Final report : evaluation of experience of USAID missions with PVO umbrella groups in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti

Grantees are the Costa Rican Association for Development Organizations (ACORDE), the Federation of Private Development Organizations of Honduras (FOPRIDEH), the Association of Nongovernmental Development and Service Entities of Guatemala (ASINDES), and the Haitian Association of Voluntary Agencies (HAVA). External evaluation covers the period through 9/88. All the organizations have shown ability to handle NGO subproject (SP) financing and these SP's seem to be having a favorable impact on target beneficiaries. Training and TA programs for NGO's have been less successful than financing activities, however. HAVA has increasingly focused on training beneficiary groups directly rather than through NGO's, ACORDE has opted to pay other organizations to carry out training functions, and ASINDES' internal difficulties have undermined its work in this area. Only FOPRIDEH has recently given increased attention to training and TA in response to member demands. Progress has been made in institutional strengthening, principally in clarifying the purposes and basic identity of two of the organizations (FOPRIDEH and HAVA). All have introduced new manuals and procedures governing personnel, administration, and recordkeeping, but greater consistency in applying the standards and procedures is needed. Financial staffs should be upgraded to enable them to unify budgeting and planning and to provide financial analysis. All institutions have suffered serious problems in staff organization, use, and oversight due to restrictions on the levels of salaries and managerial support, personality conflicts, and lack of clarity concerning the roles of the Boards of Directors and the various staff levels. Only FOPRIDEH and HAVA have made significant progress in becoming representatives or coordinators of the NGO's, since ACORDE, a non-member organization, has not sought this responsibility and ASINDES' membership is too static. Even though A.I.D. is receiving little recognition from beneficiaries or NGO's as the source of project support, all the organizations are still heavily dependent on A.I.D. and A.I.D.-related government resources for both operating expenses and program levels. Efforts to raise funds from other donors are still weak, and only ACORDE is pursuing domestic fundraising. ACORDE also received office space from A.I.D., which makes its future somewhat less uncertain than the others.