IMARISHA Year Two Q3 Quarterly Report

In Year 1, IMARISHA gained knowledge about the partners, their capabilities and staff, and their ability to serve households with integrated health and livelihoods interventions. The project established models and relationships to provide effective technical support, but many previous interventions focused on direct material support and/or one-off activities. In Year 2, IMARISHA's work has focused on building more and stronger strategic partnerships with PEPFAR Implementing Partners, rolling out practical, hands-on training/training of trainers (TOTs), providing mentoring to training recipients, providing specialized and tailored technical assistance, and sharing new innovations and ideas through exposure visits both within and outside of Tanzania. IMARISHA has formalized partnerships with Africare Pamoja Tuwalee, FHI360 Pamoja Tuwalee, and Pathfinder Tutunzane II through Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), which wrapped up their first year of collaboration in August. Discussions are underway to revise and enhance MOUs for 2013 and continue to provide training/cascade training and ES advisory services to the three projects. IMARISHA expects to form more formal partnerships with the Deloitte managed Tunajali II, with the EGPAF/Pathfinder managed LIFE Project, with Tanzania Interfaith Partnership, and with World Education (WEI) Pamoja Tuwalee project, with the bulk of activities rolling out in 2013. All of these partners have actively sought out IMARISHA's services, and it is anticipated that MOUs will be finalized in Q4. IMARISHA has also continued to deepen its relationship with PEPFAR MVC and HBC IPs through a variety of activities, including a month-long roadshow in which the technical team engaged stakeholders in dialogue on a variety of topics. The project has learned that many previous interventions focused on direct material support and/or one-off activities, and IMARISHA is now more integrated and connected to numerous PEPFAR partners and better able to expand the quality and effectiveness of the project's economic strengthening strategies. The IMARISHA Innovation Fund was introduced, and particular emphasis was given to sharing the goals of the fund, providing more explanation and examples on the concept of 'innovation', presenting thoughts on how to do some limited market research in preparation for developing the innovation concept, sharing lessons learned from the first round of concept note and full proposal reviews, and gathering feedback from potential applicants regarding the process and areas of concern, confusion, or struggle. Many organizations expressed that they were unsure of how to develop a concept note or full proposal, and IMARISHA will be developing templates for potential applicants to use in the development of their concepts and will also look at inviting grantees to trainings that will help to build the internal capacity of organizations. IMARISHA kicked off a 4-week Information Sharing and Capacity Building roadshow, starting in mid-July, in which project staff members traveled to each of IMARISHA's 7 regions and focused the agenda on building awareness of IMARISHA's work, particularly awareness of the grants facility and of the outcome of the Household Economic Assessment. The roadshow was successful in sharing the goals of the IMARISHA Innovation Fund and providing more explanation and examples on the concept of 'innovation'.