March 29, 1999 Volume II,
Issue 1
In this issue...
• Plans are underway for the first Summer Workshop in Washington, D.C. for the 1998 recipients of Institutional Partnership and Workforce Development awards. Participants are asked to reserve the dates of August 31 through September 3, 1999.•
ALO announced the issuance of its 1999 Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Program of Institutional Partnerships in Higher Education for International Development on March 10, 1999.
ALO advises institutions to read the RFP carefully as the new format has many changes from the previous solicitation in 1998:
• To ensure optimal fit between partnerships and USAID objectives, general concurrence by the relevant USAID Mission is being required by the funding office, USAID G/HCD. A form is included in the proposal which applicants must prepare for the appropriate Mission. Completed forms must be included in the submitted proposal.
• Proposals which do not clearly address USAID goal(s) and strategic objective(s) or which contain substantial errors in budget calculation may be disqualified from consideration.
• Budgets must strictly adhere to the "Fly America" rule and State Department maximum per diem rates.
• Web site directions for learning more about Mission goals and objectives and for determining city per diems are included in the RFP.
ALO will mail the RFP to those requesting it. The RFP is downloadable from the ALO Web site at http://www.aascu.org/alo/proposals.htm in PDF format. There is a list of Frequently Asked Questions that can be accessed from the Web page.
Owing to the late movement of FY99 funding from USAID, the due date for receipt of applications is 5:00 EST on April 21, 1999. Proposals received after the deadline will not be sent to the peer review panel.•
"If Western aid is truly to help riders in developing nations, the focus must be on exporting knowledge and technology, not chairs," said Ralf Hotchkiss, the technical director of the Whirlwind Wheelchair International (WWI) at San Francisco State University (SFSU).
WWI has helped establish 35 workshops to design and produce wheelchairs in 26 developing countries worldwide. The chairs are not only affordable, but also are designed in each country to meet specific cultural requirements, such as floor-level cooking and eating in the Near East and Asia. Designs also meet the particular terrain challenges and provide easy floor transfer and child-carrying capabilities as required in each country.
The Whirlwind Wheelchair Network, which Hotchkiss founded in Nicaragua in 1980, was moved to SFSU in 1989. WWI's program director, Peter Pfaelzer, estimates that the network has since produced between 12,000 and 15,000 wheelchairs. "It is quite a challenge to convert the huge need for wheelchairs - about 20 million - into a sustainable market for the shops in the network," said Pfaelzer. "Much work needs to be done in this area during the next 20-30 years."
Last summer, in anticipation of opening a women-run wheelchair workshop early in 1999, Whirlwind Women, a division of WWI, traveled to Kampala, Uganda to work with disabled Ugandans.
The Ugandan group, all of whom have received a one-month Whirlwind training course, founded a new group: Mobility Appliances by Disabled Women Entrepreneurs (M.A.D.E.).
The U.N. provided seed funds for tools and equipment. The Whirlwind Women's technical team expects to provide additional training during the spring of 1999. M.A.D.E. will begin to produce and market the foldable Whirlwind "Africa One" model this year.
The new coordinator, also a disabled woman, will work with the group to plan the 1999 training course for women with disabilities in wheelchair maintenance, repair and use.
A Rotary Club in Kampala has secured matching funds to provide subsidies for the first 55 wheelchairs built, insuring a stable market during the start-up phase of the project. "We are gratified that local Rotarians will purchase and distribute M.A.D.E.'s Whirlwinds to Ugandans with disabilities who are fighting to strengthen the emerging disability rights movement," said Jenny Kern, Whirlwind Women program director.
Since the trip last August, M.A.D.E. has written a constitution, registered with the Uganadan government as an NGO, submitted funding proposals, and gathered a broad range of advisors from government ministers to NGO staff to serve on a board of directors.
For more information on SFSU's Whirlwind Wheelchair network, see http://whirlwind.sfsu.edu/.•
Taking
advantage of a brief pause in the meeting schedule, Richard Phoya of the
University of Malawi, Audree Maretzki of Penn State, and Ikbal Chowdhury
of Lincoln University check the wares of a local entrepreneur in Elmina,
Ghana.
The USAID University Development Linkages Project (UDLP) is ending, but the lessons learned and the future of the linkages were the topics of conversation at the International Conference on Higher Education Partnerships in Africa February 8-10 in Elmina, Ghana.
Eastern Washington University hosted the conference with its partners at the University of Cape Coast.
The lessons shared ranged from simple benefits of hindsight, such as keeping track of intangible benefits as they happened, to designing partnerships for the future, including shifting the responsibility for linkages from individuals to the institutions. Some other lessons shared:
Personnel: Participants agreed that projects work best if they have a linkage representative in each relevant department and in the administration of the U.S. and host country institutions. These appointees should be people in authority. Former students are often the most enthusiastic and effective appointees. Many of training program alumni later take on important positions in the institutions and in government.
Thus, there needs to be a mechanism to select the best students for training programs and to cultivate long-standing relationships.
There also needs to be a balance in the age of people involved in partnerships - older professors to bring experienced insight, younger staff to ensure sustainability.
Participants also pointed out that the goals set for a partnership must correspond with human resources. For example, plan realistically for 10 workshops, not 20, if there are only two trainers available. Exchange visits should be reserved for faculty and students directly involved with the projects rather than for administrators with less direct roles.
Working with USAID: A good relationship with USAID/Washington helps partnerships work effectively. Partners must understand the goals of USAID, its global bureau and individual Missions. Likewise, the Missions must learn about the successes of partnerships. Project timeframes should be flexible.
Communication: The needs of a developing country and project goals should be defined by the country itself. A sharing of information between the partnerships, possibly through an annual monitoring and evaluation workshop, leads to greater individual and cumulative success. Partners must take time to get the right government organizations involved in order to have the full support of the host country. Publishing results is not sufficient; publications must be widely disseminated.
Finances: It must be clear in the proposal where equipment purchased for a partnership goes after projects have been completed. Some host country institution representatives believed that because of the lack of funds available in developing countries for projects, U.S. institutions should consider providing advance funding, instead of reimbursement after the work is completed.
Funds should be set aside for formal, external evaluation. Just because a project is in place does not mean it is effective. Trips overseas are often more cost-effective if they are over one month long. There also needs to be post-project "weaning money" to tie up any loose ends and ensure the sustainability of projects.•
In
response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Mitch, President Clinton
said March 9 in Honduras, "I know Hondurans are determined not just
to rebuild, but actually to create something better out of this tragedy."
He added, "I believe the United States must do more." Higher education
partners participating in USAID's University Development Linkages Project
(UDLP) Latin America/Caribbean conference in Honduras in January could not
have agreed more.
Before the President had made his trip to Central America, the higher
education partners and USAID's Center for Human Capacity Development had
already begun preparing mini-proposals for reconstruction to present to
USAID missions in the region.
Priority activities include public health, economic reactivation, housing/shelter,
education, and environmental disaster mitigation (including land-use planning
and watershed stabilization).
USAID Administrator Brian Atwood said the estimates of the loss in the
countries affected by the hurricane range from $7 billion to $10 billion.
He said, "But the loss could be even more serious if we can't get these
economies up and running, restore jobs, restore the agriculture sector and
the like."
Proceedings from the UDLP conference will be available around mid-April
at
http://ppathw3.cals.cornell.edu/arneson/UDLPconf/Default.htm.•
UGA/UV
social work students present a nutrition class in Minatitlán, Mexico.
Mexico and the United States share more than just a border - they share populations. States such as Georgia, whose Hispanic population has doubled in less than a decade, are ill-equipped to meet the needs of Hispanic residents. Issues such as a lack of access to quality education, health resources, and nutrition information, which have long plagued Mexico, pose similar challenges in Atlanta.
With the help of funding recently awarded by the Association Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development (ALO), through a cooperative agreement with USAID, a higher education partnership between the Universidad Veracruzana (UV) in Mexico and the University of Georgia (UGA) is addressing some of the social and economic challenges facing both Veracruz, Mexico, and the state of Georgia.
In the first six months of the project, which began in July 1998, the partners laid the groundwork for a private incorporated social work agency, which will work through UV to develop funding and services to meet gaps in Mexican government social services.
Additionally, Carmen Diaz Perdomo, a UV professor of social work, came to UGA for five months where she served as a consultant to Garnett Ridge, a public-private agency serving a community of newly-arrived Latino residents near Athens, Georgia. The program provides educational and recreational services to high-risk youth and their families in a bilingual setting. The UV professor is now using her experience to begin a similar program in Mexico.
The UGA School of Social Work is planning to sponsor a 21-day experience in international social work in Veracruz from May 19-June 6 in cooperation with UV. The program will prepare UGA students for future work with Mexican immigrants through home stays, training seminars, intensive language workshops, and site visits.
The initial investment from ALO/USAID of $91,899 is being complemented by a 200% match in funds from UGA, UV, and other sources toward an activity total estimated at $317,661. Watch for new developments on this story and others on the ALO Web site, http://www.aascu.org/alo/1998B81.html.•
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Established in 1992, ALO coordinates the efforts of the nation's six major higher education associations to build their partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and to help their member institutions plan and implement development programs with colleges and universities abroad. Copyright 1999 by the Association Liaison Office. All rights reserved. Use of this publication in full or partial form is encouraged, but requires the permission of the publisher. Send comments, requests for addition to list, questions, and ideas for stories to ALO.
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