Proposal Writing Training SECTOR Grants in

Moldova

Key challenges in development of new proposal

Zorica Korac, REC CO Serbia

Planning and monitoring the progress

While planning keep in mind the change you want to achieve, and this will guide you through the process that will create a change.

Think about the values that your organization stands for.

Try to get tangible results. In planning, focus on concrete outputs/outcomes/impacts, or if there are no, look for indirect evidence of the change.

Make partnerships that add value to the project and avoid artificial partnerships made ‘pro forma’.

Use volunteering. Avoid taking over the duties of the

institutions/public utility companies etc. whose obligations is to perform certain work.

Do not act as consultancies only. Stay open and flexible for modifications.

Planning and monitoring the progress

Build capacities of your organization, but also work on building its credibility so that CSOs become recognized as relevant factor by citizens, other CSOs and Governmental sector.

Citizens should one day recognize you as someone they can turn to.

Make the best use of media. Promote your results preferably in an original way (you can use open competitions for visual identity solutions etc.)

Credibility issue

Acting as partners of the authorities and balancing critique with the partner role.

‘Safe role’ of someone who draws attention to issues, proposes solutions to the problems, but does not go further from presenting them to the relevant institutions lead to lack of intensity of stress on the institutions and in some cases no concrete changes.

Relation with the authorities

The broad RBM- concept

1. Strategic Planning (according to eg LFA) What goal/results do we want to achieve? How do we achieve the results? (situation and problem analysis, formulating SMART objectives and identifying indicators and setting baseline and targets)

2. Performance Measurement and reporting How do we know that we reached our goal? “(Think about data on performance and analyze it) How can we assess/measure success/failure?”

3. General management/leadership (promote a culture in the organization/institution that think of achieving results/effects not outputs only)

What is an results indicator and why are we using them?

All indicators has a parent objective (but are not the goal) change

Indicators should HELP you to better understand if you reached your goal or moved towards it? (has change occurred? )

Indicators makes objective more concrete and are by nature quantitative ( can easily be measured by no).

To ensure that objectives becomes specific, realistic and tangible.

To verify success/failure of the project Have something to write about in the report

to the financier? If the objective is SMART , formulating

indicators is usually not so problematic

Results chain

INPUT

ACTIVIT

YOUTPUT

OUTCOME

IMPACT

WHAT should be produced/delivere

d

WHAT Results we expect

WHY it’s doneWhat is DONE and HOW it is DONE

Financial, human

and material

resources

Actions taken, work

performed

Results from the

development

intervention like

products, capital

goods and services

Likely or achieved short and medium

term effects

Long-term

effects

Development Results

Development Effects Implementation

Direct control External factors and actors

Success stories related to granting in Serbia

Relevant authorities in Nisavski District incorporated plans for using biomass into strategic documents, and City of Nis started planning construction of a biogas plant.

National Council of Education (NCE) adopted CSOs’ proposals for defining standards for environmental education, thus recognizing environmental education and sustainable development as an important cross-cutting issue that goes beyond individual subjects.

Success stories related to granting in Serbia

Paracin municipality made a decision to separately collect hazardous household waste, being the first municipality that adopted this kind of policy in Serbia.

Three local governments adopted Local Waste Management Plans (Gornji Milanovac, Indjija and Kucevo) with local CSOs representatives as team members who monitor the implementation.

Energy efficiency and water protection were identified as priorities in two strategies (Youth Policy Action Plan of Vojvodina for 2011-2014 and the Local Youth Policy Action of Novi Sad).

Less successful stories related to granting in

SerbiaProject dealing with impact of the traffic on the quality of environment in Belgrade. CSOs only draw attention to the issues, proposed solutions to the problems, but did not go further from presenting them to the relevant institutions. This lack/low intensity of stress on the institutions lead to mild reaction of authorities.Project dealing with climate change on city level in Belgrade. Project produced Guidelines for city strategy for climate change, suggesting necessary actions at the city level, as a response to the problem of climate change. Results were acknowledged but without proof that they will find the application that was planned.

Good approach

Incorporating SD principles into official strategic documents, with high involvement of CSO representatives in the processes of planning and decision making sets a good path for more participatory, inclusive and transparent governance in the long run (in particular in projects where CSO representatives remain present in the bodies/work groups/teams that are in position to monitor further implementation of newly adopted policies).

In some cases, CSO initiatives made some progress, but did not fully produce expected outcomes. Sustainability of these results is weakened by the fact that relevant authorities / institutions showed lower level of commitment to the project objectives and did not fully accept them as their own during the project period.

In their attempts to lobby for policy changes, CSOs mostly chose to act as partners of the authorities, suggesting positive changes, without too much emphasis on the flaws in the work of authorities. Although this provides better reception, it leaves a question how to balance critique with the partner role.

Some CSOs decided stick to the ‘safe role’ of someone who draws attention to issues, proposes solutions to the problems, but does not go further from presenting them to the relevant institutions. This lack/low intensity of stress on the institutions in some cases lead to mild reaction of authorities and no concrete changes.

Results of some CSO projects showed that pioneering work carries hidden threats that are not always easy to predict.

Partnerships created between CSOs enabled them to tackle issues not only on local, but also on regional and national level (e.g. projects dealing with education and waste).

Aspects of good CSO initiatives

initiatives cleverly designed and rooted in the current context with which CSOs are very well acquainted,

initiatives of experienced CSOs that are active on national, or at least regional level,

partnerships among CSOs determine to a large extent the outcomes of the projects: consortiums consisting of large nationally recognized CSOs

increases probability of strong impact, synergies between CSOs that are specialized for different

areas can results with interesting outputs and outcomes if responsibilities are clearly divided among partners (involvement of CSOs specialized for reporting increases visibility),

Project “Removing non-technical barriers for using of biomass in energy purpose-Bio generator”

Consortium has established a network of relevant actors (potential suppliers of biomass, relevant institutions, local/regional authorities, public utility companies, etc) - a platform for information exchange,

Presented "best practice" examples summarizing the bio-energy projects implemented in EU countries

Organized a study visit

Simplified administrative procedures: Sector for planning, urbanism and construction in the City of Nis simplified procedures for obtaining the information on documents required,

The analysis of non-technical barriers to the use of biomass for energy purposes in the context of economics, finance, legislation;

Report on zero-balance and alternative short-time scenario showing the negative tendencies that may arise from the current practice of using non-renewable energy sources);

City of Nis incorporated plans for the use of biomass in energy purposes (pilot biomass to energy plant) into their planning document prepared in 2010 (City of Nis Development Program for 2011). They decided to take over the results of the Biogenerator project and have its continuation, which is identified in this Programme to be conducted by the Council for Energy Efficiency of the City of Nis and the Department for Utility Services, Energy and Transport

In 2011 authorities stated preparation of important strategic documents whose drafts incorporate plans for biomass usage.

Regional Spatial Plan for the area of Nis, Pirot and Toplica Administrative District and Energy Development Plan of the City of Nis (started in 2011) incorporated in the plan that biomass has the energy potential that needs to be utilized.

The initiative for development of the energy balance model at the city level, for determining the annual need for energy or fuel for the continuous supply of consumers, was launched in 2011 recognizing biomass as a renewable energy source

City of Nis accepted the “Charter of the Mayor” dedicated to local energy sustainability, and officially became the first city in Serbia which joined the initiative of the "Energy Cities" Association

Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of the City of Nis formed an Agricultural Service dealing with agricultural and forest biomass

The City of Nis initiated the negotiations with the investors who expressed interest for building a biogas plant with capacity of 4.8MW that would employ about 1000 workers.

Project: “Sustainable Environmental Policy at Local

Level ” Consortium worked on improving the

participation of citizens in the development of Local Waste Management Plans in four municipalities, with inclusion of civil society organizations in this process of plan-development.

Three out of four local governments adopted their Local Waste Management Plans (Gornji Milanovac, Indijija and Kucevo) during the project period, with local CSOs participating in the process of document-drafting.

At four roundtables and four discussion forums in these local governments, stakeholders at the local level, including local governments, civil society and business sector, became familiar with the strategy for waste management, the Law on Waste Management and obligations of local authorities under this law.

Discussion forums enabled participants to present specific problems related to the adoption of local waste management plan and get answers from representatives of the relevant ministry. In this way, the capacity of local authorities for enforcement of the Law on Waste Management was strengthened.

Consortium published a model for raising public awareness about waste management "The new policy for developing public awareness about waste management at the local level - from understanding - to the need", a foundation for involvement of citizens in decision-making, continuous education and information of citizens.

Working groups for the local waste management plan established, include representatives of civil society

CSO representatives are able to monitor the implementation of policy for managing the individual waste streams.

Project: “Healthier Approach – Challenge and

opportunity” Founded the ‘protected workshop’ – Company

for Professional Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities “Green City” (companies can finance income of persons with disabilities trough Company for professional rehabilitation of persons with disabilities, or through buying off the products of these companies).

CSOs managed to put together business sector, city authorities, and civil sector and set basis to replacement of plastic bags (with paper bags produced by people with disabilities) in Leskovac.

Projekti OCD- rezultati

Project: “Healthier Approach – Challenge and opportunity

Project: Hazardous waste

Project: “Creating Sustainable Mechanism for Life Quality Improvement in SE Serbia”

Project only partially succeeded in their attempts: although CSOs promised adoption of decisions to follow green public procurement principles in five municipalities (Pantelej, Bela Palanka, Pirot, Babušnica and Dimitrovgrad), these decisions were not adopted by parliaments during the timeframe of the project

Intensive lobbing did have positive impact that can be verified by pilot procurements that Municipalities conducted during the project, where they implemented GPP principles.

Project: “Creating Sustainable Mechanism for Life Quality Improvement in SE Serbia”

Although green public procurement did not appear to be a sensitive issue, it turned out that any interfering with public procurement is sensitive (high emphasis on anticorruption, and compliance with prescribed procedures).

Civil servants became resilient to any idea that involves modification/introduction of new criteria in the public procurement processes.

Project: “Right to the city!”

Survey conducted among citizens Needs assessment analysis - provided significant information about citizens’ views about major problems related to traffic in the capital - a guide to decision-makers in their work (achieved with voluntary engagement of activists of Young Researchers of Serbia and financial support of Secretariat for Environmental Protection of the City of Belgrade).

Project: “Right to the city!” Comparative analysis of the transport policy

of Belgrade and other European cities, represents a document with important information on transport problems in Belgrade, as well as some good examples of other cities that can later be used by government and professional services (tools for advocating for sustainable transport in Belgrade).

Public campaign on the impact of urban transport on environment and climate change, promoting advantages of public transport, walking and cycling, promoting the idea of City center without cars

Multi-sector Group that deals with traffic issues (formed by Consortium in this project); group gathered all relevant institutions and interested parties: Belgrade City Secretariat for traffic, the Traffic Institute CIP, Faculty for Traffic, media, CSOs. However, no solid outcome.

Project: “Methods of sustainable management of ponds and non-commercial fisheries” http://ponds.protego-org.org/geocontent

Project: “Right to the white city”

Thank you