenty term for it) on social cohesion. As I look back on my other posts, I realize I have mentioned nothing at all about that project! Oops! I was planning on saving that for my next post so..... suspense.
This post is going to be dedicated to the NGO Scorecarding project, and how that's going. This past Monday, we held a big conference in Gulu to get NGOs to agree to undergo the evaluation process (the QuAM or Quality Assurance Certification Mechanism.... where did the C go in that acronym? Beats me.) that we will be using in our RCT.
Myself and Kurt, one of the BYU research assistants that is in Uganda for the summer were named co-coordinators for that conference, so much of last week involved planning the conference and convincing NGOs to come.
One of the ways we tried to mobilize (mobilize being another great development buzzword) NGOs to attend the conference was by delivering flyers to their offices and explaining what the conference is. To do this, I set off on foot with Clara, a lovely woman from the NGO Forum, the group we've been working with (more on that later) to visit the NGOs in Gulu Town.
I was struck by how absolutely tiny some of these NGOs are. To find some of them involved ducking between stalls in a market, and going into these tiny one room offices tucked out of eyesight. Yet, despite the seeming elusiveness of these organizations, they ALL were plastered with stickers from some larger donor: USAID, World Vision, ECHO, the UN, etc. That would be another interesting project, learning how these large donors find these tiny NGOs in the first place.
Also, walking around with Clara was a hilarious experience. She has lived in Gulu her entire life and knows EVERYONE. We were stopping ever thirty seconds to greet her sister, her aunt, her classmate, her friend from church choir, etc. It was really fun to just be with such a social butterfly and really get a sense of the community that exists among Gulu residents. However, this did make the process take MUCH longer than it needed to. Oh well. Worth it.
Another way we mobilized NGOs was by calling them using a contact list given to us by the NGO Forum. I should probably explain what that is now. The NGO Forum is an organization that seeks to improve coordination and capacity building among NGOs. When an NGO opens in a district, they are supposed to register with the NGO Forum, and then I suppose they gain access to perks of some kind... though to be honest I am not entirely sure what those are, ha. A subject for another post I suppose.
Many NGOs and businesses in Uganda don't have landline phones, but operate entirely based on the cell phones of their employees. The contact sheet from the NGO Forum was also completely out of date. As a result, I had many delightful conversations with former NGO employees and retirees, and man did my "Ugandan English" accent get awesome as a result. However, this was not the most efficient means of actually reaching the NGOs I wanted to come to to the conference.
So a couple of days before the conference, I went into the NGO Forum to ask for updated info. The following conversation occurred:
Alena: "It seems that most of the contact information you gave me is out of date. Is there a more updated list?"
Receptionist: "Yes"
Alena: "Can I have it?"
Receptionist: "No"
Alena: "Um, what?"
It turns out that the receptionist only had the hard copies of the registration forms of the NGOs, that she was "still working to put into the system." She pulled out a giant package of forms. I thought I would just be writing down the phone numbers of the couple of NGOs on my list whose contacts I couldn't get from the wrong numbers I spoke to. However, NONE of the NGOs were on my list. I had just been given 50 new NGOs that were NOWHERE in the system, some of them having registered with the NGO Forum as long ago as 2003.
Oy.
The organization that is supposed to be the beacon of coordination for the NGO sector can't even enter NGOs into the system that have been registered for eight years?? Yikes.
Coordination, transparency, and accountability. I think this is becoming my mantra. My dad would be so proud.
But anyways, the conference came together nicely! We had 90 NGOs show up when we were only expecting 75, so I believe I mobilized effectively! Now, we are just giving them time to get their documents together, and we will start evaluating the week after next. Undoubtedly more NGO adventures to come!
I hope all is going well stateside and that you all have exciting July 4th weekends to look forward to!
Love,
Alena
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