Assessing the efficacy of aid is now more important than ever. This is a project I will be involved with this summer in Ghana for 3 months:
Global Giving was set up as a charity fundraising website to change the way people give, offering donors a transparent, high-impact giving experience. In addition, Global Giving UK supports their partner projects with training and feedback from the UK. This year is the first year that they will be sending Impact Assessor volunteers to evaluate the impact and the effectiveness of the projects around the globe and I am delighted to be part of the team!
My role will be to evaluate the Global Giving UK partner projects on the ground, in Ghana, by checking how they use their funds, if they go to the projects they outlined on the Global Giving site, how the funds can be spent more efficiently and effectively and how their projects can be improved. I will be assessing the impact of the projects on the individuals they seek to help and on the entire community. Furthermore, I will be conducting a robust assessment of the projects' transparency and resourcefulness, including: past and projected impact, organisational effectiveness, accountability and governance. For each organisation I will be completing a report on their strengths and weaknesses and how Global Giving UK can help them more in the future. I will also be helping the organisations connecting with new donors, communicating with existing donors and fundraising.
Although, I have a lot of past experience in working in the international development sector, I will require training for this particular role before I leave the UK. These training sessions will be run by Global Giving UK and will be about specific project evaluation skills (exploring governance, finance, strategy, monitoring and evaluation and beneficiary participation amongst other areas) and some practical training on communications, social media and the Global Giving technology platform. As Global Giving UK is a charity, they are unable to provide these kinds of resources for free, if they wish all donations to go to their project partners. Therefore, I have been asked to pay £250 for this 4 day training course, as well as for any administrative costs. This is where your investment in my project will be spent. This is a great investment for anybody, who would like to make aid more effective and efficient, by making every £ count more! I hope that the feedback and the reports I supply to the partner projects on the ground will provide them with many useful methods on how to spend donations in a resourceful and transparent way.
For lots more information please visit my blog at http://effectiveaidghana.blogspot.co.uk/, which I set up for everyone to follow my preparations, but especially my time in Ghana (with lots of pictures, but more importantly, critical reflections on international development and volunteering and an insight into how Global Giving works and supports small-scale local NGO efforts in Ghana).