MEPI LESSONS LEARNED 4: SMALL GRANTS - THE SECRET

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 TUNIS 001280 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMPI KDEM XF PREL PGOV EAID SUBJECT: MEPI LESSONS LEARNED 4: SMALL GRANTS - THE SECRET WEAPON REF: A. TUNIS 1259 ¶B. TUNIS 1263 ¶C. TUNIS 1273 Sensitive But Unclassified. Handle Accordingly. -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (SBU) The MEPI Small Grants program is a highly effective tool for promoting democratic reform from the ground up in the Arab world. Small Grants allow us to respond quickly to opportunities as they emerge, have an immediate impact at the grassroots level, and link up with groups the USG often hasn't worked with in the past, thereby building relationships among the local reform community. Small Grants have effectively been used as pilot projects, testing both the capacity of organizations and the viability of certain activities. While this endeavor demands a fair amount of care and feeding from posts and the Regional Office, Small Grants consistently deliver a large bang for the buck. End summary. ¶2. (U) This is the final cable in a series of four by the MEPI Regional Office in Tunis, based on three years of supporting MEPI activities from Morocco to Lebanon. The other cables are: -- Overview (ref a) -- Addressing the Challenges (ref b) -- Diplomacy (ref c) -------------- CLEAR BENEFITS -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Launched shortly after MEPI's creation in 2002, The Small Grants program was designed specifically to work with the "little guys" - local groups that wish to instigate change in their societies, but are often overlooked or unable to compete with larger organizations for funding opportunities. With local organizations identifying reform opportunities and proposing activities to address them, Small Grants are a true example of the USG responding to grass-roots demand for reform. At their best, Small Grants are extremely cost-effective, quick to start-up and flexible in implementation, as the grantee is operating on his/her home turf. ¶4. (SBU) Adapted to local conditions, many of grant recipients have employed innovative approaches to produce significant results. In Morocco, a theater group staged a series of plays designed to teach illiterate women and men about their rights under the country's new family code. In Egypt, a dynamic new NGO frustrated by corporate corruption created a project in which they reviewed major corporations' public records and became minimum shareholders in the companies - allowing them to attended assembly meetings. They questioned financial irregularities at those meetings and in the media, raising overall public awareness about corruption. A youth center in southern Lebanon ran "democracy in action" programs, including volunteerism, advocacy campaigns, and media training as alternative activities for teenagers living in Hizbollah-dominated areas. ¶5. (SBU) We have been able to use Small Grants as pilot projects in a number of cases to judge either the capacity of a specific NGO or the potential for making progress in a specific area of reform. As a result, a number of Small Grantees have received larger follow-on grants, either from MEPI or USAID to expand the scope and reach of their activities. Small Grants have also been an effective outreach tool, expanding posts' and MEPI's contact base. In 2006, MEPI held a conference in Alexandria, Egypt, bringing together many of the NGOs that had received Small Grants so they could learn from each other, exchange ideas, and further develop their civic engagement skills. Earlier this year, MEPI launched its Alumni Network, which formally links Small Grants recipients and other participants in MEPI programs across the region. -------------- EVOLVING PROCESS -------------- ¶6. (SBU) For all their benefits, Small Grants can be labor intensive. Early on, it became clear that the program would require both considerable outreach efforts to attract proposals from a broad range of reform-oriented groups, as TUNIS 00001280 002 OF 003 well as hand-holding and oversight during the project development and implementation stages, given the generally weak capacity of NGOs across the region. To address these factors, management of the Small Grants program was moved in 2004 from NEA/PI to the MEPI Regional Offices (ROs) in Tunis and Abu Dhabi. Since then, the RO in Tunis alone has provided more than 75 Small Grants for over $2.5 million to individuals and organizations in its eight-post area of coverage. The RO in Abu Dhabi has had similar results during this same period. ¶7. (SBU) The success of the Small Grants program depends first and foremost on posts, who are most familiar with local civil society and the feasibility of proposed projects in their host country. Country Democracy Strategies have been extremely useful as a means of prioritizing which Small Grant proposals to pursue. Once post MEPI Committees approve an application, they submit them to the RO, which reviews them programatically - to ensure that they meet MEPI's reform criteria - and financially - to ensure expenses are appropriate and allowable. Small Grants funds are expended on a rolling "first-come, first-served" basis. Thus, posts can submit their approved proposals to the RO throughout the year. ¶8. (SBU) Collaboration between the RO and MEPI Committees at each post has led to a much more streamlined process. A key reason for the improvement in overall quality of small grants in the last two years has been the involvement of the RO and posts in refining projects, once they have agreed in principle to fund them. By reaching out directly to an organization to adjust activities and clarify budget and other management issues, we often are able to broaden the reach and increase the reform impact of the overall project. In Algeria, for example, a local group proposed a program to advance the issue of women's representation in parliament. Working with this group, the RO and post were able to expand the idea, with the NGO getting Algeria's key political parties to take positions not only on parliamentary quotas but on a much wider range of women's issues. The NGO then broadcast the parties' positions ahead of Algeria's elections this summer, so that voters would have concrete reasons to back a given candidate. When a Tunisian organization proposed a program for journalism professors to visit the United States to learn about running a campus newspaper, we bolstered this project considerably by including professors, as well as students, from both countries in an exchange arrangement. ¶9. (U) Brief descriptions of these and all other Small Grants can be found on the RO Tunis website (www.medregion.mepi.state.gov) under "Small Grants Abstracts." The RO encourages potential grantees and posts to review these abstracts for project ideas. The RO is also in the process of publishing a guidebook designed to help NGOs determine if the mission of their organization is appropriate for MEPI funding and, if so, how to apply for a Small Grant. A second guidebook will assist those NGOs that have already received Small Grants to properly run their programs. -------------- ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT -------------- ¶10. (SBU) While the MEPI Small Grants program has been successful in enlarging our contact base of reformers, the majority of grantees are still located in capitals. Posts and the RO need to find ways to reach new organizations, especially in the outlying regions of the country, if this network of reformers is to continue expanding. Secondly, an effort needs to be made at better monitoring projects. With so much effort going into finding groups and helping them shape their activities, these groups are sometimes neglected during the most crucial stage - after they receive USG funds and are implementing the project. RO staff make an effort when traveling to meet all Small Grant recipients, but we must depend on posts to make periodic site visits to ensure that organizations are adhering to the terms of their grants and to judge whether the project is having the desired impact. In most cases, the NGOs are extremely receptive to these visits, as they want t show off what they have achieved. ¶11. (SBU) A third area for improvement concerns our local partners. Working at the ground level has demonstrated just how weak civil organizations are in many of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Individuals and groups need instruction in such basic elements as how to organize TUNIS 00001280 003 OF 003 and run their operations, how to handle finances, and how to develop projects that will have maximum impact. Even in those countries where civil society is relatively more developed, most NGOs we have worked with could benefit from training in leadership, advocacy, and communication skills. Recognizing that a full-blown effort to address these issues exceeds MEPI's capacity, we may wish to consider developing a program that would provide these skills to targeted local partners who have proven their commitment to reform and their potential for making significant contributions in their country. -------------- So What? -------------- ¶12. (SBU) In our overview cable (ref a),we listed as significant MEPI achievements: -- Establishing a relationship of trust with a network of reformers in the region. -- Instilling an understanding of the policy/program nexus within the Department, and motivating posts to work both the diplomatic and civil society angles of it. -- Creating an effective and rapid mechanism for identifying reform opportunities and responding with programs, sometimes within a matter of weeks. Small Grants have been vital to each of those accomplishments. Posts are now able to reach out to and support in concrete ways groups committed to building a more democratic society in their country. The actions of those reformers advance our policy objectives and our growing relationship with them is an investment in our long-term interests in the region. GODEC