USAID support for Chadian private and voluntary organizations

It is based on an assessment of the capabilities and needs of the Chadian PVO community and an examination of various issues and choices concerning the strategy and content of a PVO support program for Chad. Among the criteria used for the selection of PVO's to be supported are multi-community coverage, a proven track record, and a sound leadership with appropriate motivation and concepts of development. The quality of management was not a criterion except in egregious cases, since management improvement would be a primary aim of the proposed project. Of the 6 official PVO's in Chad's nascent PVO community, four appear eminently worthy of support, a fifth deserves consideration, and a sixth, though currently a branch of an international PVO, is soon to be Chadianized. Five other promising organizations were also identified. Other potential organizations may also exist, but a paucity of information on these organizations, registered only as associations but some of which may qualify to register as PVO's, made it difficult to judge their qualifications for support. The PVO support project should be open ended, to permit the eventual inclusion of any PVO's that may develop to the point where they meet assistance criteria. There are also many small associations, typically covering just one village, that are regarded as aspiring PVO's, but do not as yet serve a large enough population to warrant USAID attention, and which are in any case the target of a UNDP project. A common characteristic of the 4 PVO's identified for immediate support is a community-based, integrated approach to rural development, and a willingness to experiment with new approaches while quickly rejecting those that do not produce empirical results. Thus, these PVO's are valuable potential intermediaries between international donors, public and private, and the populations they aspire to reach. This study proposes a full range of institutional development and program assistance, including operational support, facilities construction, TA, training, equipment and supplies, and support for projects, placing particular emphasis on assistance that will help the PVO's become sustainable (i.e., developing the capabilities to meet recurrent costs through funding from international donors, income generating activities, etc). Also proposed is assistance to the PVO association in Chad, CILONG -- most of whose members are, at present, international PVO's -- to develop its capabilities to provide a full range of coordination and support services, as well as limited support to the Chadian government office responsible for PVO's (SPONG) to develop an information system and data bank containing all pertinent data on Chadian PVO's, shifting the government's role from one of regulation and control to support for the PVO movement. The report proposes that the project be managed by a U.S. PVO working closely with CILONG, and concludes with recommendations for accelerating the start of project implementation, including amendment of an existing USAID Chad project supporting U.S. PVO's and exploration of the possible use of Government of Chad P.L. 480 Title III funds. An annex describes fourteen Chadian PVO's and/or associations which were analyzed for their suitability for project assistance. (Author abstract)