Capacity Building of Cambodia’s Local Organizations Program Semi-Annual Progress Report FY2018 Q1-Q2

The program is implemented by the Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance (VEGA) and the International Executive Service Corps (IESC) in partnership with Kanava International, LLC. A total of $2,332,427 is allocated for this activity, with $367,746 in cost share comprised of donated volunteer services and local contributions. The program's primary objective is to support USAID Cambodia's development objective of strengthening the institutional capacity of local organizations, with an emphasis on management of finance, administration, procurement, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), organizational management, and organizational sustainability. The program achieves its objectives through targeted technical assistance that provides mentoring and training to ensure that organizations have the systems and capacity to carry out sustainable programming. During the reporting period of October 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018, the program conducted 11 Impact Strengthening Development (ISD) organizational assessments, which contributed directly to indicator 1.1 - "Number of pre-award assessments and ISD conducted." The program also provided 1,087.5 hours of direct technical assistance to 41 local NGOs, under indicator 1.4 - "Number of assisted organizations receiving technical assistance." To date, the CBCLO team and international volunteer experts have provided a total of 3,889 hours of technical assistance to 70 Cambodian NGOs to improve their administrative, financial, procurement, M&E systems, and organizational management skills. The program also conducted 10 training sessions, which were attended by 136 participants from 35 NGOs. The training topics included human resource management, budgeting and financial tracking system, strategic planning and new opportunity development, indirect/overhead cost allocation, ecotourism, financial management for nonfinance managers, and M&E management and advanced MS-Excel skills. An international volunteer expert, Cecil Benjamin, was fielded for a three-month assignment to provide financial management capacity building and support to two local organizations, Cambodian Women for Peace and Development (CWPD) and Children in Family (CIF), and further secondary support to First Step Cambodia (FSC), Chhouk Sar, Korsang, and M'Lup Russey Organization (MRO). The program also continued to support youth development in Cambodia by recruiting local junior volunteers to support program activities. During this reporting period, junior local volunteer Chanvong Noy finished his assignment and went on to pursue a full-time job in Cambodia. CBCLO is progressing with activities expressed in the approved year five work plan as planned, exceeding targets on six out of seven program indicators.