Quarterly Program Performance Report – Jul thru Sep 2013 Assessment & Strengthening Program

The program focused on the core 'Capacity Building' component, with several milestones achieved during the current quarter. ASP received accolades from partner institutions for contributing to their capacity and development of improved or new policies, procedures, and management systems. Capacity building support to Awardee organizations, including RSPN and NRSP, concluded during the reporting period. The policy manuals developed by ASP-RSPN were approved by their respective Boards of Directors, and the updated policies are being implemented by both RSPN and NRSP. Training sessions on the newly developed manuals were conducted for core staff and project staff during the quarter. The project design interventions, including the 'Gomal Zam Dam Command Area Development and On-Farm Water Management' project of the Irrigation department in KP and the 'US Need-Based Scholarship program' for HEC, were presented to ECNEC for approval. ECNEC has principally approved the core contents of the PC-I of these projects, which are significant interventions that the Provincial and Federal Departments need to follow up for implementing ASP's inputs. The strategically important intervention of 'Establishing Internal Audit Function' in selected departments of KP was successfully concluded during the current quarter. The ASP's proposed internal audit structure was approved by the government, which was reflected in the budget for the financial year 2013-14. The Government of KP agreed to set up internal audit as a separate function in Education, Health, and Works & Services departments. For these selected departments, ASP documented critical processes, financial and performance risks associated with key steps of each process, and suggested controls to mitigate the identified risks. Audit programs for all areas, audit planning templates, and reporting templates were designed to help managers and field auditors in planning and reporting. A workshop/focus group discussion on "Internal Audit Toolkits and Process Documentation" was organized by ASP-RSPN in collaboration with GoKP during September 2013. During the current quarter, ASP-RSPN finalized the M&E manual for SMEDA, marking the completion of ASP's capacity building assistance to SMEDA. The Ministry of Industries appreciated the steps taken by ASP in designing a detailed M&E framework for SMEDA. Based on the knowledge acquired through ASP-RSPN's technical assistance, SMEDA has been assigned the task to take a lead in implementing M&E systems across thirty organizations working under the administrative control of the ministry. Two important workshops were held during the current quarter related to ASP-RSPN's ongoing efforts for strengthening Public Procurement systems in Pakistan. In partnership with PPRA Islamabad, the second meeting of the 'Advisory Group on Public Procurement' was held on 2nd-3rd of September 2013. The National Procurement Strategy was finalized and adopted in principle during the workshop. A second workshop was held at Quetta Balochistan to kick-start the 'Launching of Provincial Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA-Balochistan)'.