Regional Reports - the European External Action Service

Except the major national networks and forums like the Network of PLW/HIV and the Forum for
Street Children, NSA networking activities are less significant in Oromia region. Apart from the
lack of legislation that permits networking, the slow dynamism in networking could be attributed
to the presence of most NSA whose management/coordination is in Addis Ababa and who would
more likely prefer to join existing networks and forum instead of creating regional focused
networks.
11. Dialogue and cooperation between NSA and Local Government.
The dialogue between Government and NSA sector is generally related to operational issues.
Both dialogue and cooperation is smoother at regional level particularly between NSA like NGOs
and sector offices. In the case of NGOs, dialogue on operational issues are less frequent since
their joint meetings are conducted only once in a year.
12. Engagement in Policy and Political Dialogue.
So far there is neither policy nor political agenda raised for dialogue between NSA and the
regional government. The existing guideline does not have provision for NSA engagement in
these types of dialogues. As indicated above, the only dialogues between NSA especially NGOs
and Government is on issues relating to NGO operation. Even in this case, the opportunity to
engage in such dialogue since meetings is held once in a year.
13. Internal Organisation and Resources
Financial Resources
Except the INGO and FBOs, most NSA have very poor material and financial resources which
hamper their operation and scaling-up. The lack of adequate financial resources a major
bottleneck for local NGOs, MBA and self-initiated local development associations. Even though
the ODA, the regional development association of Oromia receives funding support from major
donors, the leaders believe that shortages of funding is also attributable to the use of
Apex/umbrella organizations that cut funds channelled by SIDA. Instead, the proposed modality
is the provision of funds directly to NSA that have large institutional and also implementation
capacity. Even for the small NSA that receive donor fund, mechanisms should be design to
minimize the administrative cost associated with channelling donor funds.
Human Resources
Some National NGOs and also the regional development association (ODA) have full-time
professionals in the management and key engagement areas. However, even these NSA face the
challenge of staff turnover since they do not have financial resources to retain experienced
professionals. The problem of human resource shortage is more pronounced in the case of smaller
NGOs that have very poor financial resources.
Internal processes and leadership
Very often, internal processes depend on the quality and capacity of leadership because the nature
of internal process is one way in which the leadership quality is manifested. There are mixed
feelings about the internal processes of NSA in the region. The internal process of some NSA
especially the member-based are rather more democratic and transparent since they usually build
healthy relationship with their constituency through bottom-up approach employed in their
activities (identification, selection and implementation of projects). On the contrary, internal
processes of many other NSA are often unclear and hence these NSA have usually weak
constituency base.
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