News

– The Fondemsan grant: Equipop's role in the West Africa project

December 14, 2021
News, West Africa, Interview, Health

Since 2017, Equipop has been working with OOAS to roll out the FONDEMSAN grant, which supports citizen and political mobilization initiatives promoting the sexual and reproductive rights and health of adolescents and young people in French-speaking West Africa. Elise Petitpas, Program Manager at Equipop, provides an update!

What role does Equipop play in FONDEMSAN?

Equipop supports WAHO-funded projects at various levels. At the national level, we participate in discussions on improving the quality of project activities, provide administrative and financial monitoring, support organizational development through a dedicated fund, and contribute to the implementation of monitoring, evaluation, and capitalization based on change-oriented approaches. At the regional level, we support WAHO in coordinating the fund and facilitate the exchange of experiences between funded consortia on various topics that may be useful for the implementation of their projects (e.g., establishing consortium dynamics, developing project communication, etc.).)

In your opinion, what makes this fund innovative?

Among the innovations of this fund, I would mention its beneficiary selection procedure and the associated support mechanism for CSOs. Why? Because after 20 years of working with CSOs in the region, we have observed the administrative difficulties and time constraints they face in responding to calls for projects and taking the time to formulate innovative projects. The FONDEMSAN mechanism—because it includes a project incubation phase—aims to remove these obstacles.

What changes have you observed since the program began?

Several types of changes have been observed. First, in the practices of CSOs, which have become increasingly involved in health democracy (through the creation of the Làyidu-mètre platform and the implementation of social audits) and the establishment of the principle of meaningful youth participation. Second, in the practices of the OOAS, as FONDEMSAN is its first direct financing mechanism for CSOs for citizen and political mobilization projects on DSSRAJ. The institution has therefore developed new procedures and ways of designing its support for CSOs. And, of course, this program has also enabled us at Equipop to evolve our own practices and, in particular, to question ourselves about the challenges of support approaches.

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