Rolland Agbessi is Executive Director of Scouting Benin and a member of Alliance Droits et Santé (Alliance for Rights and Health).
How can specific support in organizational development (OD) be valuable to your organization?
At Scouting Benin, we have set ourselves the challenge of making our organization one of the best in our sub-region in terms of good governance and management and in general. To achieve this, we are aware that efforts are needed that may require profound institutional reforms, changes in our habits, etc. Far from the commitments to mobilize resources and implement community projects that nourish our daily lives, the DO appears to be a solution adapted to this specific need to identify our strengths and work to improve our weaknesses. Thanks to the DO, in August 2018, Scouting in Benin was certified by SGS using the GSAT 2.0 tool—a global support assessment tool and quality standard specific to the World Organization of the Scout Movement—as one of the best Scouting organizations in the world in terms of good governance and the first in French-speaking Africa.
So far, what have you been able to achieve thanks to this support?
To date, thanks to the DO, Scouting in Benin has been able to implement five Priority Improvement Projects. These have enabled us to develop our 2016-2019 strategic and operational plan and to put in place a communication strategy. With the DO, we have also been able to develop an administrative and financial management manual and purchase accounting software.
How do you see the rest of the process unfolding?
We believe that the challenge is to enable member organizations of the Rights and Health Alliance, as well as individual members, to benefit from the knowledge and other experiences developed through each of our organizations' involvement in the DO process. Systematizing the capitalization and sharing of experiences may be a way forward. The future cannot be envisaged without OD because, as the wise man says, reaching the top is not the problem; staying at the top is the challenge. Thus, the existence of a DO Fund, the upcoming implementation of quality certification and Equipop's continued support in conducting new self-assessments, the implementation of Priority Improvement Projects, etc., will make it possible to meet this challenge.
How do you view the new role of civil society organizations in the governance of the DO Fund? One of our values within the Alliance is transparency. In this regard, we welcome the ingenious idea of involving Alliance member organizations at all levels in the allocation of DO Funds.
