Written evidence submitted by VSO Nigeria

This short submission will focus on the following issues to be addressed in the inquiry, and is based on VSO experience and interviews with partners.

Ų Basic service delivery (primary school enrolment is about 60%; Nigeria spends only 5% of its budget on health care)

Ų Donor coordination

1.0 VSO in Nigeria

Nigeria was one of the first countries to receive volunteers in 1958. The VSO Nigeria country programme has operated continuously since then and there are currently 51 volunteers in country. VSO continues to "share skills and change lives" by sending qualified and experienced volunteers to work with organisations who require those skills.

VSO now works programmatically to enable country programmes to better respond to identified need. In Nigeria the programme areas are: Education, HIV/AIDS, Sustainable Livelihoods and National Volunteering. These programme areas are reviewed annually through programme area review process and later in 2008 there will be a review of the Country Strategic Plan to ensure that we are still working in the most relevant areas in Nigeria.

VSO Nigeria is supported by DFID both through the partnership agreement and through programme funding to VSO Nigeria as a delivery partner in the SNR (Strengthening Nigeria's Response to HIV/AIDS).

2.0 Basic Service Delivery: Education

VSO Nigeria is working through volunteers in a number of tertiary level teacher training institutions, in state Universal Basic Education Boards, and with civil society organisations. There are currently 15 education volunteers in Nigeria.

The recent review of our VSO Nigeria education programme has led us to refocus our education work and make decisions about where we work geographically. DFID has provided a lead in terms of identifying key states in which to focus our work. Our long experience of working in these key states provides us with an exciting opportunity to increase our impact by concentrating resources and placing volunteers with our VSO partners to ensure that we improve the quality of education for some of the most disadvantaged children in Nigeria. The resources that DFID are providing to these states means that there is a possibility of making a greater difference through more intense support through a wide range of structures in both the government and non- government sectors.

DFID has been a key partner in our research work for both our Valuing Teacher report and the follow up research work carried out by a volunteer for the Global Campaign for Education. DFID staff have made themselves available and information has been readily shared. Our valuing teachers report gives a number of clear recommendations to improve teacher motivation and morale including improved terms and conditions for teachers, human resource management, progressing policy implementation, improving the school environment and increasing the voice and status of teachers.

"Ministers are always changing, new policies are always made and they just tell us and expect us to carry them out. They give us no notice and don't tell us how. They need to see for themselves"

Headteacher

3.0 Basic Service Delivery: HIV and AIDS

VSO Nigeria works closely with DFID in country as a delivery partner for the Strengthening Nigeria's Response to HIV and AIDS (SNR) programme implemented in partnership with Action Aid and Family Health International.

DFID has provided much support to help this delivery partnership develop into its current form as a functioning team operating in 8 (check) key states. VSO has volunteers working at both state level and at the national SNR offices in Abuja. Volunteers are helping to build the capacity of the SACA (State Action Committee for HIV and Aids) and LACA ( Local Action Committee for HIV and Aids) and they bring with them a range of skills in community mobilisation, HIV and AIDS specific knowledge, and organisational development. Other skills have been bought into the SNR programme by the placement of a volunteer who has skills in graphic design and is working to better present information gathered from state level.

The DFID OPR process has proved very useful in helping to continually improve the outputs of the SNR programme by providing high quality monitoring and evaluation that has involved all partners and been clearly presented in a report.

DFID has also instituted quarterly meeting for all health partners receiving funding. These continue to provide a very useful networking opportunity and have already produced new partnership and complimentary working between different organisations. One example of this is that VSO Nigeria are in discussion with BBC World Service Trust about future collaborative working.

4.0 Donor Coordination

The effects of the DFID collaboration with World Bank, CIDA and other funders are clear in aligning priorities and key states and also in the pooling of substantial resources.

VSO Nigeria recognises the benefits of better coordination, longer term partnership working, and more resource allocation for the designated areas of work. There also appears to be better collaboration between international NGO's who are becoming part of the consortia bidding for the new DFID tenders. The use of service providers has necessitated this consortia working although care has to be taken that the partnerships are negotiated clearly and fairly in order to ensure strong collaborative working with both INGO's and other partners. DFID have played a role in facilitating communications to strengthen these consortia in the past, which has contributed to strengthened partnerships and greater impact.

Relationships with our partners show that some negative effects of awarding of contracts through service providers are being felt at grass roots level. Some civil society organisations that VSO Nigeria works or has worked with say that they are finding it more and more difficult to access funding, and are getting frustrated by having to accept that a proportion of total funds is used for overheads of government departments when funds are distributed through them. Some have also felt that that they have a more distant relationship with donors where once they enjoyed close working relationships. In an interview with a partner organisation, DFID was cited as one example of such a donor. The organisation also felt that they no longer had access to funds to continue much of the work they started.

VSO Nigeria is working to help support the INGO forum which brings together country representatives from a range of international NGO's on a quarterly basis. There are opportunities here to explore further the contribution that INGO's can make to the delivery of the DFID contracts and indeed the need for closer working to respond to demands from service providers e.g. in negotiating terms of partnerships.

5.0 Future relations with DFID in Nigeria.

VSO Nigeria looks forward to continuing to build in country relationships with the DFID programme team in Nigeria, and to working in synergy to ensure resources are best used to ensure maximum impact. DFID has a key role to play in helping to shape the strategic direction for VSO Nigeria and we look forward to involving the team in this.