Sustaining Partnerships into the Next Century (SPAN) Project
Mid-Term Evaluation Report
Submitted to: USAID/Russia
Prepared by:
Process Consulting Company
Office 232, #49, B. Semenovskaya str.,
105023, Moscow, Russia
tel./fax (7-095) 369-2893,
e-mail: pccmos@glasnet.ru
February 2000
Sustaining Partnerships into the Next Century (SPAN) Project
Mid-Term Evaluation Report
Submitted to: USAID/Russia
Prepared by:
Alexey Kuzmin, Team Leader
Lois Godiksen
Alexander Chesnokov
Andrey Beregovenko
Vladimir Balakirev
David Dunn, Editor
Process Consulting Company,
Office 232, #49, B. Semenovskaya str., 105023, Moscow, Russia
phone/fax: (7-095) 369-2893, e-mail: pccmos@glasnet.ru
February 2000
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments....................................................................................................................... 1
Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................2
Section 1 Purpose of the Evaluation.....................................................................................6
 1.1 Background and Methodology............................................................................. 6
Section 2 SPAN Project Design........................................................................................... 8
Section 3 SPAN Project Implementation............................................................................. 16
 3.1 Participants in the SPAN Project and their Roles in the Project .......................... 16
 3.2 Basic Processes of the SPAN Project................................................................... 18
Management of Grant Rounds....................................................................... 18
Monitoring and Self-Evaluation..................................................................... 24
Reporting and Feedback on Reports ..............................................................28
Technical Assistance Provided by IREX to the Partners ............................... 29
Dissemination of Information and Networking.............................................. 30
 3.3 Flexibility of the Program.....................................................................................31
Section 4 Project Results..................................................................................................... 33
Section 5 Sustainability of SPAN Partnerships.................................................................... 34
Section 6 Perspectives on Developing Partnership Programs .............................................. 37
Annexes 41
Annex I Scope of Work..................................................................................................... 42
Annex II Persons Interviewed............................................................................................. 50
Annex III Bibliography of Documents Reviewed................................................................. 55
Annex IV Selected SPAN Success Stories............................................................................56
Annex V SPAN Table of Finalists (Rounds 1-3)................................................................. 64
Annex VI What are the major constraints facing the individual partnerships?...................... 76
Annex VII The number of site visits conducted by IREX managers...................................... 78
1
Acknowledgments
The evaluation time schedule was very tight and the evaluation team deeply appreciates all the individuals and
organizations who helped us to complete a large amount of quality work on time.
We would like to express personal appreciations to several people who were instrumental in helping us com￾plete the evaluation.
Carol Peasley and Susan Reichle met with us in the midst of their extremely busy schedules and gave us valu￾able advice concerning the focus of the evaluation.
Olga Moshkova and her team were responsive to our numerous requests and open and constructive in our con￾versations.
Denis Korepanov extended care and assistance in all issues related to this mid-term evaluation. This was the
first Process Consulting Company contract with USAID-Russia and Denis was extremely helpful in clarifying
rules and regulations that had to be followed and in establishing connections with the right people at the right
time.
Alexander Borzov made the contracting process fast and smooth, allowing us to start on time.
Rob Cronin and the IREX-DC SPAN team gave their support and creative ideas with a great sense of humor
and a wonderful team spirit, which we enjoyed a lot.
Tracy Dolan and the IREX-Russia SPAN team extended their hospitality and opened their office to us. We ap￾preciate their passion and deep belief in the potential of Russian-American partnerships. We would like to ex￾press our gratitude for their great coffee. It supported the effective functioning of the evaluation team and is
definitely one of the strengths of IREX-Russia.
Finally, we would like to express our deep appreciation to the American and Russian partners for giving us de￾tailed information about their projects and sharing ideas, concerns and hopes related to future partnership proj￾ects.
2
Executive Summary
Establishment and further development of partnership relationships between American and Russian organiza￾tions is an important step in the transition towards a democratic society and an open market economy in Russia.
Today, hundreds of American and Russian organizations are working together in partnerships in Russia to ad￾dress many of the issues facing Russian society. These partnerships cover all areas of USAID-Russia’s devel￾opment portfolio: agriculture, business, energy, housing, civic initiatives, legal reform, media development,
health, and the environment.
The SPAN project began in September, 1997 and complements the work implemented by USAID under the
Institutional Partnerships Program (IPP) and Partnerships for Civil Society and Economic Development
(PCSED). SPAN is an umbrella program of partnership grants to strengthen and expand existing relationships
between Russian and US organizations and institutions.
IREX had successfully managed the IPP and PCSED projects for USAID since 1994. Currently IREX admin￾isters 24 SPAN partnerships with funding ranging from $90,000 to $190,000 for implementation periods of up
to 27 months. SPAN partners’ collaboration unites different organizations in 20 Russian cities, from the Far
East to Moscow, as well as in 16 cities in the United States.
Originally $5.25 million was allocated to SPAN to support targeted and innovative activities that deepen and
expand existing relationships between Russian and US organizations within key strategic sectors of the
USAID/Russia program, namely rule of law, civil society, health, environment, business development, energy
and tax reform.
Taking into consideration the high demand for SPAN grants and the fact that partnership programs are effective
in creating sustainable change, USAID-Russia allocated an additional $2.5 million for the SPAN follow-on
project. Under the follow-on component of the project, a fourth round grant competition will be conducted. The
program focus will be shifted toward support of social sector and partnership proposals aimed at infrastructure
development, youth social services, domestic violence prevention, and programs with a focus on women as
beneficiaries. Social network programs will also be eligible for funding. Partnership activities under SPAN
Round IV will run through the end of October, 2001. The SPAN project will end by December 31, 2001.
The mid-term evaluation of the SPAN project took place between November 23, 1999 and January 24, 2000. A
team of five evaluators visited IREX offices in Moscow and in Washington, DC, and partnership organizations
in Washington, DC, New York City and eleven Russian cities. Evaluators met with the relevant staff members
of USAID-Russia and consultants working for USAID-funded partnership programs in the US. In one month,
the evaluation team conducted over 100 interviews, reviewed more than 60 documents and covered about
27,000 miles in order to gather data concerning the SPAN project.
Major Conclusions and Recommendations
SPAN Selection Process
The goal of the SPAN project is to support, deepen and expand partnerships between US and Russian
organizations and institutions within key strategic sectors of the USAID program in Russia. The overall
3
intention of SPAN was the competitive selection and subsequent funding of projects proposed by exist￾ing Russian-American partnerships.
IREX was asked to elaborate a selection system to assure that winning projects would more closely cor￾respond with SPAN goals for both project content and partnership development. IREX designed a five
step competition process which was used for all four grant rounds with only slight modifications:
review of the applications for conformity with the formal conditions of the competition,
assessment of individual applications by independent experts,
consideration of all applications by an expert panel,
ranking of applications by IREX specialists and naming the final pool,
study of the final pool by USAID and naming the winners of the competition.
On the basis of interviews and an analysis of relevant documentation, the evaluation team has concluded
that the criteria used by IREX to identify US-Russian partnerships capable of broadly promoting SPAN
objectives:
· were adequate and effective
· conformed with SPAN objectives
· reflected the main indicators of effective partnerships that can be assessed on the basis of information
included in the applications submitted to the competition
The only indicator of effective partnership which, in our judgment, was not clearly reflected in the crite￾ria, was the presence of a “common partnership strategy.” The experience gained by IREX and partner
organizations during the implementation of the SPAN program confirms the appropriateness of these
criteria used for the selection of effective partnership projects. These criteria can be used in formalizing
and structuring the assessment of the partnership component of future projects.
SPAN Project Implementation
Cooperation between USAID and IREX is regulated by Cooperative Agreement (CA) # 118-A-00-97-00282-00.
In accordance with the CA, IREX is responsible for:
- managing the solicitation and competition,
- sharing expertise and resources,
- monitoring and evaluation,
- information dissemination.
IREX provides USAID with reports in accordance with requirements stated in the CA.
USAID finances the SPAN program and also:
- approves the final solicitation documents for subgrants,
- conducts the final selection of partner organizations to receive USAID funding,
- approves IREX’s annual workplans.
USAID monitors IREX activities and supervises the implementation of the partnership projects.
4
Grant Rounds. All four grant rounds went well. IREX clearly has rich experience in managing selection
processes. The only area which requires special attention by IREX and USAID is the development of
shared policies and procedures for managing grant rounds. Currently, insufficient formal policies and
procedures lead to certain problems in IREX-USAID communications and joint activities.
Monitoring and Evaluation. IREX managers systematically monitor partnership projects. They possess
information on the projects’ progress which makes it possible to identify emerging issues on a timely ba￾sis. IREX specialists are experienced in monitoring and this experience helps the projects they monitor
achieve good results. However, this experience is not formalized in any working document. In the ab￾sence of a formal monitoring system, a thorough understanding of a project’s situation is dependent on
the personal skill of individual IREX specialists.
There is not enough clarity between USAID and IREX concerning rules and procedures for monitoring
IREX’s activities. This leads to miscommunication between USAID and IREX.
The evaluation team recommends that IREX formulate a system of SPAN project monitoring that can be
used in other partnership projects as well. This system should include planning of monitoring activities
and definition of the specialist tasks necessary for effective monitoring. The system of SPAN project
monitoring should consist of three levels: partnerships, IREX and USAID. The rules and procedures for
monitoring at all three levels should be agreed on by IREX and USAID.
Reporting and feedback. The requirements for SPAN project reporting are well formulated.
Regular, detailed reports are prepared and submitted by all the parties. The problem mentioned
by the majority of persons interviewed was that neither partners nor IREX receive feedback
from the offices receiving their reports, i.e., from IREX and USAID respectively. In other
words, information flow is one-way. It is very important to make information exchange two￾way by including mandatory feedback on submitted reports.
Dissemination of Information and Networking. IREX fulfills all its obligations for information dissemi￾nation in accordance with the Cooperative Agreement. Partners interviewed by the evaluation team had
several suggestions for enhancing this information function. IREX should update information on the web
page more regularly and think of ways to intensify practical networking among SPAN partnerships and
beyond SPAN. Another area for possible development would address the lack of publicity for American
audiences about Russian-American partnerships. Publication of successful partnership stories in Ameri￾can mass-media could be a strategically important way to inform American citizens of positive develop￾ments in Russian-American relations.
Partnerships sustainability
On the basis of the mid-term evaluation, we have defined “sustainable partnership” as a relationship be￾tween two financially sustainable organizations with a long-term joint strategy. According to this defini￾tion, the approximate number of sustainable partnerships, i.e., those able to continue their joint activities
after the completion of the SPAN project, will range from 8 to 16. All of the partner organizations con￾tinue to count on some amount of donor assistance with USAID and private foreign foundations ac-
5
counting for 60% of the sources of funding received by Russian partners. While one half of the SPAN
partnerships already generate some income from selling goods or services, the other half sees no chance
for such an approach to income generation. We do not link the sustainability of a partnership with
whether or not partner organizations sell goods or services. No partnership interviewed by the evaluation
team believed that it would develop in the near future exclusively through the sale of goods or services.
Perspectives on developing partnership projects
IREX and SPAN project partners have accumulated a unique body of knowledge related to their experi￾ence implementing Russian-American partnership projects. From one third to two thirds of the partner￾ships within the SPAN projects are sustainable and will likely continue joint activities after the comple￾tion of SPAN project funding.
For the sake of future partnership programs is very important for USAID to tap the potential knowledge
base resulting from the SPAN project. To turn project experience into useful knowledge it will be neces￾sary to ensure that:
IREX and the partners analyze and describe their experience;
this experience be disseminated in useful forms;
organizations possessing this experience take part in its dissemination.
What partnerships should be supported in future? The answer to this question depends on USAID priori￾ties. If the development of partner relationships is defined as the priority, it is necessary to support the
partnerships having the best potential for developing relationships. In this context, there is no strategic
return on investment in partnerships that are already sustainable, nor is it prudent to assist organizations
that are not quite ready for partnership. In the latter case, assistance is slow and expensive, and the risk
of failure is high. It is necessary to identify organizations in the initial stages of developing partnerships
which are likely to strengthen their cooperation, define joint strategies, and become more financially
sustainable within the time-span of a single project.
However, if the quality and speed of completing socially important tasks is defined as the pri￾ority, it is necessary to select existing sustainable partnerships with the maximum professional
potential for successfully completing the defined tasks. In this case, the potential for partnership
development becomes secondary. Moreover, it will be more efficient to select partnerships
which do not need to spend time developing working relationships or solving interaction prob￾lems.
The evaluation team considers support of new partnerships and support of existing partnerships to be
complementary, not contradictory, approaches. Sustainable relationships between organizations with dif￾ferent profiles, sizes and locations will further the establishment of sustainable relationships between the
USA and Russia.
6
Section 1 Purpose of Evaluation
The primary task of this Mid-Term Evaluation was to assess the impact of the 24 ongoing partnership activities
and to determine if these activities were achieving the overall goals of the SPAN project. An additional task
was to examine the impact of partnership implementation techniques on achievement of the overall goals of the
SPAN project. The evaluation team considered the overall managerial role of the Program Administrator
(IREX) in the progress of particular partnerships and the SPAN project in general.
1.1 Background, Methodology and Evaluation schedule
The SPAN project started in September, 1997 (Cooperative Agreement # 118-A-00-97-00282-00, for the pe￾riod from September 29, 1997 to September 28, 2000, for $5,250,000). In consideration of the high demand for
SPAN grants and the fact that partnership programs are effective in creating sustainable change, USAID-Russia
allocated an additional $2.5 million for the SPAN follow-on project (Amendment to the Cooperative Agree￾ment with IREX # 119-A-00-97-00282-01, for the period through December 31, 2001, for $2,500,000).
Currently IREX administers 24 SPAN partnerships, with funding ranging from $90,000 to $190,000 for imple￾mentation periods up to 27 months. The partnerships’ breakdown in USAID-Russia priority areas is as follows:
civil society (6), environment (4), health (5), business development (8), and rule of law (1). SPAN partners’
collaboration unites different organizations in 20 Russian cities, from the Far East to Moscow, as well as 16
cities in the United States.
Taking into consideration the complexity of the SPAN program, the diversity of the partnerships and the nature
of the evaluation questions, the evaluation team suggested the use of semi-structured interviews, documentation
analyses and direct observation methods in order to collect data. We decided not to use questionnaires for this
mid-term evaluation for three major reasons:
1) time limitations (USAID-Russia wanted the evaluation team to complete data collection within one month),
2) the nature of the information we needed (most of the evaluation questions supposed a qualitative, not quan￾titative, approach),
3) the number of partnerships was limited and it was realistic to reach all of the partners, either in-person or by
telephone. (Conversely, the number of partnerships was not enough for a questionnaire; any response rate less
than 100% would have meant an unacceptable data loss.)
The evaluation team spent November 23 to November 26 reviewing background information and finalizing the
methodology of the evaluation with USAID-Russia.
From November 29 to December 3, two evaluation team members (Alexey Kuzmin and Lois Godiksen) visited
the IREX office in Washington, DC, and met several USAID consultants working with partnerships. The team
also conducted phone interviews with American SPAN partners and visited the Counterpart International office
to interview the Vice President and Partnership Program Director.
The next week (December 6 to 9), Alexey Kuzmin visited New York City where he met three partnership or-
7
ganizations and conducted several telephone interviews. Lois Godiksen continued phone interviews from
Washington, DC, and met another partner.
Meanwhile, from November 30 to December 10, three other evaluation team members (Vladimir Balakirev,
Andrey Beregovenko and Alexander Chesnokov) visited Russian partner organizations in nine cities outside
Moscow.
From December 13 to December 17, the evaluation team gathered in Moscow and continued interviews with
Russian and American partner organizations located in Moscow. Evaluators also visited the IREX-Russia of￾fice and talked with SPAN program staff. The December 13-17 week schedule also included interviews with
USAID-Russia representatives.
By December 17, the data collection was completed according to the evaluation plan.
On December 20 and 21, the evaluation team conducted its initial data analysis and prepared a preliminary
briefing of USAID-Russia on the evaluation’s findings. The feedback meeting at USAID was held on Decem￾ber 23, 1999. A feedback meeting with IREX was held after the Christmas and New Year holidays, on January
11, 2000.
All the people addressed by the evaluation team were extremely responsive and supportive. USAID-Russia,
IREX-USA and IREX-Russia, and representatives of American and Russian partner organizations helped the
evaluators to complete a very large amount of work in a very short time. The evaluation team considers that this
mid-term evaluation was conducted too late to be of maximum benefit to the parties. If the mid-term evaluation
had been conducted earlier, for example, after Round 2, it could have been used much more effectively. As it
is, with Round 4 complete, most of conclusions and recommendations made by the evaluation team can hardly
be expected to affect the SPAN implementation. Nevertheless, we hope that this evaluation will prove useful to
USAID and IREX in future partnership programs.
8
Section 2 SPAN Project Design
The goal of the SPAN project is to support, deepen and expand partnerships between US and Russian organi￾zations and institutions within key strategic sectors of the USAID program in Russia. The SPAN approach in￾volves a competitive selection of projects, from among existing Russian-American partnerships, for financial
and technical support. There are two overall aims for supporting existing partnerships: 1) creating more effec￾tive solutions to significant social problems within the scope of partners’ projects, and, 2) strengthening the
partnerships themselves.
Diagram 1 is a simplified flowchart illustrating the overall operation of the SPAN project and it organization
around the four grant rounds. IREX organizes and conducts the competitive selection of projects, finances the
winning projects, and provides ongoing technical assistance and project monitoring. Diagram 1 shows the po￾sition of the mid-term evaluation at a point near the completion of the fourth grant round.
IREX was to create a selection system, including selection criteria, to assure that winning projects would more
closely correspond with SPAN program content and partnership development goals. The selection system
IREX created involved five steps and was used for all four rounds with slight modifications:
Step 1. Review of applications for conformity with the formal conditions of the competition;
Step 2. Assessment of individual applications by independent experts;
Step 3. Consideration of all applications by the expert panel;
Step 4. Ranking of the top applications by IREX specialists and forwarding the application pool to USAID;
Step 5. Assessment of applications by USAID and selection of the competition’s winners.
During the first step, IREX specialists checked the applications for their conformity with submission guide￾lines, e.g., availability of necessary documents, correctness of preparation, etc.
In the second step, two independent experts thoroughly studied each application and assigned a point rating in
accordance with IREX’s selection criteria.
In the third step, all of the independent experts were convened as a review panel. During the review meeting,
each project application was presented by the two experts who had studied and rated it during the second step.
All members of the panel then discussed the project’s advantages and disadvantages and voted whether to rec￾ommend the project for funding. Expert panels were facilitated by IREX managers.
In the fourth step, the IREX team discussed the project applications recommended by the expert panel, ranked
them and drafted the final pool of applications to be sent to USAID.
In the fifth step, the USAID staff made the final selection of projects to be funded.
9
Cooperative
agreement between
USAID and IREX
Technical assistance and monitoring
Grant Round 1
Grant Round 2
Grant Round 3
Grant Round 4
SPAN Project completion
Analyses of the SPAN
Project Results
Implementation of
projects selected in
round 1
Implementation of
projects selected in
round 2
Implementation of
projects selected in
round 3
Implementation of
projects selected in
round 4
Completion of
Partnership Projects
SPAN Project
Evaluation
Diagram 1. SPAN Project Flowchart
10
The criteria used by IREX for project selection (and identified as such in the SPAN Project Request for Pro￾posal) can be divided into three categories:
- assessment of a project’s Program Components — goals and objectives, proposed activities, work plan,
evaluation/self-evaluation;
- assessment of a project’s Financial and Administrative Components — the cost proposal and personnel
qualifications;
- assessment of a project’s Partnership Components — the partnership’s track record and institutional capa￾bility1, and plans for sustaining the partnership.
Obviously such a division is to a certain extent arbitrary, since the categories that we have defined overlap each
other (Diagram 2). For example, a clear division of zones of responsibility between the partners is related to
each of these categories.
Partnership
Component Program Component
Administrative and
Financial Component
Diagram 2. Categories used by IREX for the assessment of applications
Table 1 shows the maximum number of points that a project application can receive in each of the assessment
categories. After the first grant round, IREX redistributed the “weight” of the criteria to favor project applica￾tions more closely aligned with the goals and objectives of the SPAN project. The “weight” of the Program
Component was increased by 15 points with a corresponding reduction in the “weight” of the Partnership Com￾ponent (decreased by 10 points) and of the Financial and Administrative Component (decreased by 5 points).
Thus, during Rounds 2, 3 and 4, project applications with well-developed programs received more credit for
their programmatic strengths—other things being equal—than in Round 1. A strong Program Component in a
project application now contributes twice as much to the total score as the elements that create a strong Partner￾ship Component.
 
1
 In our opinion, institutional capability should be considered within the Financial and Administrative Component of the project, however, since IREX
relates this indicator to partnership track record, we will also assume it to be an element of the Partnership Component in our report.
11
Table 1. Changes in the weight of the assessment categories in the total rating
No. Category Maximum number
of points (Round 1)
Maximum number
of points (Rounds 2
to 4)
Changes in the
weight of the cate￾gory in the total rat￾ing
1 Program Component 50 65 +15
2
Financial and Administra￾tive Component
60 55 -5
3 Partnership Component 40 30 -10
It is interesting to note the correlation of the “weight” of the criteria with partners’ judgments about why they
won the SPAN competition. To the question, “What were the advantages of your application in comparison
with the others?” the overwhelming majority of respondents noted the merits of their projects (Program Com￾ponent), for example:
- importance of the project objective,
- clear definition of beneficiaries,
- particularity of the project topic,
- involvement of local authorities, enterprises, and the public in the project,
- coverage of several regions, etc.
In several cases partners noted that a correctly defined budget and a substantial match (Financial Component)
as well as a correctly structured and well-prepared application created a competitive advantage for their sub￾mission.
Only four partners noted the successful history of their partnership and the presence of a joint, long-term strat￾egy as a competitive advantage.
In the minds of most partners, the importance of the Program Component for their victory in the SPAN compe￾tition is considerably higher than the importance of Partnership Component—the same “weighting” as in the
application rating system used by IREX.
The criteria and mechanisms for assessing the Program Component and Financial and Administrative Compo￾nent are well established and relatively well defined. Since assessment of the Partnership Component is the
unique feature of the SPAN project, we will review it in greater detail below.
Comparison with a “model” is the basis for any assessment. Thus, in order to judge the adequacy of the criteria
for assessing the Partnership Component, it is necessary to have such a “model,” i.e., to define the elements of
a successful partnership. For this purpose we have the results of a poll of Russian and American partners and
Moscow-based and Washington-based IREX employees. We shall also review selected studies by specialists in
organizational development, sociologists and psychologists.
12
Table 2. Characteristics of an efficient partnership by the results of the poll of Russian and American SPAN
project participants (grant recipients)
Common understanding of the partner￾ships mission, strategy and objectives
The partners have a long-term strategy for cooperation which is not
fixed to a specific project or competition. This strategy is jointly
elaborated and presented in a joint document.
Common system of values The partner organizations share a common value orientation.
Clear division of responsibilities be￾tween the partners and mutual depend￾ency.
Both partners have clearly defined roles and zones of responsibil￾ity. These roles should be sufficiently important so that the partners
are mutually dependent on one another for the achievement of their
goals.
Equality in rights of the partners and
mutual benefit
Both partners participate in all aspects of project elaboration and
implementation; they do not suppress one another by their author￾ity. Both partners receive benefits from mutual activities and re￾sources are distributed on a fair basis.
Reliability of the partners Timely response to requests from the partners and complete ful￾fillment of obligations. Timely and candid operational information
about arising difficulties.
Stability and professionalism of partner
organizations, availability of permanent
teams from both sides
Both partner organizations are professionally stable; the core teams
of both partners have long term, consistent manpower.
Monitoring and self-evaluation Continuous tracking of the results of joint activity. Timely course
corrections in light of unexpected project results.
Duration of joint activities True partnerships are verified with effective results over time.
Effective communication Regular and frequent exchange of information, including regular
personal meetings between the heads of partner organizations.
Multiple people in both organizations are encouraged to develop
multiple relationships with each other. Availability of compatible
technical equipment and correspondent operational skills. Effective
translators.
Joint creative work Partners work includes joint exploration of new tasks, joint re￾search on new solutions, and exchange of new ideas.
Open, fair and mutually supportive re￾lationship between the partners.
Transparency: knowledge and understanding of conditions of part￾ner operations; openness and fairness in financial management.
Ability to listen to and understand one another; cultural sensitivity,
respect for and admission of cultural differences. Commitment to
problem-solving: readiness to compromise, including the compro￾mise detrimental to ones own interests, but necessary for the part￾nership; suspicions or misunderstandings are immediately ad￾dressed in results-oriented discussions.
Good interpersonal relationships be￾tween representatives of partner organi￾zations at all levels
Personal contacts between the representatives of partner organiza￾tions balance shared joys and problems with separation of business
relations and personal relations.
13
The answers of IREX employees in Moscow and in Washington to the question on what they would call an ef￾fective partnership practically coincide with the answers of the partners given above.
Let’s turn to the results of the studies. We shall review two examples from the areas close to the partnership
issues: set up of a team (“we are working as a single team”2
), establishment of group (organizational culture
(“We are doing one business, working for one idea. The environment which we are creating in our organiza￾tions does not depend on the countries where we live...”3
).
One of the most famous and used in practice concepts of team development was proposed by I.Rubin,
M.Plovnick and R.Fry (1977). The authors named it «Task-oriented team development». This model defines
four levels of team development:
- purpose (what?) - mission, goals, objectives;
- roles (who?) - zones of responsibility of team members,
- procedures (how?) - communications, structure, feedback,
- interpersonal relations - values, philosophy.
The authors of this concept believe that the presence of a common goal and mutual dependency of team mem￾bers on the way to this goal are necessary conditions of team development.
Edgar Schein - the author of a famous book «Organizational Culture and Leadership» (1988) - defines organ￾izational (group) culture as the experience which is accumulated by a group of people in the process of joint
work and overcoming difficulties related to the adaptation to the environment and to each other.
Relative stability of the team as well as the duration and intensity of joint activities are important factors in set￾ting up group culture. Schein believes that the most important result of the overcoming of the difficulties re￾lated to external adaptation is the achievement of the agreement regarding:
main purpose, mission of an organization;
objectives reflecting the mission of the organization;
means used to achieve these objectives (e.g. division of labor, organizational structure);
criteria of assessment of organization progress towards the achievement of the objectives;
ways to correct the course if the organization cannot achieve defined objectives.
The results of the overcoming of difficulties caused by internal integration are, in according with Schein:
common language and conceptual categories;
agreement regarding the boundaries of the group;
agreement regarding the criteria of the distribution of power;
internal “game rules” concerning the relationships between the colleagues;
agreement regarding the criteria of the distribution of incentives and penalties;
common ideology.
 
2
From an interview with a representative of a Russian partner.
14
The results of the researches similar to the above mentioned studies can be found in the books of many other
authors. Without going into detailed comparative analysis of theoretical concepts, we would like to mark their
similarity with the characteristics of an efficient partnership that were received during the poll. Live experience
of the partners and the opinion of IREX specialists coincide on the whole with the results of the studies of joint
activities.
Thus, the characteristics given in Table 2 can be used to examine the adequacy of evaluation criteria of partner￾ship component of the applications submitted to the SPAN competition. Before the comparison of efficiency
partnership characteristic features with the criteria used by IREX it is necessary to take into consideration the
fact that not all the characteristics given in Table 2 can be “measured” on the basis of applications submitted to
the competition.
Characteristics which can be assessed on the
basis of information in the SPAN applica￾tion:
Characteristics which are difficult to assess on
the basis of information in the SPAN applica￾tion:
Common understanding of the mission,
strategy and objectives of the partnership;
clear division of responsibilities between
the partners;
equality in rights of the partners and mu￾tual benefits;
stability and professionalism of partner or￾ganizations; availability of permanent
teams from both sides
Monitoring and self-evaluation
Duration of joint activities
Effective communication
Open, fair and mutually supportive relationship
between the partners.
Reliability of the partners
Good interpersonal relations between the rep￾resentatives of partnership organizations at
various levels
Joint creative work
Common system of values
Characteristics of effective partnerships which are difficult to assess on the basis of the SPAN application are
nevertheless important to consider in project monitoring, in preparation of training programs for partners, and
during consultations. In the competitive selection process, however, it only makes sense to use selection criteria
for which corresponding information has been requested in the RFP.
Our comparison of the selection criteria used by IREX with the characteristics of effective partnerships allows
us to draw the following conclusions.
• Criteria used by IREX to identify Russian-American partnerships that can broadly promote
SPAN objectives were adequate, conformed with SPAN objectives and reflected the gener￾ally accepted characteristics of effective partnerships that can be assessed on the basis of in￾formation submitted with SPAN grant applications.
 
3 From an interview with a representative of an American partner.
15
• In our judgment, the only characteristic of an effective partnership which was not clearly re￾flected in IREX’s selection criteria was the presence of a common partnership strategy.
• Experience gained by IREX and participating partner organizations during implementation
of the SPAN program has made it possible to specify realistic criteria for selecting effective
partnerships. These criteria can form the basis for a more formally structured assessment of
the Partnership Component of potential projects. A clearer understanding of what constitutes
an «effective partnership» will be helpful in selecting effective partnerships in the future.
Recommendations
1) Section 5 of the Program Proposal (RFP, Round 4, page 4) should be titled “Partnership Strategy
and Plans for Sustainability.” Partners should be asked to provide a brief description of their long￾term (4–5 year) partnership strategy and the assessment process should look for this common strat￾egy, the factor identified by most partners as the most important indicator of the sustainability and
effectiveness of a partnership.
2) Define “Institutional Capability” (RFP, Round 4, page 4) as a separate assessment category with its
own maximum weight, or combine “Institutional Capability” with “Personnel Qualifications” (RFP,
Round 4, page 5) and define their total weight, since these two criteria are both related to the Ad￾ministrative Component of the project.
16
Section 3 SPAN Project Implementation
3.1 Participants in the SPAN project and their roles in the project
The main participants in the SPAN project are USAID-Russia, IREX and selected Russian-American partner￾ships. Interaction between USAID and IREX is regulated by a Cooperative Agreement (CA). Interactions be￾tween IREX and the partnerships are regulated by Subagreements (SA) (Diagram 3).
USAID - Russia
IREX
PARTNERSHIPS
COOPERATIVE
AGREEMENT
SUBAGREEMENTS
Diagram 3. SPAN project participants and documents regulating participants' relationships
The Cooperative Agreement specifies that:
- USAID finances the SPAN program,
- approves the final solicitation documents for subgrants,
- conducts the final selection of partnership proposals to receive USAID funding,
- approves the IREX annual workplan and monitors IREX activities, and
- supervises the implementation of partnership projects.
The Cooperative Agreement further specifies that IREX is responsible for:
- managing solicitations and competitions,
- sharing expertise and resources (conducting workshops for partners representatives focused on making the
efforts of the partners more productive; facilitating dialogue and information sharing among the partners;
reviewing USAID rules and procedures; and providing on-going technical assistance),
- monitoring and evaluation (measuring partners’ progress against their workplans; informing USAID activity
managers on quarterly activities, planned site visits and other project events; identifying indicators of prog￾ress toward achievement of each of the operational objectives),
- information dissemination (developing a brochure in English and Russian on the SPAN program; adding a
web page on the SPAN Program to the IREX web site; creating a “listserv” e-mail interchange mechanism
for Russian and American SPAN partners; compiling a one-page English and Russian fact sheet on all sub-
17
grantees; collecting and cataloging products created by SPAN partnerships).
IREX is to provide USAID with reports in accordance with the requirements stated in the Cooperative Agree￾ment.
Subagreements stipulate that partners are responsible for implementing their projects on a timely basis, con￾ducting self-evaluations and providing IREX with certain specified reports. Formal responsibility to IREX and
USAID for project implementation rests with the lead partners, i.e., the partners actually receiving the grants.
The actual system of relationships among the participants in the SPAN project is much more complex, which is
partially shown in Diagram 4. IREX has offices in Moscow and Washington, and USAID interacts with both
offices. In accordance with IREX policy, financial monitoring of projects is performed by the IREX office lo￾cated in the country of the lead partner, even though most program activities are performed in Russia. Because
Russian organizations often have difficulty with reporting, mainly because of differences between Russian and
US accounting systems and difficulties with currency conversion, the IREX/Moscow financial staff is in touch
with all the Russian partners (both lead and non-lead). Specialists from IREX-DC and IREX-Russia monitor
the projects in Russia and the US, both together and separately. Most direct contacts take place between
USAID and IREX-Russia, although reports to USAID are delivered by IREX-DC. When monitoring IREX ac￾tivities, USAID interacts not only with IREX but also directly with project partners.
USAID-Russia
IREX-Russia IREX-DC
Russian partners American partners
Russia USA
USAID
IREX
PARTNERSHIPS
Diagram 4. Layout of interaction between the participants of the SPAN project
Naturally, each organization taking part in a SPAN project has its own “local” policies and procedures, tradi￾tions, and unique organizational culture. At the same time, the processes that make the SPAN project work—
managing grant rounds, monitoring and reporting, and financial management—are “through” processes, that is,
they must “pass through” the established boundaries of all of the participating organizations.
In order to assure the effective implementation of the SPAN project, it is very important for all participants to
18
create and agree upon unified policies and procedures that transcend the boundaries of the participating organi￾zations and countries where they are located. All participants in the SPAN project must clearly understand their
place in the overall scheme of things, including their obligation to operate by rules that apply to everyone.
3.2 Basic processes of the SPAN project
Before beginning a process analysis, it is necessary to point out that IREX has tremendous experience manag￾ing partnership grants and management of the SPAN project is performed on a highly professional level. Nev￾ertheless, as with any self-critical, “learning organization,” there is always the possibility for improvement.
The SPAN project involves five key organizational processes:
 Managing grant rounds
 Monitoring and self-evaluation
 Reporting and feedback on reports received
 Technical assistance provided by IREX to the partners
 Distribution of information and networking
Managing a Grant Round
Grant rounds are the central organizing feature of the SPAN project. A grant round is the two-fold proc￾ess of naming and advertising SPAN project objectives and then selecting partnerships capable of the
most effective implementation of those objectives. A flowchart of a single grant round is included below
as Diagram 5. Since IREX does not yet have a single, formal description of a grant round, the flowchart
was created on the basis of interviews with IREX specialists and other available documentation4
. The
flowchart accurately reflects the competitive selection and grant making process from the development of
the RFP to the signing of Subagreements with the winners of the competition. Steps in the grant round
performed by USAID are shown in gray.
All of the grant rounds were performed within specified time frames and in accordance with rules agreed
upon by USAID and IREX. IREX effectively completed the huge task of informing potential participants
about the competition, consulting with grant applicants, and sharing expertise related to the application
process. It is also necessary to note the well organized storage of documentation in IREX offices in Rus￾sia and the USA. We were provided with any materials related to the SPAN project in a very efficient
way.
 
4
Documentation of procedures used throughout the project does exist. When Tracy Dolan, the current IREX-Moscow Director of the
Partnerships and Training Division, came into the project in the midst of SPAN Round Three, she was immediately able to begin man￾aging the project on the basis of documents given to her by her predecessor. His files, which included detailed descriptions of each step
of the funding rounds as well as issues related to all of the partnerships, adequately documented each stage of the project up to that
point and included a summary of "lessons learned."
19
Elaboration of RFP
Whether RFP meets
USAID requirements?
Informing potential
applicants about the
RFP
Consultations on the
applications, answers
to the questions about
the requirements of the
competition
Acceptance and
registration of the
applications
Whether the application
meets formal requirements of
the competition?
Sending confirmations
of the acceptance of
applicatoins for the
competition
Sending notifications
that the applications
were not accepted for
consideration
Making decisions on
necessary number of
experts for the sectors
Phone negotiations
with the experts,
definition of date and
time of the meeting
yes
no
yes
Adjustment of RFP
no
Distribution of
applications among the
sectors and calcualtion
of applications for each
sector
Meeting with experts,
signing of contracts,
distribution of
applications for review
Expertise of the
applications, filling in
evaluation forms
Conducting expert panels and
selecting apllications to be
recommended for funding
Meeting of IREX-SPAN team and
preparation of the final pool and
rejection table with all comments
Transfer of the final
pool and rejection table
to USAID
Selection of the
winners of the
competition from the
final pool
Transfer of the list of
confirmed winners of
the competition to
IREX
Informing the winners of the
competition about their success
and suggestion to adjust their
applpications (if neccesary)
Preparation and
negotiation of
SUBAGREEMENTS
Signing
SUBAGREEMENTS
with partners
Whether the partners agree to
adjust the application in accordance with IREX
and USAID requirements?
Collection of adjusted
applications
yes
Rejecting applications
no
Adjustments of
applications
Diagram 5. SPAN grant round flow chart
20
In this section of the report we would like to address the issue of interactions between IREX and
USAID during discussions of the final pool. In their conversations with the evaluation team, both
USAID activity managers and IREX staff mentioned disagreements which arose between USAID
and IREX regarding the quality and results of the preliminary selection of applications. To the
credit of both parties, these disagreements were resolved every time through negotiations. It is im￾portant to «get to the bottom» of these disagreements, however, because the negotiations consumed
considerable time, effort, and emotional energy.
Because of the nature of SPAN activities, i.e., crosscutting programs in support of all USAID￾Russia efforts in key priority areas, and the frequency of changes in Mission priority areas and in￾termediate results, the Cooperative Agreement between USAID and IREX establishes only general
criteria and formal obligatory requirements to be met by partner organizations.
Besides expertise in the subject fields USAID brings knowledge to the selection process that was
not communicated earlier to the selection panel -- and it may be that USAID has new information
that was not available at the time the RFP was written and approved. For example, USAID may
know that an applicant has just received significant funding from another source, perhaps from
some other part of USAID itself. Or a new directive may have been issued recently setting new pri￾orities that alter those communicated at the time the RFP was issued. In other words, USAID's
funding priorities are neither "static" nor totally context-free. Often these events are not within
USAID's control and they could not be known at the time of the RFP.
For its part, IREX acts in accordance with rules agreed on with USAID and uses the agreed system
of assessing applications with criteria specified in the RFP. The resulting final pool of applications
is the agreed consequence of the application assessment process. So, «formally», USAID does not
have any grounds for questioning the results of IREX activities.
Thus, the fact that the results of the selection process did not correspond with USAID’s expecta￾tions is a signal that:
a) the selection process is not working in accordance with the donor’s wishes,
and/or
b) there is no effective way for incorporating important current information from USAID into the
selection process.
In the first case (a), USAID should evaluate the results of the competition against its priorities, and
when the final pool does not meet its requirements, USAID should have a way to modify the selec￾tion process. In the second case (b), the problem becomes one of how to design a selection process
that incorporates important new information in a seamless manner. Both cases are related to the de￾sign of the selection process.
21
In an attempt to eliminate these problems, the representatives of IREX and USAID decided in the
4th round to include USAID representatives (activity managers and subject experts) in the expert
panels during the preliminary assessment process. Their intention was to incorporate USAID
knowledge into the selection process and avoid contradictions at a later stage after the proposals
had already been selected by the expert panel and recommended by IREX. This approach did not
solve the problem; USAID still disagreed with some of the results of the 4th round selection con￾ducted by IREX and decided to fund two projects rejected by the expert panel and by IREX.
From an organizational point of view, we believe that the disagreements on the results of the selec￾tion process were the consequence of three unresolved problems.
1) The selection process is designed so that there is no way to incorporate USAID knowledge and
new information USAID receives in the preliminary stages of assessing applications.
2) The main principles for guiding the management of grant rounds are not yet formalized and
agreed on by the parties. Some principles are partially stated in various documents and some are
assumed by default by various people in various forms. When USAID casts doubt on the results of
the work conducted by IREX, it «violates» the principles of the «Invariability of Decisions Which
Have Already Been Made» and «Permanency of Rules» (expressions proposed by the evaluation
team and elaborated below) which were followed, by default, by IREX.
3) Experience has shown that agreement on the content of the Request for Proposal proved an in￾sufficient basis for managing the complex project selection process. Since it is not possible to fore￾see all situations, it is both necessary and desirable to use such a significant, emerging situation as
the occasion to create new principles and policies. It was possible to modify the evaluation proce￾dure and to agree on the correctness of the modified procedure. It should also be possible to intro￾duce mechanisms into future grant rounds that accommodate USAID’s requirements. It should be
possible, for example, to agree on expert staff so that both USAID and IREX trust the specialist
panel. With agreement on selection criteria («They are appropriate.»), expert staff («We trust
them.») and selection procedures («We consider them to be correct.»), the results of the selection
process should be accepted by both parties. Nevertheless, there should still be a means for modi￾fying this process and incorporating new information in a seamless manner.
 Conclusions
· IREX has years of valuable experience managing grant rounds. This experience should be thor￾oughly analyzed and described in policy and procedural terms. Such a document containing the
internal policies and procedures that will summarize and systemize IREX’s experience in man￾aging grant rounds will be useful from both a practical and a methodological point of view, i.e.,
it will benefit current projects as well as functioning as a foundational resource for years to
come. It is essential to preserve this institutional memory of field experience and to formulate
22
knowledge important for the organization from the experience of specific people.
· Disagreements between USAID and IREX while discussing grant round results are caused by
the lack of effective policies and procedures for round completion. The existing selection proc￾ess doesn’t allow USAID to effectively incorporate its knowledge, expertise and the new infor￾mation it receives to the benefit of the SPAN program.
Recommendations
1) The selection process should be modified so that USAID considerations are incorporated, le￾gitimately and integrally, not applied to reverse "final" recommendations by the expert panel and
IREX. The optimal mode of incorporating USAID in the selection process should be jointly ex￾plored by USAID and IREX, and the selection process modified accordingly.
2) Formulate basic written principles (policies) for guiding and detailed procedures for managing
grant rounds. It is convenient to use flowchart methodology to graphically illustrate such proce￾dures.
As examples5
, we suggest the following principles for discussion:
Permanency of rules. The declared rules for managing a grant round cannot be modified before
the round is completed.
Openness of procedures. Participants in the competition are informed about how the process of
identifying winners will be organized.
Confidentiality of experts. The list of experts retained to assess applications and any information
about them is kept confidential. Access to this information is granted to a limited number of IREX
and USAID employees.
Independence of experts. Specialists conducting expert assessments of applications are identified
and assigned by IREX and work individually and independently from one another. Experts should
not know who else is assessing any given application.
Division of competence. Expert assessment of applications is conducted by specialists exclusively
within the limits of their own competence. One consequence of this principle might be, for exam￾ple, that assessment of the Partnership Component of an application would be conducted by IREX
employees as “specialists in partnership,” and not by experts in other specific areas.
Division of power in decision making. Experts involved in assessing applications do not take part
in deciding which applicants to include in the final pool. IREX specialists do not participate in the
expert assessment of applications and do not influence this step in the assessment process. Rather,
IREX specialists are responsible for naming the final pool in light of the experts’ rating. USAID
does not participate in the expert assessment of applications and does not influence this step in the
assessment process. USAID does not take part in deciding which applicants to include in the final
 
5 The evaluation team realizes the complexity of this situation and suggests the following principles only as an example for fur￾ther discussion between USAID and IREX. We don’t pretend to be able to suggest the right solution without participation of
both parties involved. We hope that the format of the suggested principles and the questions those principles address may help to
focus the discussion on the key issues in finding the best solutions.
23
pool. USAID does select the winners of the competition from the applications included in the final
pool by IREX.
Invariability of decisions which have already been made. The decisions made during the assess￾ment of an application cannot be changed at further steps. For example, the rates given by an in￾dependent expert can not be modified at a meeting of IREX managers, nor could an application
rejected by IREX be declared a winner by USAID.
3) IREX should carefully analyze the processes used for the expert assessment of applications and
should create policies and procedures for managing this specific step in each grant round. The
present study did no have as its goal a thorough analysis of how the expert assessment was organ￾ized, nevertheless, the information that we received shows that the parties would do well to:
a. Clearly define what practically constitutes “independence” and to make sure that experts work
in conformity with these operational rules. (For example, experts are not to be influenced by
other experts nor by IREX and USAID.)
b. Define the exact standards that an application must meet in order to receive the maximum
points for each rating. These standards should be available to all experts as formal, written
guidance.
c. All experts should evaluate projects using a single rating scale. For example, experts might
award top projects 8, 9 or 10 points out of a possible 10 points on a “10-point scale.” The in￾troduction of weighted ratios and the final calculation of points awarded to any application
should be made by IREX.
d. Define the status of the decisions made by the experts and strictly respect them. The experts
should assess the applications, but should not discuss whether any given applicant should be
recommended for funding. The decision about what projects to recommend for funding should
be made by IREX, taking the experts’ opinions into consideration. The decision on what appli￾cants will actually receive funding should be made by USAID, in its turn, taking IREX’s rec￾ommendations into consideration. (This step-by-step process is analogous to the process of
taking testimony in a court of law or conducting hearings before a legislative committee. Ex￾perts offer testimony within the framework of their competence and may even draw conclusions,
as when a forensic psychiatrist makes a judgment about a defendant’s competence or a scientist
draws conclusions about the efficacy of a drug. But in both cases, testimony is offered by ex￾perts whose only role is to inform other persons who are empowered to make the final judg￾ments.)
e. Discuss the possibility of using individual expert ratings for every application instead of expert
panels.
24
Monitoring and self-evaluation
We shall start from a definition of key concepts.
“Monitoring” is the continuous tracking of work progress in the framework of a project, program or
organization, for the comparison of the actual status of activities with the planned status. Monitor￾ing implies a systematic collection of information about the progress of work—a kind of “scan￾ning” of the situation—conducted as a routine procedure intended mostly for timely identification
of deviations from the defined plan. A well-organized monitoring system allows the head of an or￾ganization to react to deviations in time to keep his/her organization’s efforts “on track.”
“Evaluation” or “self-evaluation” takes monitoring a step further and implies a deeper penetration
into the reality of the situation. Evaluation analyzes the results of activity and compares these re￾sults with certain criteria. Evaluation provides a basis for drawing conclusions about the effective￾ness of a program, project or organization and for making recommendations for improvements in
the future. Data received from monitoring activities are used in conducting evaluations and making
recommendations.
Self-evaluation was one of the mandatory sections of the SPAN project application and in the
SPAN RFP partners were asked to:
- describe how they would evaluate the success of their project on the basis of their goals and
objectives and how they would demonstrate visible results in relation to USAID’s Strategic
Objectives;
- state the expected results and benefits of the proposed project to both US and Russian partners
and how they would document them.
In accordance with the RFP, a self-evaluation section was present in every application.
After the completion of every grant round, a workshop was held for representatives of the organi￾zations receiving grants. One of the workshop sessions (1.5 hours) was devoted to monitoring and
evaluation.
IREX Monitoring Role. IREX was involved in both financial and program monitoring of projects.
Because analysis of financial monitoring activities is beyond the scope of this evaluation, we will
simply note that financial monitoring of the projects with American lead partners was conducted by
the US office of IREX, and financial monitoring of projects with Russian lead partners was con￾ducted by the Russian office of IREX. Because Russian organizations often have difficulty with re￾porting, mainly because of differences between Russian and US accounting systems and difficulties
with currency conversion, the IREX/Moscow financial staff is in touch with all the Russian part￾ners (both lead and non-lead). For example, the IREX/Moscow Senior Financial Officer regularly
answers questions from Junior Achievement Russia.
Program monitoring was performed by IREX program officers. One Russian and one American
IREX officer were assigned to each project. Phone conversations, e-mail correspondence, and site
25
visits (at least twice a year) were used to collect information about project progress. Together,
these two officers tracked the progress of the project and provided necessary technical assistance to
the partners. All IREX officers (with the exception of two specialists recently hired by the Ameri￾can office) have the experience of participation in dozens of site visits. Interviews with partners
confirmed the reality of regular communication and good working contacts with IREX specialists.
IREX specialists have up-to-date information about the progress of every project and are personally
acquainted with the employees of partner organizations. Problems emerging during the projects
were identified in time and the quarterly reports submitted by IREX to USAID contained detailed
descriptions of the status of every project.
The only difficulty in tracking projects noted by IREX specialists was the fact that the partners did
not always inform IREX of important events being planned. As a result, IREX was not always able
to attend important events or to inform USAID about these events. We understand that the partners
had not appreciated the importance to IREX of attending such events, and thus, of being informed
about them before they occurred.
Soon after the financial crisis of 1998, IREX conducted an urgent interview of partner organiza￾tions. IREX wished to understand how the crisis had influenced the partner organizations and what
impact it would have on the SPAN project as a whole. IREX learned that the partnerships had lost
almost none of the SPAN project funds. During our interviews, the partners confirmed that the
main problems they faced were related to the paralysis of the Russian banking system and the fact
that it had not been possible to use familiar mechanisms of funding. New funding mechanism were
found by the partners, either by themselves or with the assistance of IREX, during the two months
after the crisis. In some cases these challenges only caused delays in project implementation sched￾ules. During one of the interviews conducted by the evaluation team, when an American partner
was asked about the impact of the 1998 crisis on the course of the project, he replied, “What crisis?
Our Russian partner has not mentioned any crisis!”
In the opinion of the partners, the impact of the crisis was rather positive for them. The US dollar
exchange rate increased four times in relation to the ruble. At the same time, prices and salaries in
Russia were increasing more slowly than the dollar exchange rate. As a result, the partners had at
their disposal sufficient rubles to perform more work within the framework of the grant. Partners
sought and received IREX’s approval to conduct additional workshops and conferences, and/or to
buy additional equipment and materials.
USAID Monitoring Role. USAID monitored IREX activities using various methods of information
gathering, including interviews (personal meetings with IREX employees), telephone conversa￾tions, e-mail correspondence, site visits to partnership projects, IREX reports, and, selectively, re￾ports of the partners.
In interviews with the evaluation team, USAID activity managers noted that they had not always
gotten information about the progress of the SPAN project on time or in necessary detail. In par￾ticular, they mentioned the delay or the lack of information about important events (as mentioned
26
above) and irregular information about solutions to problems identified by IREX. USAID repre￾sentatives also mentioned their desire to conduct more site visits together with IREX.
The evaluation team’s interviews at IREX revealed that IREX specialists were not aware of
USAID’s problems getting information on the progress of the SPAN project.
On the basis of this feedback, we see that communication between USAID and IREX is not effec￾tive enough. This is caused by the absence of a monitoring system for the SPAN project itself. Both
IREX and USAID work independently and have independent experience tracking the progress of
the projects which is not formalized in both organizations. Absence of an agreed system of policies
and procedures for project monitoring allows the continuance of flawed communication that leads
to the deficiencies noted above.
We shall consider an example.
IREX identified a financial problem in one of the projects. The problem turned out to be so serious
that IREX suspended the project’s funding. IREX informed USAID about the measures it had
taken, including steps planned for problem solving with the partner. For various reasons, several
months later, the problems had not yet been resolved and the deadline for fulfillment of the planned
steps had passed. In situations involving non-compliance like this, a rule that could help to avoid
misunderstandings between IREX and USAID might be formulated, for example, like this: “If a
problem situation arises during implementation of a SPAN project, IREX will immediately inform
USAID about the problem and the plan for its resolution, with specific dates, so that IREX can
systematically inform USAID about the status of the problem solving plan.”
Partner Self-Evaluation. The SPAN project was implemented with the assumption that partners
would not only provide IREX with information for project monitoring, but would also conduct self￾evaluation in accordance with the models defined in their applications. The interviews conducted
by the evaluation team showed that all partners provided information about the progress of their
projects, but only 20% of the partners conducted any self-evaluation. Most partners’ reports omit
any analysis of project progress that takes into account the distinction between monitoring and
evaluation and the requirement to undertake both. We believe that this situation is explained by the
lack of self-evaluation skills among most partners and also by the fact that partners do not pay par￾ticular attention to analyzing the progress of their own projects.
Self-evaluation is a rather difficult process. The 1.5 hours allocated at the grantee conference to
orient partners to monitoring and evaluation turned out to be insufficient. Moreover, most of the
participants in the conference had other priorities which drew their attention, including financial
management and financial reporting, procedures for interaction with IREX, and negotiations with
their partners regarding future projects. It would not be correct to expect the partners to conduct
self-evaluation without more adequate training.
27
Conclusions
· IREX possesses information on the progress of partnership projects and is able to identify
emerging problems on a timely basis.
· IREX specialists’ experience in project monitoring allows them to achieve good results, how￾ever, this experience is not systematized in any formal document. There is no formal monitoring
system and the adequacy of understanding situations is dependent on the individual skills of
IREX specialists.
· A formal system of project monitoring based on IREX’s successful experience would make it
possible to save time training new specialists, would make employees’ reports more consistent
and convenient to use, would increase the effectiveness of interaction with the donor, and would
expand IREX’s institutional memory. Work in this direction is already underway.
· There is not enough clarity between USAID and IREX concerning rules and procedures for
monitoring IREX’s activities.
· Communications between USAID activity managers and IREX are not sufficiently effective.
· Partners provide IREX with complete and timely information about the progress of their proj￾ects’ implementation, however, most do not conduct self-evaluation because they lack the nec￾essary skills and instruments.
Recommendations
1) Set up a system of SPAN project monitoring that can be used in other IREX partnership proj￾ects. This system should include guidance on how to plan monitoring activities and a definition
of tasks for specialists conducting monitoring activities.
2) The system of SPAN project monitoring should consist of three levels: monitoring and self￾evaluation at the partnership level, monitoring at the IREX level and monitoring at the USAID
level. The rules and procedures for monitoring on all three levels should be agreed on by IREX
and USAID.
3) Compile and to distribute a “how-to” manual on self-evaluation oriented to independent use by
the partners. A self-evaluation toolkit should be included in the manual. Explain to partners at
the grantee conference why self-evaluation is necessary and practically beneficial, and what
importance is attached to self-evaluation by USAID. It is important to define it as a specific,
practical task rather than as a general recommendation or advice. Organize a thorough-going
training on self-evaluation for representatives of partner organizations.
4) Conduct a meeting with IREX staff and USAID activity managers to discuss roadblocks in the
information exchange process and to find ways to improve the effectiveness of communication.
The resulting decisions should be defined as formal rules and procedures.
28
Reporting and feedback on Reports
Partners submit to IREX monthly activity and financial reports
and a final report after the completion of the project.
IREX submits to USAID program and financial reports as well as
reports on their site visits and, if necessary, reports from partners.
After the completion of the SPAN project, IREX submits a final
report.
All the partners interviewed by the evaluation team reported that
the requirements for reports were clearly formulated and necessary
instructions were included in the manual handed to them at the
grantee conference. In several cases, partners reported that the re￾quirements for financial reporting were so well formulated in the
manual that it had been unnecessary to consult IREX further. The
requirement to submit monthly reports was perceived differently
by different partners. About one third of those interviewed be￾lieved that, since report preparation is so time consuming, monthly
reporting is too frequent and that reporting on a quarterly basis
would be sufficient. One partner suggested the possibility of writ￾ing a full report in only one language, for example, in Russian,
with a summary report in English. His rationale was based on his
assumption that it would be necessary to write two distinct reports,
one in each language, to guarantee the quality of a full report in
both languages.
All the partners reported that they received necessary feedback from IREX regarding financial re￾ports and practically no feedback from IREX about the program component of the reports.
IREX employees at both offices gave similar answers about feedback on their reports to USAID.
All of them reported that they had never received any direct feedback from USAID on the quarterly
reports they had submitted. (See Diagram 6.)
Conclusions
· The requirements for reporting in the framework of the SPAN project are well formu￾lated and reports are submitted by all parties in sufficient detail and on time.
· Monthly reports are difficult for one third of the partners. Some partners also find it
difficult to write reports in two languages.
· Neither the partners nor IREX receive feedback from the recipients of their reports,
i.e., IREX and USAID respectively. Information flow is one-way.
Partnerships
IREX
USAID
Monthly activity and financial reports,
Final report
? (no feedback)
Quarterly reports, site visits reports,
financial reports, final report
? (no feedback)
Diagram 6. Reporting and
feedback in the SPAN project
29
Recommendation:
Make the exchange of information two-way by requiring feedback to submitted reports. IREX
could do this using electronic mail. USAID and IREX could hold quarterly meetings for this pur￾pose.
Technical assistance
Technical assistance provided by IREX to the partners includes workshops for the winners of the
grant rounds; program, financial, and/or administrative consultations regarding current problems;
and mediation assistance to help with the establishment of effective partnership relations.
All the interviewees confirmed the good organization and timeliness of workshops and the high
quality and practical usefulness of hand-outs. In the opinion of the partners, these workshops have
two main tasks:
- meeting with project partners to discuss plans for future joint work, and,
- getting detailed information on requirements for grant management and reporting.
Partner requests to IREX were mostly for updates of budgets and working plans. In all cases, part￾ners received fast and competent answers. The only exception was the financial crisis of 1998,
when some Russian partners managed to find alternative funding for their work before IREX pro￾posed its own scheme, a delay clearly related to the severity of the national crisis.
Most of the interviewees believe that the main role of IREX is to administer the grants and monitor
the partnership projects. Practically all of them consider this role to be extremely important, since
USAID is not able to maintain such a number of small projects.
At the same time, the partners do not regard IREX as a consulting service. In particular, none of the
partners confirmed IREX’s mediation role. All of them reported that they had developed their rela￾tionship with their partners and had solved emerging problems on their own, without asking for as￾sistance from IREX or any other independent organization. Such a discrepancy between the self￾definition of IREX and the perception of IREX’s partners can be explained by various reasons:
- IREX overestimates the importance of its role as a mediator within the SPAN project. This role
may have been more explicit in previous partnership projects.
- Partners and IREX mean different things when they speak about mediation.
- Partners do not want to speak about IREX mediation services since issues requiring mediation
are often very sensitive.
While all partners confirmed the positive attitudes and openness of IREX staff, representatives of
strong partner organizations with extensive working experience and strong professional staff only
regard IREX as an organization for conducting the competition and managing grants. They do not
need consulting assistance from IREX.
30
Conclusions
· IREX technical assistance to the SPAN partners was mostly limited to conducting the
startup workshop and further consulting regarding the update of budgets and plans.
· In some cases, when partners lack extensive experience in grant administration or
when the partners faced unexpected circumstances, IREX specialists helped them to
resolve emerging problems with timely, highly qualified assistance.
· The higher the institutional capability of partners, the less they feel the need for con￾sulting services and other technical assistance from IREX. As partner organizations
mature, IREX will have increased opportunity for in-depth research and analytical
work with a corresponding increase in the importance of its monitoring and evaluation
functions.
Dissemination of information and Networking
The chart below summarizes IREX’s fulfillment of its obligations for dissemination of information
in accordance with its Cooperative Agreement with USAID .
Obligation Fulfillment
Develop a brochure in English and Russian on the
SPAN program
The brochure was developed and published.
Add a World Wide Web page on the SPAN Pro￾gram to the IREX server
A World Wide Web page on the SPAN Pro￾gram was installed on the IREX server
Create a listserv for the Russian and American
SPAN partners
Listserv was developed and works
Collect a one-page English and Russian fact sheet
about all subgrantees
The fact sheets have been collected
Collect and catalog products created by SPAN part￾nerships
This work is being conducted and will be com￾pleted by the end of the SPAN project
In meetings with the evaluation team, partners made several important recommendations for im￾proving the effectiveness of information dissemination.
Web presence. The SPAN Project web page should be more dynamic by updating information on
this page more often and by including success stories, articles for use with newspapers and maga￾zines, problems and solutions, requests of the partners to each other, etc.
IREX networking support for SPAN partners. Many partners reported that they would like to have
more information about other partnership projects and about opportunities for extending their own
31
linkages. SPAN workshops cannot meet this need as partners prefer to use these workshops for
communication with each other and not with representatives of other projects. The potential benefit
of networking support by IREX is far from being fulfilled. During evaluation interviews partners
were eager for information members of the evaluation team might have about available opportuni￾ties. For example, during the interview with representatives of DCTV in New York City, DCTV’s
commitment to work with disabled people came to light. The DCTV staff members were interested
in learning about the two SPAN partners (World Institute of Disability/ Perspektiva) who focus on
disability awareness and have experience and techniques of potential benefit to DCTV.
Public relations. SPAN project results are widely discussed in Russian mass-media, especially at
the local and regional levels, while American mass-media receive no information about successful
SPAN partnerships. For example, an American partner spoke about a reporter who wanted to do a
partnership story only to be blocked when his editor learned that the story’s central theme was not
about corruption. In the face of such editorial tendencies, publication of successful partnership sto￾ries in American mass-media is essential for informing American citizens about progress in Rus￾sian-American relations.
Conclusion
· IREX fulfills its obligations on information dissemination. In the course of project implementa￾tion, however, several additional arenas of need have come to light.
Recommendations
1) Consider ways for expanding the number of resources available on the website and keeping it
more current.
2) Activate a more extensive partner networking function. To achieve this goal it is probably nec￾essary to develop new methods of work, including use of the Internet and telecommunications.
3) Promote the placement of information about the SPAN project and success stories about Rus￾sian-American cooperation in American mass-media.
3.3. Flexibility of the program
We have already mentioned the fact that, without exception, all the partners highly praise the flexibility of
the SPAN program, especially in comparison with other programs in which they have participated.
We will give several examples.
The ISC (Vermont) / Clean Home (Nizhni Tagil) partnership approached IREX with a request for permis￾sion to purchase two refuse collecting machines, though these had not been envisaged in their project
plan, nor, of course, in their initial budget. The request was well substantiated and permission was
granted.
The Vozmozhnost dlia Vsekh / Opportunity International partnership developed microlending programs
in the Nizhni Novgorod region. By the end of the project, the Russian partner had achieved a level of loan
32
repayment sufficient to support employee salaries. Because it did not need SPAN grant funds to pay its
staff, the Russian partner requested that funds from the salary account be transferred to the organization’s
credit portfolio, allowing it to extend its lending activities.
Most partners had to postpone elements of their project implementation because of the 1998 crisis. These
updates in workplans and timelines were completed quickly and to the benefit of the partners.
Conclusion
· The SPAN program reacts flexibly and creatively to partners’ needs in the changing envi￾ronment.
33
Section 4 Program Results
In this section of the report we describe the results of the SPAN project for the partnerships (Diagram 7).
The results described below all contributed to the sustainability of the partners which increased in nearly
all cases. We shall review project sustainability in greater detail in the next section.
In spite of the fact that it was not one of the SPAN priorities, establishment of new organizations was an
important outcome for one third of the projects.
All 24 partnerships were creating new or improving existing technologies as well as distributing these
technologies. In our reporting, we have combined acquisition of new skills with development of new
technologies since these two processes are closely related.
We found that the SPAN project had assisted the institutional development of 75% of the partnerships.
This is a testimony to the fact that a quarter of the SPAN partners are already strong, self-sustaining or￾ganizations for whom the impact of a single project is minimal.
It is interesting to note that the SPAN project helped 79% of the partners to establish new networks. Ap￾proximately one third of these cases were not planned. Such unanticipated interest in informal profes￾sional and mutual interest connections suggests the large potential for formal networking assistance as a
legitimate development strategy in its own right.
Equipment was of central importance for implementation in 42% of the SPAN projects. This does not
mean that other partners did not purchase equipment, but rather that we highlighted the projects where
new equipment was of crucial importance, e.g., sewing machines for shops in St. Petersburg and modern
digital editing equipment for creating videos on community issues in Tomsk.
New discoveries and skills in programming can be identified, in our judgment, in 88% of the projects.
The rest (12% = 3 projects) did not acquire anything new in this area because they used rather standard￾ized programs in their new areas of activity.
88%
42%
79%
75%
100%
33%
92%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Programming
Equipment avaliability
Creating or developing
networks
Institutional development
Development or transer of
technilogies, skills
development
Creating new organizations
or branches of existing ones
Increased partnership
sustainability
Diagram 7. The results of the SPAN Project for partnerships
34
Section 5 Sustainability of SPAN Partnerships
Since the term “sustainability” cannot be exactly translated into Russia, writing the report in English
eases the task of the evaluation team. Sustainability of partnerships most often implies one, two or all
three of the meanings shown in Diagram 8.
Many partners said that sustainable relationships do not depend on this or that project, finances or other
external factors. In many cases SPAN partners already have long-term, sustainable relationships; they
know that they will cooperate irrespective of their success or failure in this or that competition. It seems
clear that the meaning of the word ‘sustainability’ becomes real for partners in their long-term, common
partnership strategies which do not depend on a specific project or projects.
Sustainable joint activities are nevertheless dependent on finances. Some partners said that it was neces￾sary to perform some joint work in order to maintain the relationship, and for this purpose they needed
funds. However, the level of joint activity necessary to maintain the relationship does not need to be very
high. Partners may have enough money to maintain joint activities if both organizations are individually
financially stable.
One definition of financial sustainability is contained in a well-known formula. Financial sustainability is
the ability of an organization to:
cover current expenses from current revenues,
cover future expenses from future revenues,
acquire fixed assets,
cover unforeseen expenses.
In summary, we see that a sustainable partnership is
a partnership between two financially sustainable
organizations operating together out of a long-term,
joint strategy.
The importance of the SPAN project for the main￾tenance of partnership sustainability is that Russian
and American organizations received financial as￾sistance (cf. the definition) in order to work to￾gether for the relatively long period of 1.5 years,
implementing their long-term plans.
We tried to evaluate the number of sustainable partnerships corresponding to our definition.6
 For this
purpose we initially assumed that a long-term, joint strategy does not require a formal structure or docu￾ment, only that partners be aware of future joint activity. By this definition, all but two of the 24 partner￾ships (22 = 92%) may be considered sustainable partnerships. See Diagram 7.
 
6
It is important to understand that we did not perform a detailed evaluation of separate partner organizations and drew our conclusions on the
basis of only a brief review.
Diagram 8. Meanings of Sustainability
Financial sustainability
of partner
organizations
Sustainable
relationship Sustainable
joint activities
Partnership
Sustainability
35
It is possible, however, to define tighter limits, for example, to consider that a sustainable partnership ex￾ists only when partners have in mind one or more of the main components of a joint strategic plan. Their
plan need not be structured or documented. In this more restrictive sense, we estimate that the number of
sustainable partnerships will be not more than 2/3 of the total—less than 16.
If we draw the criteria more tightly still, we see that not more than eight partnerships have well developed
and formally documented joint strategies.
All partner organizations can be considered financially sustainable according to the four-part definition
above, but the approximate number of sustainable partnerships—those which will continue their joint ac￾tivities after the completion of the SPAN project—will be in the range of from 8 to 16 partnerships.
We are not inclined to link the sustainability of a partnership directly with whether partner organizations
sell goods or services. No partnership interviewed by the evaluation team believed that it would develop
in the near future exclusively by selling goods or services. All partners count, to a greater or lesser de￾gree, on donor assistance.
Nevertheless, at the time of the evaluation:
10 SPAN partnerships received some revenues from selling goods or services,
2 had an opportunity to sell goods or services and wanted to try it out,
12 did not see such an opportunity and had decided to attract funds by other means.
We interviewed all Russian SPAN partners regarding the sources of funding they had had in the past or
had at the time of the interview. SPAN project funding was not included. Their answers are shown in
Diagram 9. The numbers in the diagram show how often each source of funding was mentioned.
1
1
1
1
2
2
3
6
6
6
19
21
0 5 10 15 20 25
TACIS
World Bank
Membership fees
Private donations
European Union
UN
Eurasia Foundation
Know-how Foundation
Foreign and Russian
business
Federal, regional and
local budgets
Private foreign funds
USAID and USAID
funded programs
Diagram 9. Sources of Funding mentioned by Russian SPAN partners
36
It is easy to notice that more than half (60%) of the funding sources named by the partners are related ei￾ther to USAID or to foreign private foundations. These data correctly reflect the proportion of funding
sources for Russian SPAN partners. However, it would be necessary to conduct additional research to get
more particular quantitative indicators.
As far as Russian-American PARTNERSHIPS are concerned, none of them have linkages with any do￾nors in Russia except USAID.
37
Section 6 Perspectives on developing partnership projects
It is obvious that IREX and the partners involved in the SPAN project have accumulated a unique body of
knowledge from their experience implementing Russian-American partnership projects. From one third to
one half of the partnerships funded by the SPAN project are sustainable and will likely continue joint ac￾tivities after the completion of SPAN project funding.
For the sake of future partnership programs is very important for USAID to tap the potential knowledge
base resulting from the SPAN project. To turn project experience into useful knowledge it will be neces￾sary to ensure that:
- IREX and the partners analyze and describe their experience,
- this experience be disseminated in tangible, useful forms,
- organizations possessing this experience take part in its dissemination.
Analysis and description of partnerships’ experience is a separate and labor intensive task not foreseen in
the agreement between IREX and USAID. Yet there is still sufficient time before the completion of the
project and we recommend that discussions be organized to define the tasks, methods, time and resources
needed to effectively document partnership methodologies and practices developed by SPAN project par￾ticipants. We believe that it is very important to make the process of analyzing partnership experience
participatory by involving both Russian and American partners.
This joint work could take place at the partnership project conference which is to be held after the an￾nouncement of the results of the 4th round. Planning should begin as soon as possible so that tasks can be
defined and the conference designed to accommodate this analytic and descriptive work. At the same con￾ference it would be possible to compile recommendations on strategies for developing USAID partner￾ship programs. To facilitate this work, questions need to be formulated and made available to the partners
in advance and there needs to be a simple and effective means for collecting and collating responses.
In the course of the SPAN mid-term evaluation, the IREX team proposed the publication of a type of
how-to manual on administering partnership projects, using the April partnership conference as a spring￾board. If there is any additional money avaible in the subgrant line after final Round Four funding deci￾sions are made, IREX plans to propose that it be transferred to the workshop and publication lines of the
budget in order to allow for more of these types of activities. The evaluation team fully supports these
suggestions.
Another interesting idea which has surfaced is the establishment of a “Sustainable Partnership Commit￾tee”7
 made up of the most successful participants in partnership projects funded by USAID. Such a com￾mittee could be a consultative body to USAID on issues related to the development of partnership pro￾grams.
USAID is not the only organization funding partnership programs with the participation of Russian or￾ganizations. For example, the British Know-How Fund supports a long-term program of Russian-British
 
7
The author of the idea is Mr. M.Russel, former IREX Senior Coordinator for Academic and Training Programs
38
partnerships administered by CAF-Russia. We believe that it would be useful to consider holding an in￾ternational conference in Russia for the exchange of experience in implementing partnership programs.
What partnerships should be supported in the future?
The answer to this question depends on USAID priorities. If the development of partner relationships is
defined as the priority, it is necessary to support the partnerships having the highest potential for devel￾oping relationships. In this context, there is no strategic return on investment in partnerships that are al￾ready sustainable, nor is it prudent to assist organizations that are not quite ready for partnership. In the
latter case, assistance is slow and expensive, and the risk of failure is high. It is necessary to identify or￾ganizations in the initial stages of developing partnerships which are likely to strengthen their coopera￾tion, define joint strategies, and become more financially sustainable within the timespan of a single proj￾ect.
The selection of such partnerships will be a key challenge. It is necessary to create a methodology for
judging which organizations are at a stage of development with the greatest prospect for achieving sus￾tainable partnership.
However, if the quality and speed of completing socially important tasks is defined as the priority, it is
necessary to select existing sustainable partnerships with the maximum professional potential for success￾fully completing the defined tasks. In this case, the potential for partnership development becomes secon￾dary. Moreover, it will be more efficient to select partnerships which do not need to spend time develop￾ing working relationships or solving interaction problems.
Is it necessary to support the establishment of new partnerships?
As demonstrated above, most partners believe that an effective partnership is characterized by multiple
relationships between the employees of partner organizations at all levels. If we bring this insight to the
broader discussion of interactions between the USA and Russia, we can hypothesize that increasing the
number of sustainable contacts between organizations of different profiles, sizes and locations will further
the establishment of sustainable relations between the two nations.
Experience in both Russia and the USA supports the hypothesis that partnerships improve relationships
between communities and nations. In other arenas of its professional practice, the evaluation team works
frequently in Russian regions. In our experience, the overwhelming majority of nonprofit organizations
from small towns in Russia have little or no realistic possibility of establishing partner relationships with
American colleagues. Nevertheless, the few examples of partner relationships that do exist demonstrate
their practical importance. Implementation of a partner project in a small Russian town usually attracts
the attention of the authorities, mass-media, and citizens. This attention makes it much easier to engage a
variety of people in a small town project. The fact that a foreign partner appears in the town raises the
credibility and authority of the Russian NGO and helps it to become more sustainable, for example, by
receiving greater support from the local administration, town dwellers, or local businessmen. In our expe￾rience, partnership projects with Russians are of similar importance to partner NGOs in small American
39
towns.
The establishment of new partnerships does not require major expenditure8
. The budgets of the First Part￾nership Projects (FPP) can be a half or even a third of the budgets of the SPAN partners.
We suggest consideration of a program to support new partnerships between organizations from small
towns in the USA and Russia. This idea is supported by most partners with whom we held interviews.
They believe that it is very important to extend the possibility of establishing partner relationships to new
organizations. Such a program could be implemented in two stages. First, new organizations can be
helped to find each other and to jointly implement a first partnership project (FPP). Second, after the
evaluation of the FPP results, the number of applicants can be reduced, and a new competition can be
conducted for the support of existing partnerships similar to the SPAN.
Is it possible to support both the establishment of new partnerships and the development of existing part￾nerships within the framework of a single program? All IREX specialists interviewed by the evaluation
team consider that such a program is possible, however, the concept for such a program requires further
discussion.
What are the areas which favor the most effective use of a partnership mechanism?
In principle, a partnership mechanism can be effective in any subject area since experience has shown
that partnerships’ effectiveness does not depend on the partners’ field of activity. When partnership is
used only as a tool, i.e., if it is not necessary to develop links between different institutions, there are at
least eight relevant questions:
Why do the partners need each other?
Is partnership an efficient tool for achieving a project’s goal?
Could the same goal be achieved without using a partnership mechanism?
Will a partnership be too expensive (not cost effective) in terms of the «project outcomes?»
Are there any unique resources partners may transfer to each other in order to achieve better results
and/or greater impact?
Will a valuable synergy effect result when the two organizations work together?
Is there anything the organizations in question can only create by working together?
Will the project impact be deeper, more extensive or longer lasting in the long run if the partners
work together?
Partnerships are becoming one of a variety of widely spread mechanisms for project implementation and
it may be that USAID should not even make a distinction between «partnership» and «non-partnership»
projects in future. In this case, grant applicants would be allowed to apply on their own or together with
one or more organizations. When a partnership mechanism is included in a proposal, applicants should
demonstrate how the partnership will be both programmatically and financially effective. A limited fund
 
8
 IREX, which supports the development of new partnerships in the academic sector through its Consortium for Social Sciences
and the Humanities, already has experience managing this type of program. The maximum size of grants for new partnerships in
such cases is $10,000.
40
for partnership projects could be included in each program budget, since partnerships in general and in￾ternational partnerships in particular, are more expensive than «non-partnership» projects.
A case for using partnership mechanisms might include the following rationales:
- transfer of unique technologies and/or skills;
- creation of new organizations and institutional development along with the transfer of institutional
knowledge;
- integration of local (Russian) organizations into the international community;
- complementary resources which partners may put together;
- promotion of innovations locally with the help of a foreign partner.
41
ANNEXES
42
Annex I
SCOPE OF WORK
FOR EVALUATION OF SUSTAINING PATNERSHIPS INTO THE NEXT CENTURY PROJ￾ECT (SPAN)
I. Activity to be evaluated
The focus of this evaluation is USAID’s Sustaining Partnership into the Next Century (SPAN) Project.
The International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) has administered this project since September
1997. The evaluation should cover the project implementation period from September 1997 to the pres￾ent.
In general, SPAN contributes towards achieving USAID/Russia’s Strategic Objective 4.2 and because
SPAN is crosscutting, it complements all of USAID/Russia’s strategic objectives. More specifically the
project contributes toward achieving USAID/Russia’s Strategic Objective 2.1.. «Increased, Better In￾formed Citizens’ Participation in Political and Economic Decision Making», through the promotion of IR
2.1.2., «Increased public access to information which is needed for informed political and economic
choices».
Originally $5.25 million was allocated to SPAN to support targeted and innovative activities that deepen
and expand existing relationships between Russian and US organizations within key strategic sectors of
the USAID/Russia program, namely rule of law, civil society, health, environment, business development,
energy and tax reform.
Since the beginning of the project three rounds of SPAN grants’ competition have been conducted and 24
partnerships selected. All partnership activities under the first three rounds of SPAN will be completed by
July 2000.
Additional funding in the amount of $2.5 million has been recently allocated for the implementation of
the SPAN follow-on program. This component will provide support to approximately ten-twelve partner￾ships that will be selected by the end of 1999 under the fourth round of the SPAN grants competition.
Funding will be provided to those US-Russian partnerships that contribute to the development of the fol￾lowing areas: civil society, rule of law, health, environment, business development and social sector sup￾port.
II. Background
Establishment and further development of partnership relationships between American and Russian or￾ganizations is an important step in the transition towards the democratic society and open market econ￾omy in Russia. Today, hundreds of American and Russian organizations are working together in partner￾ship in Russia to address many of the issues facing Russia. These partnerships cover all areas of
USAID/Russia’s development portfolio: agriculture, business, energy, housing, civic initiatives, legal re￾form, media development, health, and the environment. USAID has obligated more than $115 million to
partnership activities since the beginning of the USAID/Russia program in 1992.
The SPAN project started in September 1997 and complements the work implemented by USAID under
the Institutional Partnerships Program (IPP) and Partnerships for Civil Society and Economic Develop￾ment (PCSED). SPAN is an umbrella program of partnership grants to strengthen and expand existing
relationships between Russian and US organizations and institutions. IREX had successfully managed
the above-mentioned IPP and PCSED projects for USAID since 1994.
Currently IREX administers 24 SPAN partnerships with funding ranging from $90,000 $190,000 for im￾plementation periods of up to 29 months. The partnerships’ breakdown in USAID/Russia priority areas is
43
as follows: civil society (6), environment (4), health (5), business development (8), and rule of law (1).
SPAN partners’ collaboration unites different organizations in 20 cities of Russia, from the Far East to
Moscow, with 16 cities in the United States.
Taking into consideration the high demand for SPAN grants and the fact that partnership programs are
effective in creating sustainable change, USAID/Russia allocated additional $2.5 million for the SPAN
follow-on project. Under the follow-on component of the project, the fourth round of grants competition
will be conducted. The program focus will be shifted toward the support of social sector and partnership
proposals aimed at infrastructure development, youth social services, domestic violence, and programs
with a focus on women as beneficiaries. Any network programs in the social sector will also be eligible
for funding. Partnership activities under this SPAN Round IV will run through the end of October 2001.
The SPAN project will end by December 31, 2001.
Since the SPAN project supports only existing relations between U.S. and Russian organizations benefi￾cial to both partners, special requirements have been developed for partner organizations:
1. The partners must present a joint project that would lead to the strengthening of existing cooperative
activities.
2. Only one partner may serve as the grant recipient. The grant may be awarded to either the Rus￾sian or the U.S. partner.
3. The partners must provide a minimum in matching contributions of 25% of USAID/Russia
funding. Partnerships are encouraged to contribute up to 50% and beyond.
In reality, partner organizations under SPAN Rounds I-III generated an average of 70% in matching
funds.
III. Information Sources
The following is not an exhaustive list of available information sources, but the items below provide the
evaluation team with the most essential information:
1. Cooperative Agreement with IREX # 118-A-00-97-00282-00 for the period from September 29, 1997
to September 28, 2000 for $5,250,000.
2. Amendment to the Cooperative Agreement with IREX # 119-A-00-97-00282-01 for the period
through December 31, 2001 for $2,500,000.
3. Quarterly Reports on the SPAN activities covering the period from September 1997 through June 30,
1999 prepared by IREX.
4. Financial Review Report. The USAID/Russia Office of Financial Management (OFM) conducted a
Financial Review of IREX in regards to PCSED and SPAN project financial monitoring. The Finan￾cial Review Report FAIS-9801 was prepared by OFM in August 1998. The follow-up financial re￾view was conducted in March 1999, and determined that corrective actions had been taken by IREX.
5. SPAN conference materials. In June 1998 and February 1999 IREX conducted conferences for SPAN
partners to share experiences, learn procedures for reporting, publicizing and evaluating projects.
6. In the fall of 1996 an evaluation of IPP partnerships was conducted by nine sector-specific consult￾ants hired by IREX to assess the technical merit and appropriateness of the work done by the partner￾ships.
7. In 1996 USAID/Russia carried out a Partnership Study of all activities using the partnership mecha￾nism to measure appropriateness of the partnership model as a mechanism for accelerating Russia's
democratic and economic transitions.
8. In October 1998 «Process Consulting», hired by IREX, conducted an impact evaluation of seven
PCSED partnerships.
USAID/Russia and IREX/Russia Project Officers, and IREX staff in the US and SPAN partners, both
Russian and American, are also important information sources.
44
All reports, materials and other information are available in the Office of Democratic Initiatives and Hu￾man Resources (DIHR).
IV. Purpose of Evaluation
This is a mid-term impact evaluation whose main purpose is to assess the impact of the 24 ongoing part￾nership activities and to determine if these activities are achieving the overall goals of the SPAN project.
This evaluation will also examine the impact of partnership implementation techniques on achievement of
overall goals of the SPAN project. This is the first independent evaluation of an umbrella project at
USAID/Russia in support of partnership activities that will also consider the overall managerial role of
Program Administrator, IREX, towards the progress of particular partnership activities and program in
general.
This evaluation should reveal both weaknesses and strengths of SPAN partnerships. This information will
be extremely useful for all parties involved in the implementation of the SPAN project. Those interested
parties include:
- USAID/Russia Senior Management and Activity Managers involved in new projects design, analysis
of lessons learned and comprehensive assessment of projects using the partnership mechanism;
- IREX management both in Russia and the United States. Evaluation data may be used to better ad￾dress needs of SPAN grant recipients. Evaluation Team suggestions might be useful for IREX’s fur￾ther improvement of its technical assistance programs to stimulate the sustainable development of
US-Russian partnerships.
- SPAN subgrantees. Positive results of partner organizations’ activities, lessons learned will be taken
into consideration for the successful completion of SPAN partnerships projects under the first three
rounds as well as for the implementation of follow-on activities.
The team hired to conduct this evaluation should collect success stories which may be identified in the
discussions with project personnel and activity managers. Collected success stories should be presented in
the report but should not influence the objectivity of the overall evaluation. If necessary, the team may
place found success stories in a separate annex attached to the report.
V. Evaluation Questions
The Evaluation Team will conduct or acquire the needed research and write a report that assesses the
following issues and questions:
A. Approaches, and constraints of the program
1. Are IREX’s criteria for selecting partnership organizations adequate to effectively identify U.S.-
Russian partnerships that can broadly promote SPAN objectives?
2. What are the methodologies IREX uses to attain SPAN project objectives and why these methodolo￾gies were selected?
3. What is the impact of IREX assistance on the following areas: (a) programming; (b) equipment avail￾ability; (c) network development; (d) institutional development; (e) technology transfer; (f) adoption
of new methodology and skills; (g) creation of new organizations; (h) sustainability of partnerships.
4. What are the major constraints facing the program and individual partnerships? What can be done in
response to these challenges?
B. Impact and success stories
45
1. Comparing the midterm results of SPAN partnerships with goals and objectives set forth in their re￾spective Work Plans, what have SPAN partnerships achieved? Specifically, what kinds of sustainable
change, if any, has been created by the partnerships?
2. What is the SPAN project impact and value in helping to sustain partnership relationships between
American and Russian counterparts?
3. What are the most interesting success stories as an outcome of the SPAN activity?
C. Sustainability
1. How many of the 24 SPAN partnerships have the intention to continue collaboration after SPAN
funding ends? How many realistically may be able to continue?
2. How many of the 24 partnerships have sustainable relationships that don’t require substantial support
from other donor organizations? In other words, are any partnerships self-financing? And how many
partners have contacts with other donor organizations besides USAID that will help to sustain their
efforts in future?
3. What are the SPAN partnerships’ approaches to achieving sustainability of their programs and rela￾tionships? How did IREX assist the partnerships in addressing the issue of sustainability? What has
been achieved in this regard?
D. Flexibility of the program
1. How flexible is the program (structure and content) in responding to changing conditions and varied
demands for assistance in Russia? For example, how well did IREX respond to the challenges of the
August 1998 financial crisis?
E. Linkages
1. What kind of linkages do the partnerships have with other USAID/Russia activities/areas? What dif￾ference have these linkages made to the overall program strategy and achievement/sustainability of
program objectives?
2. What kind of linkages do the partnerships have with other donors in Russia activities/areas? What
difference have these linkages made to the overall program strategy and achievement/sustainability of
program objectives?
F. Recommendations
1. What project adjustments were recommended in response to the emergency needs of Russian partners
that resulted from the August 1998 financial crisis? Were they implemented? What was the result?
2. Which areas of partnerships require special attention?
3. What are lessons learned and best practices of the program that help determine future, long-term
USAID strategy in this field?
In addition to the evaluation questions above, the Evaluation Team should be able to obtain specific in￾formation regarding SPAN program management and partnership project implementation. The following
questions are suggested to be incorporated in the interviews with all SPAN partnerships:
46
1. What is being done by IREX to ensure that your partnership is on its way to accomplish the project’s
goals?
___Site visits
___Regular communication
___Special meetings
Other, please specify______________________________________________________
2. How many site visits were conducted by the IREX managers to your partnership?
In U.S. ______
In Russia ____
3. Were the site visits conducted by the IREX managers helpful to determine your responsibilities within
the project?
4. Do you have problems with meeting reporting requirements (both programmatic and financial) estab￾lished for the SPAN project? If yes, please indicate what are these problems.
5. Do you think that you have adequate and complete information about the SPAN project in general
and other SPAN partnership activities in particular? If not, can you suggest what should be done to im￾prove the situation?
6. What is most valuable for you in your collaboration with the IREX managers?
7. What areas could be improved to strengthen collaboration with the IREX managers?
8. How would you rate progress toward achievement of your partnership project objective?
___We have achieved or have nearly achieved everything we set out to do
___Much has been accomplished and it will be completed by the end of funding
___Some things have been accomplished, but difficulties have prevented us from achieving everything
we initially planned to achieve.
___Not much progress has yet been made; we have just begun.
___Not much progress has yet been made; it has been difficult as a result of the start-up problems
Other, please specify ___________________________________________________
9. What are the major aspects in your relationship with the partner organization that you value the most?
10. What are the major constraints facing the program and individual partnerships?
External ____
Internal ____
11. Were they resolved in a timely fashion?
12. Do you have difficulties in managing the budget? If yes, please provide details
13. Do you have any suggestions on how can IREX and/or USAID could better address problems during
the implementation of the project?
14. Do you plan to continue collaborations with your partner organization after the end of funding under
SPAN?
15. What future activities do you envision? (Could be more than one answer)
___Information exchanges
___Personal exchanges
___Joint research
___Expansion of your current activities to other regions of Russia
47
Other, please specify_____________________________________________________
16. If you do not see your current partnership as «permanent», indicate why?
17. What fundraising techniques will you use to sustain the partnership?(Indicate one or more)
___Writing applications for grants
___Personal visits to individuals or groups who might provide support
___Sales or services or products to public
___Collection of fees for various services or activities
___Membership drives
Other, please specify_____________________________________________________
18. Do you consider consequences of the 1998 August financial crisis to be crucial for the productive
future collaboration with your partner organization? Why?
VI. Evaluation Methods
It is recommended that the team interview all the partners during the site visits or on the phone. The
evaluation team in collaboration with USAID/Russia will finalize the overall evaluation methodology.
However, USAID expects that at a minimum the evaluation team will:
1. Interview 24 SPAN partnerships (on the phone or personally).
2. Interview USAID/Russia technical officers (information is available from DIHR).
3. Conduct site visits to 23 partnership organizations in Russia and seven partnership organizations in
the US (based in Washington DC and the New-York city).
4. Review and analyze the existing information on the partnership activities and IREX’s performance.
5. Interview IREX staff involved in SPAN implementation.
VII. Schedule
Approximately eight-nine weeks are estimated to complete this evaluation with an assumption of a five￾day workweek. A representative work schedule is indicated below, but it may be modified on mutual
agreement between the outside Team and the Evaluation Coordinator.
Activity Description Location Dates
Stage I Review background and performance
information.
Discuss and finalize the methodology
of evaluation with the USAID/ Russia
Evaluation Coordinator and respective
activity manager. Develop report out￾line.
Preparation of a Work plan for the
evaluation.
Select sites to visit in Russia. Make
logistical arrangements.
Washington/Moscow November 23-26
Stage II Interview of IREX / Washington staff.
Interview of American partners in
Washington, DC and New York (7
Washington,
New York
November 29 -
December 10
48
organizations).
Phone interviews with American part￾ners.
Site visits to the selected Russian
counterparts outside Moscow (9 cities,
10 organizations).
Interview Russian partners based in
Moscow.
Irkutsk, St.Petersburg,
Volkhov, Dubna,
Vladimir, Nizhni
Novgorod, Leninsk￾Kuanetski, Tomsk,
Nizhni Tagil
Moscow
November 29 –
December 17
Interview USAID/Russia project staff
and IREX/Moscow staff.
Moscow December 13 –
December 17
Stage III Preliminary data analyses and inter￾midiate report for USAID/Russia.
Final report draft and structure discus￾sion with the USAID/Russia. Agree￾ment by the Evaluation Coordinator.
December 20 -
December 24
Stage IV Final report drafting, additional inter￾views if necessary
Final report draft editing
Moscow December 27 -
January 14
Final report draft submitted to
USAID/Russia for comments.
USAID/Russia provides IREX with
the draft report for comments.
Incorporate the comments into the
report, finalize and submit to USAID.
Moscow January 17 - 24
The final report is expected to be submitted to USAID/Russia no later than February 1, 2000.
VIII. Reporting and Dissemination Requirements
The final report will include an overall assessment of the issues listed in the section «IV. Purpose of
Evaluation» and will address the questions listed in the section «V. Evaluation Questions». As an annex,
the report will include tabulated data collected as a result of the survey.
Other information to be included in the report will be determined in consultation with USAID/Russia
staff over the course of the evaluation.
The final report electronic version on a diskette and five hard copies will be submitted to USAID/Russia.
The structure and format of the report will be proposed by the evaluator and approved by the Evaluation
Coordinator at the beginning of the evaluation. The evaluation report will primarily be for internal use by
USAID project management. It may, at USAID’s determination, be disseminated to outsiders.
49
IX. Team Composition and Participation
The outside Team will include two or three consultants. Consultants must have experience in evaluation
and consultancy preferably in Russia, the NIS, or Eastern European countries, and preferably with
USAID or other donor programs. At least one team member must be a native English speaker in order to
ensure high quality of the final report or a native English speaker must be hired for the report writing
and/or editing. An expert from the USAID/Washington Center for Development Information and Evalua￾tion (CDIE) will support the team in conducting this evaluation.
The USAID/Russia Partnerships and Human Resources Development Division of DIHR office will be
available to provide input and background information as necessary. In addition, the division might de￾vote one DIHR member to support the evaluation team in conducting the survey.
The Evaluation Coordinator will work closely with the outside Team where necessary in order to ensure
USAID will receive a high quality final product on time. Final schedule, methodology, list of sites for
visits and final report structure must be proposed by the outside Team (based on the Scope of Work), dis￾cussed where necessary with USAID/Russia, and accepted by the Evaluation Coordinator and DIHR.
X. Budget
The current Grant Agreement does not budget funds for an evaluation. PD&S funds will be used to fund
this evaluation. In-house Team members will be funded from their contracts, if necessary.
An estimated budget for this evaluation is attached.
50
Annex II
Persons Interviewed
N Name Organization City
1. Ida Schmertz Alliance of American and Russian Women NYC
2. Gary Cook Baikal Watch at Earth Island Institute
3. Peter Yu Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law NYC
4. Amy Vossbrinck Center for Citizen Initiatives San Francisco, CA
5. Gisela Geisler Center for Citizen Initiatives San Francisco, CA
6. Victor Tarasov CENTRAL CLINICAL HOSPITAL Moscow
7. Oksana Chekaida CENTRAL CLINICAL HOSPITAL Moscow
8. Irina Starkova Clean Home Nizhni Tagil
9. Liubov Fainentel Clean Home Nizhni Tagil
10. Natalia Evdokimova Clean Home Nizhni Tagil
11. Karen Sherman Counterpart International Washington DC
12. Emili Sanders Counterpart International Washington DC
13. Rekha Menon DC TV NYC
14. Hei Jung Park DCTV NYC
15. Group of teenage program participants (6
persons)
DCTV NYC
16. Bud Parker Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund San-Francisco, CA
17. Vera Mishenko Ecojuris Moscow
18. Maria Khotulieva Ecoline Moscow
19. Tatyana Guseva Ecoline Moscow
20. Alisa Doichler Ecologia Harford, PA
51
21. Gennady Marinin Ecopolis-Press Moscow
22. Dmitry Kavtaradze Ecopolis-Press Moscow
23. Katie Carruth EDC Newton, MA
24. Elena Topoleva-Soldunova Focus Moscow
25. Evgenia Alexeyeva Focus Moscow
26. Julia Kalmykova Focus Moscow
27. Kathleen Rhodes Fountain House NYC
28. Ken Dudeck Fountain House NYC
29. Mario Pinot Fountain House NYC
30. Tom Sweet Fountain House NYC
31. Sandra McCormick Gundersen Hospital La Crosse, Wisconsin
32. Tatyana Safyannikova Human Soul House Moscow
33. Kevin McCollister Institute for Sustainable Communities Monpelier, VT
34. Andrey Vasiliyev Institute of Biology of Development,Russian Academy of Science Moscow
35. Nancy Kirk Institute of Real Estate Management – IREM Chicago, IL
36. Elisabeth Swanson University of Iowa, College of Nursing Iowa City, IA
37. Inga Pagava IREX Moscow
38. Natalia Savicheva IREX Moscow
39. Svetlana Bredun IREX Moscow
40. Tracy Dolan IREX Moscow
41. Vadim Medvedev IREX Moscow
42. Dalen Todd IREX Washington DC
43. John Morlu IREX Washington DC
44. McKinney Russel IREX Washington DC
52
45. Melissa Mooza IREX Washington DC
46. Rebecca Liston IREX Washington DC
47. Robert Cronin IREX Washington DC
48. Sara van Gunst IREX Washington DC
49. Alexander Portnyagin Irkutsk State Medical University Irkutsk
50. Tamara Sizykh Irkutsk State Medical University Irkutsk
51. Elena Shimutina Junior Achievement - Russia Moscow
52. Nina Kuznetsova Junior Achievement - Russia Moscow
53. Valery Kriuchkov Leninskugol Coal Company Leninsk-Kuznetski
54. Elena Garina LILAS International, Inc. Moscow
55. Elena Merkusheva Medical Academy for Postgraduate Studies St Petersburg
56. Sviatoslav Plavinsky Medical Academy for Postgraduate Studies St Petersburg
57. Elena Vladimirova Medical Partnership Committee.
Vladimir Partnership Association.
Vladimir
58. Andrey Richter Moscow Media Law and Policy Center Moscow
59. Natalia Ogai Moscow Media Law and Policy Center Moscow
60. Fiodor Kravtchenko Moscow Media Law and Policy Center Moscow
61. Alla Serova Opportunity International Nizhni Novgorod
62. Dmitry Ponomarenko Opportunity International Nizhni Novgorod
63. Liudmila Teterikova Opportunity International Nizhni Novgorod
64. Andrey Krupin Partner Foundation Moscow
65. Galina Negrustuyeva Partner Foundation Moscow
66. James Randolph Partners in Economic Reform Washington, D.C.
67. Valentin Krylov Perspektiva Moscow
53
68. Valery Shkolnikov Perspektiva Moscow
69. Denise Roza Perspektiva Moscow
70. Larisa Bugrimova PIER - Coal Project Kemerovo
71. Sharon Weinstein Premier San-Francisco, CA
72. Vladimir Petrichenko Russian Grain Union Moscow
73. Nikolai Yefremov Russian Guild of Realtors Moscow
74. Jana Edge Sister City Association Moscow
75. Sergey Smirnov Sklifosofsky Research Institute Moscow
76. Diana Shannon TerraCare Software, Inc. Strafford, Vermont
77. Viacheslav Kudryavtsev The Baikal Environmental Wave Irkutsk
78. Galina Kulebiakina The Baikal Environmental Wave Irkutsk
79. Jennie Sutton The Baikal Environmental Wave Irkutsk
80. Olga Belskaya The Baikal Environmental Wave Irkutsk
81. Elena Petrova Training Center St Petersburg
82. Olga Solonnikova Training Center St Petersburg
83. Tatyana Kovaleva Training Center St Petersburg
84. Arkadi Mayofice TV-2 Tomsk
85. Igor Dmitriyev TV-2 Tomsk
86. Peter Sokolov University of Alaska Anchorage, Alaska
87. Elke Ender USAID Washington DC
88. Olga Moshkova USAID Moscow
89. Svetlana Kustova USAID Moscow
90. Susan Reichle USAID Moscow
91. Valery Vandyshev Volkhov Busines Incubator Volkhov
54
92. Igor Gruzdev Volkhov Busines Incubator Volkhov
93. Liubov Galakhova Volkhov Busines Incubator Volkhov
94. Victoria Tagirova Vozmozhnost dlia Vsekh Nizhni Novgorod
95. Tatyana Balabina Vozmozhnost dlia Vsekh Nizhni Novgorod
96. Natalia Semenova Vozrozhdeniye Center Dubna
97. Olga Vasiutina Vozrozhdeniye Center Dubna
98. Marc Behrendt World Institute on Disability Oakland, CA
99. Veronika Baidina, Daniil Dorozhkov,
Yekaterina Kiriushkina
Young TV-journalists School Tomsk
100. Leonid Prokofiev Young TV-journalists School Tomsk
55
Annex III
Bibliography of Documents Reviewed
1. Cooperative Agreement with IREX # 118-A-00-97-00282-00 for the period from September 29, 1997
to September 28, 2000 for $5,250,000.
2. Amendment to the Cooperative Agreement with IREX # 119-A-00-97-00282-01 for the period
through December 31, 2001 for $2,500,000.
3. Quarterly Reports on the SPAN activities covering the period from September 1997 through June 30,
1999 prepared by IREX.
4. Financial Review Report FAIS 98-013. (The USAID/Russia Office of Financial Management (OFM),
August 1998).
5. SPAN conferences materials (June 1998 and February 1999).
6. American-Russian Partnerships. Accelerating the Social, Political, and Economic Transitions in Rus￾sia (USAID/Russia, November, 1996)
7. Seven PCSED partnerships activities Evaluation Report prepared by the Process Consulting Com￾pany, October 1998.
8. Counterpart’s Models for NGO Capacity Building (Counterpart International Inc., 1998)
9. Internal Mid-Term Evaluation of the Pilot Organizational Governance Training Program (Counterpart
Int. / Partner Foundation, July, 1999).
10. Applications to the Sustaining Partnerships into the Next Century (SPAN) from all the partnerships
who received grants (24 applications).
11. Partnership projects materials and outcomes - thraining programs, training manuals, new projects,
presentations, videos, computer software, newsletters etc. - more than 40 documents.
12. Articles published in Russian news-papers and magazines on SPAN partnerships activities (total
number of articles reviewed - 14).
56
 Annex IV
Selected Success Stories
American partner Russian Partner Partnership Project Focus
Gundersen Lutheran Hospital
1910 South Avenue
La Crosse, WS 54601
Dubna Center for Narcology Prob￾lems "Vozrogdenie"
141980 Dubna,
Moscow Region,
Entuziastov Str.,
11, korp. 5
To develop, initiate and evaluate a project
that will select, train, and place community
service personnel within the City of Dubna
and throughout the Dubna oblast' to serve
in the areas of alcoholism and toxicomenia
prevention and smoking cessation and pre￾vention.
“A branch of the ‘Vozrozhdenie’ Center to open in New York City”
The Dubna medical and prophylactic center “Vozrozhdenie” (Resurrection) and the Social Activity De￾partment of Dubna International University closely cooperate in the SPAN project to create and imple￾ment social activity programs. The Head of the Social Activity Department performs the functions of na￾tional UNESCO coordinator for Russia and often visits New York on business. During one of her visits
she met people from Dubna currently living in New York. They were interested in the activities of the
medical and prophylactic center “Vozrozhdenie” and its American partner. Expatriates from Dubna de￾cided to open a center for training Russian-speaking people in social activity skills in New York. The
training and prophylactic programs of “Vozrozhdenie” Center and materials developed with the SPAN
program funding will be used in the activities of the branch.
“Teenagers decide to establish a ‘quit smoking group’”
One of the facets of work conducted by the Dubna medical and prophylactic center “Vozrozhdenie” in the
SPAN project is the prevention of smoking, alcoholism and chronic intoxication. The “Vozrozhdenie”
Center is located on the ground floor of a block of flats. Near the Center there is a basement entrance
where local teenagers gather to warm themselves, nibble sunflower seeds, and smoke. The teenagers were
invited to the “Vozrozhdenie” Center to listen to a lecture and to watch a film on the harm of smoking.
After a discussion with Center specialists and several additional meetings, the teenagers independently
organized a quit smoking support group.
57
American partner Russian Partner Partnership Project Focus
Center for Citizen Initatives
Presidio of San Francisco, General
Kennedy Avenue
P.O. Box 29912
San Francisco, CA 94129
Training Center
Ul. Drovyanaya 6/8
St. Petersburg
Russia 198103
To increase the scope of the practical
training provided by the Russian Initiative
for Self-Employment (RISE) program,
which provides instruction, as well as loans
and leases, for men and women seeking to
start their own business. The SPAN proj￾ect will focus on strengthening the garment
sector by providing entrepreneurs with both
classroom training and practical work ex￾perience in the form of internships in that
sector.
“Leningrad Regional Governor orders New Years greeting postcards from the “Training Center.”
The Training Center in St. Petersburg purchased printing equipment with funds from the SPAN program.
This equipment opened the possibility for the development of the “Training Center” as a source for prod￾ucts and services related to advertising and training. The design section of the Center creates beautiful
postcards with views of St. Petersburg and the products manufactured by the Center are distributed in the
city’s hotels, museums and exhibitions. The Governor of the Leningrad Region noticed the Center’s
products at the art shop in the House of Government. He liked the postcards so much that he placed a
special order and the personal greetings of the Leningrad region’s governor for the New Year 2000 were
sent on postcards manufactured by the Center.
Russian Partner American partner Partnership Project Focus
St. Petersburg Medical Academy
for Post-graduate studies (MAPS)
193, St. Petersburg,
Saltikova-Schedrina Str., 41
University of Iowa
College of Nursing
466NB
Iowa City, IA 52242
To develop social services program in family
medicine and educate health care professionals
and social workers on topics relevant to the
project.
“Director of insurance company supports partnership projects and becomes head of Kolpino dis￾trict health care”
The “Garmonia Plus” insurance company, located in the town of Kolpino, was looking for ways to im￾prove the health of people in the district, who are its potential customers. The approach to the disease
prevention proposed by SPAN program partners interested the director of the insurance company. She
offered assistance and started by paying the expenses of a group of 15 medical specialists during a 5-day
workshop. Subsequently, she took an active part in the work of a coalition of medical and non-medical
organizations for the settlement of Pontonny. One year later she was officially asked to become the head
of health care for the Kolpino district. She accepted the offer.
58
Russian Partner American partner Partnership Project Focus
The Baikal Environmental Wave
664033, Irkutsk
Akademgorodok Office 326
Ul. Lermontova 130
For letters: P.O. Box 21
Baikal Watch at Earth Island Institute
300 Broadway
Suite 28
San Francisco, CA
94133
To increase awareness among environ￾mental professionals and the general public
about hazardous forms of industrial, agri￾cultural, domestic and municipal waste,
with an emphasis on methods of resolving
and preventing such pollution
“The first business incubator at Lake Baikal”
Baikalsk is a town completely depending on the work of a single enterprise, a pulp and paper mill. It is
well known that the waste products of the mill have polluted Baikal Lake for many years. While the tech￾nology of purifying waste products is improving, this cannot completely solve the problem. Nor is it pos￾sible to simply close the mill, since 17,000 people will become unemployed. If it is not possible to stop
the pollution of Lake Baikal without closing the mill, the problem seems to be insoluble and the pollution
of Baikal continues.
Representatives of an Irkutsk organization, “Baikal Ecological Wave,” and the Volkhov business incu￾bator met at the SPAN program conference in Golitsino. One of the ideas discussed involved setting up a
business incubator in the town of Baikalsk to help people establish new enterprises—alternate employ￾ment opportunities for the workers in the pulp and paper mill and other town residents.
Specialists from Volkhov came to Baikalsk, studied the feasibility of a business incubator and conducted
an initial training using their own methodology. Some time later the business incubator registered in Bai￾kalsk received its first grant from the Siberian Center for the Support of Social Initiatives.
The Mayor of Irkutsk supported the initiative of “Baikal Ecological Wave” and allocated funds to
reward the winners of the “Model Courtyard” competition.
During the implementation of “Main waste products and their impact on the human health” an idea to
conduct a “Model Courtyard” competition in Irkutsk appeared. At first the administration of the city was
against this competition. A “round table talk” with representatives of the local administration was held at
the initiative of the partners. The idea of a competition was supported by the city ecological committee
and praised by the Mayor. He signed a decree on the competition and allocated more than US$2,000 to
award the winners. The competition was well organized and conducted and the partners came to a new
level of interaction with the local authorities.
59
Russian Partner American partner Partnership Project Focus
Volkhov International Business
Incubator and Training Center
Ul. Aviatsionnaya 48
Volkhov
Leningrad Oblast’ 187400
Alliance of American and Russian
Women, Inc.
42 West 39th Street 9th Floor
New York, NY 10018
To develop and disseminate four five-day
business seminars geared towards the
empowerment of women in the business
sector in six different Russian cities
“SPAN program helps the Volkhov Business Incubator go international”
In the course of its involvement in the SPAN project, the Volkhov Business Incubator conducted a work￾shop entitled, “Model of Incubator for Smaller Businesses,” a well-developed workshop that has been
successfully conducted in various Russian regions. At a meeting of organizations in the National Concord
of Business Incubators, representatives from Volkhov met the Byelorussian delegation. The Byelorus￾sians were looking for an organization that could help them establish their own business incubator. After
this meeting the Byelorussians visited programs in Poland, Moscow and St. Petersburg, but ended up se￾lecting the Volkhov Business Incubator. The work setting up a business incubator in Byelorussia has al￾ready started.
Russian Partner American partner Partnership Project Focus
Russian Guild of Realtors
127434, Moscow
Dmitrovskoe shosse
9B, office 502
Institute of Real Estate Management
430 N. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60610-9025
To produce a cadre of professional property
managers through a series of courses in
business development, civil society (fos￾tering private property), tax reform and
energy. The courses will be taught in 12
regions across Russia.
“Workshop participant establishes his own real estate management company in Rostov-on-Don”
SPAN project partners conducted workshops on real estate management for realtors in different Russian
regions. After one such workshop, a participant from Rostov-on-Don decided to establish his own com￾pany. The company is already working and offers innovative services for the city.
60
American partner Russian Partner Partnership Project Focus
Institute for Sustainable Communi￾ties
56 College Street Montpelier, VT
05602
ISC/Moscow
Tel: (095) 937-50-02
Clean Home
622002,
Nizhnii Tagil
Ul. Frunze 15
To develop and implement a solid waste
action plan which will enable the Nizhnii
Tagil municipality to continue its efforts to
institutionalize public participation in local
policy development and environmental
decision-making.
The program, “Management of Solid Consumer Waste Products,” developed by SPAN project
partners, was supported by the local administration. It received the status of “municipal complex pro￾gram” for the period 1999-2003 with a total budget of more than $2,000,000, 25% of the city budget.
“Volunteer students come out against unauthorized dumps”
In order to describe the situation with solid consumer waste products in Nizhni Tagil, participants in the
SPAN project planned a research project on unauthorized garbage dumps. A group of students from Niz￾hni Tagil Technical Institute volunteered to perform this work. Anna Utkina and her team searched the
entire city and identified more than 140 unauthorized dumps. The created a detailed map of the dumps,
on paper and in electronic form, with indicating addresses, space occupied, and type of garbage. This map
has become a very important document, demonstrating that the unauthorized garbage dumps are an im￾portant public health issue. The local authorities declared “Days of Ecological Protection” and required
local enterprises to take measures to eliminate the dumps. To date, more than 30 dumps have been elimi￾nated.
American partner Russian Partner Partnership Project Focus
Partners in Economic Reform, Inc.
1730 Rhode Island Avenue, NW
Suite 303
Washington, D.C. 20036
Leninskugol Coal Company
Leninsk-Kuznetskii
652507, Leninsk-Kuznetskii
Kemerovo Region Vasiliev Street,1
Russia
To expose Russian companies to Western
mining and management practices which
will enable them to be successful in a mar￾ket environment.
“A Russian engineer solves a problem at an American mine”
During the project and while studying equipment at a mine in the US, Yuri Rotokin, the chief engineer of
a Russian mine, helped his American colleagues to solve an engineering challenge. It had not been possi￾ble to extract a steel security framework stuck in a mine tunnel using a 40-ton hydraulic jack designed for
this purpose. Yuri convinced them of the feasibility of combining two jacks in order to create 80-tons of
force. The security framework was successfully removed.
61
American partner Russian Partner Partnership Project Focus
Sister City Association Medical
Partnership Committee
P/o 485
Normal, Illinois 61765
Vladimir Partnership Association
Medical Partnership Committee
(Vladimir)
Russia, Vladimir
Letneperevesenskaya
Str. 3
To improve healthcare services in Vladimir
by expanding available nursing care and
improving the quality of nursing education.
To facilitate the travel of Vladimir students
and professors to Normal, IL to gain expo￾sure to the theoretical and practical experi￾ence of their American colleagues and to
determine how this experience can best be
applied in Russia.
“84 year old American discovers Russia”
During the summer, 1999, the father of Jana Edge, the American project coordinator, visited Vladimir.
He came on his own initiative, wishing to understand why his daughter had come to Russia so often and
what she was doing there. As a house guest for two weeks with the family of Elena Vladimirova, the Rus￾sian project coordinator, he became acquainted with many Russian project participants. Before returning
to the USA he told everyone: “I’ll be back! I’ve discovered Russia!”
American partner Russian Partner Partnership Project Focus
World Institute on Disability
510 16th Street
Oakland, CA 94612
Perspektiva
113064, Moscow Ul. Bakhrushina
d. 21/23 str. 5
To conduct publicity campaigns in three
regions where ARSD is based to increase
the participation of disabled young persons
in the civic and social life of their commu￾nities.
“Wheelchair ‘invalid’ starts course on ‘Disability Awareness’ for school children”
Vladimir Mekhanoshin is confined to a wheelchair. He is also leader of a wheelchair marathon team from
the Perm region. He volunteered to participate in the SPAN project and during the winter, 1998, was
trained at a workshop in Perm. After the workshop, he started offering a course called “Disability Aware￾ness” in the schools in his town.
“Young disabled persons establish a new organization in Perm region”
A group of young disabled persons from the Perm region took an active part in the SPAN project. After
training they participated in offering lessons in the schools and in managing mutual assistance groups.
After the completion of the project, they established an independent organization called the “Society of
Young Disabled Persons” under the auspices of the Perm Regional Council of the All-Russian Society of
Disabled Persons. This is the first case of such an organization being created in Russia. They are able to
maintain projects of their own but use the accounts of the All-Russian Society of Disabled Persons to
provide mechanisms for handling their fiscal affairs. They have defined their main objective as the devel￾oping activities for young disabled persons.
62
American partner Russian Partner Partnership Project Focus
Education Development Center, Inc.
(EDC)
55 Chapel Street
Newton, MA 02158
FOCUS
121151, Moscow Kutuzovskyi
prosp., 22
pod.14-4
To develop a model for increasing citizen
participation that will create broad-based
activism and community-wide cooperation
in addressing community concerns.
“District residents decide to make a football field for children”
The partners attracted local nonprofit organizations for participation in the project. One of these organi￾zations, “Ecostrategy,” suggested that residents of one of the suburban districts clear the “sulfur lakes,” a
familiar local landmark, and build a so-called “ecological path.” The ecological path was to be a specially
designed walking path constructed to maintain the natural beauty of the sulfur lake area. In order to en￾gage residents in the project, the employees of “Ecostrategy” began publishing a special newspaper, cop￾ies of which were posted at all the houses in the district. A mailbox was installed nearby, where the resi￾dents could place their own suggestions and remarks. From the feedback which appeared in the sugges￾tion box, “Ecostrategy” learned that the residents, though sharing a positive attitude toward the idea of an
ecological path, were more interested in cleaning up a neglected public garden and building a football
field for children. As a result, “Ecostrategy” changed its initial plan and helped district residents to build
their football field, which is now very popular among local children.
American partner Russian Partner Partnership Project Focus
Downtown Community Television
Center (DCTV)
87 Lafayette St
New York, NY 10013
TV-2, Tomsk
70A Ulitsa Elizarovskikh
Tomsk 244271
To invigorate civil society and spur eco￾nomic development by strengthening the
position of independent community-based
media centers and fostering further training
of talented young professionals. To expand
the training for producers in Tomsk, in￾crease community participation in decision￾making processes, and create new links
among community actors.
“School teachers ask for copies of a teenager’s video documentary”
Under the auspices of the SPAN project, the Young TV-Correspondent School in Tomsk received mod￾ern digital video editing equipment and a training course on its use for the creation of videos. Today the
graduates of the School attain a level of professional skill not even possible for students of the TV jour￾nalism faculty at Tomsk University. Original video programs prepared by 16-18 year old teens are shown
in professional broadcasts from the TV 2 channel and are very popular. Katya Kiryushina, 16, prepared a
video documentary about the sexual education of teenagers. After her film was shown on TV 2, many
school teachers asked TV 2 to provide them with a copy of Katya’s film. The teachers are going to use
Katya’s research in their lessons.
63
American partner Russian Partner Partnership Project Focus
Ecojuris Institute of Environmental
Law
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 172, 103009
Moscow, Russia
Office Address:
103012, Moscow
Bogoyavlensky pr.,
Build. 3-3, room 15
Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund
180 Montgomery St,
#1400
San Francisco, CA
94104
To design and implement a pilot project in
conjunction with the Moscow city govern￾ment to achieve meaningful opportunities for
effective public participation in environ￾mental health decision-making processes in
Russia. To provide comprehensive legal
education and follow-on support to key law
reform players in Russia; and to conduct
multi-media public education campaigns,
encourage public participation in the issues
and provide direct consulting and support
services.
“Indigenous populations of Kamchatka peninsula find professional aid to protect their rights for
their living environment”
Training workshops for the representatives of the public from different regions of Russia were held dur￾ing the project. The workshops considered practical aspects of citizens’ rights related to the environment.
Representatives of small indigenous nations in Russia took part in these workshops. Russia’s indigenous
peoples suffer most from uncontrolled intervention into the natural ecosystems where they live, mostly
with the mining of new deposits of various natural resources. Traditionally, the interests of people living
in areas containing oil and gas reserves have not been taken into consideration in decisions about drilling,
production and transportation. Nor have representatives of Russia’s small indigenous nations ever tried to
protect their rights for their living environment in the courts.
64
Annex V
Updated 01/22/98
ENVIRONMENT
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND I)
Project Code
Project Goal
Lead Applicant Partner Applicant
Start Date
End Date
Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
M-E-05
1 March 98
31 June 00
To increase awareness among envi￾ronmental professionals and the
general public about hazardous forms
of industrial, agricultural, domestic
and municipal waste, with an empha￾sis on methods of resolving and pre￾venting such pollution
The Baikal Environmental
Wave
664033, Irkutsk
Akademgorodok Office 326
Ul. Lermontova 130
For letters: P.O. Box 21
Jennifer Sutton
Project Manager
Tel: (3952) 46-75-47
Fax: (3952) 46-74-76
Baikal Watch at Earth Island
Institute
300 Broadway
Suite 28
San Francisco, CA
94133
Gary Cook
Project Director
Tel: (415) 788-3666
Ext 109
Fax: (415) 788-7324
W-E-O7
1 Apr 98
31 Mar 00
To develop and implement a solid
waste action plan which will enable
the Nizhnii Tagil municipality to con￾tinue its efforts to institutionalize
public participation in local policy
development and environmental
decision-making.
Institute for Sustainable
Communities
56 College Street Montpelier,
VT 05602
ISC/Moscow
Tel: (095) 937-50-02
Kevin McCollister
Project Coordinator
km@iscvt.org
Tel: (802) 229-2900
Fax: (802) 229-2919
Sheila Dodd
Financial Manager
Tel: (802) 229-2900
Fax: (802) 229-2919
Clean Home
622002,
Nizhnii Tagil
Ul. Frunze 15
Irina Mikhailovna Starkova
Director
irina@chome.eburg.ru
Lubov Aleksandrovna Fainental
Project Coordinator
Luba@chome.e-burg.ru
Tel:(3435) 24-77-83
Fax:(3435) 25-05-00
Natalya Evdokimova
65
CIVIL SOCIETY
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND I)
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant
IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date
End Date
Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
M·CS·05
 1 Mar 98
 31 Jul 00
To strengthen the Russian Network of
Clubhouses by enhancing their rela￾tions with local authorities, sponsors
and the psychiatric community as well
as promote social services that pro￾vide support for people with mental
health problems.
Human Soul House/Moscow
105037, Moscow Martenov￾skaya Ul. 30
Igor Donenko
Director
phone/fax:
(095) 165 0165 ph
(095) 165 7674 fax
Tanya Safiannikova
Project Manager
Fountain House
425 West 47th Street
New York, NY
100036-2304
Kenneth J. Dudek
Tel: (212) 582-0340
Fax: (212) 265-5482
Thomas Sweet Program
Manager
Paul Kelley
Financial Manager
Tel: (212) 582-0340
Fax: (212) 265-5482
$180,301.00
 $96,688.00
W·CS·03
1 Mar 98
29 Feb 00
To build on previous joint NGO devel￾opment activities through the forma￾tion, localization, and implementation
of a pilot Organizational Governance
training module in the Central Russia
and Moscow regions. To foster long￾term sustainability within the Russian
NGO community and within Counter￾part’s local affiliate Partner Founda￾tion.
Counterpart International
1200 18th Street, N.W.
Floor 11
Washington, D.C.
20036
Karen Sherman
Vice President for Programs
Tel: (202) 721-1528
 (202) 296-9676
Fax: (202) 296-9679
Helen Benz
Financial Manager
hbenz@counterpart.org
Tel: (202) 296-9676
Tel: (202) 721-1506
Fax: (202) 296-9679
Partner Foundation
Moscow 65 Gilyarovskgo
Str
Galina Negrustueva
Director
gpartner@cityline.ru
Tel/Fax: (095)
288-84-38
$142,974.00
 $60,308.00
66
CIVIL SOCIETY
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND I)
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant
IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date
End Date
Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
W·CS·10
1 Mar 98
30 Jun 99
To conduct publicity campaigns in
three regions where ARSD is based to
increase the participation of disabled
young persons in the civic and social
life of their communities.
World Institute on Disability
510 16th Street
Oakland, CA 94612
Marc Behrendt
Tel: (510) 251-4308
Fax: (510) 763-4109
Kari Eells
Financial Manger
kari@wid.org
Tel: (510) 251-4323
Fax: (510) 763-4109
Perspektiva
113064, Moscow Ul.
Bakhrushina
d. 21/23 str. 5
Denise Roza
Director
Droza@glasnet.ru
Mscwid@glasnet.ru
Tel/Fax:
(095) 951-9768
ARSD Regional Boards
Komi/Ukhta:
(8214) 76 2801
Perm: (8342)2648575
Krasnodar:
8612 57 46 82
$168,578.00
 $54,858.00
W·CS·11
1 Mar 98
29 Feb 00
To develop a model for increasing
citizen participation that will create
broad-based activism and community￾wide cooperation in addressing com￾munity concerns.
Education Development
Center, Inc. (EDC)
55 Chapel Street
Newton, MA 02158
Katie Carruth
Project Director
KCarruth@edc.org
Tel: (617) 969-7100
Fax: (617) 332-6405
Nan Lin
Financial Manager
FOCUS
121151, Moscow Kutu￾zovskyi prosp., 22
pod.14-4
Evgenia G. Alexeeva
Director
Golubka@glasnet.ru
Elena A. Topoleva￾Soldunova
Director
Asi@glasnet.ru
Julia N. Kachalova
Director
Tel: (095) 249-3989
Fax: (095) 249-8515
$157,329.00
 $99,413.00
67
FINANCE, TAX REFORM, ENERGY
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND I)
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date
End Date
Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
M·FTE·02
1 Mar 98
29 Feb 00
To support micro-entrepreneurs and
the business community in the Nizhnyi
Novgorod oblast’ through the distribu￾tion of business loans by Voz￾mozhnost dlya Vsekh.
Opportunity International
603005, Nizhny Novgorod
Bolshaya Pokrovskaya
Str. 25
Suite 14
Stacie Schrader
Russia Country Director
103001.737@compuserve.com
opport@kis.ru (general email)
Tel: (8312) 337-227
Fax: (8312) 317-803
Vozmozhnost Dlya
Vsekh
603600, Nizhny
Novgorod
Pamirskay Str., 11
Victorina Tagirova
Executive Director
ono@vozm.sci-nnov.ru
Tel: (8312) 522-0251
Fax: (8312) 520-305
$192,870.00
$203,951.00
W·FTE·05
1 Mar 98
31 Jul 00
To implement competitive computer￾based simulation programs in which
groups of High School students as￾sume the role of Bank Directors and
learn to manage their banks in the
most efficient manner possible.
Junior Achievement Interna￾tional (JAI)
2780 Janitell Road
Colorado Springs, CO
80906
David Loose
Director of Operations
david@jaintl.com
Tel: (719) 540-2254
Fax: (719) 540-8770
John Beachy
Financial Manager
john@jaintl.com
Tel: (719) 540-2292
Fax: (719) 540-8770
Junior Achievement of
Russia
115585, Moscow Do￾modedovskaya Str., 35
Elena Nikolaevna Shimu￾tina
Project Director
Coordinator of Educational
Progs.
Email: jar@aha.ru
module@aha.ru
Tel:(095) 398-55-71 399-
2114,
Tel/Fax: (095)398-2581
$146,855.00
 $187,671.00
W·FTE·11
1 Jun 98
31 May00
To train faculty members from the
Russian partner universities in teach￾ing Financial Accounting, Managerial
Accounting and Finance course mod￾ules.
University of
Alaska/Anchorage
3211 Providence Drive
Anchorage, AK 99508
Peter Sokolov
Program Manager
AFPS@@UAA.alaska.edu
Tel: (907) 786-4300
Fax: (907) 786-4319
Marie Bruners
Financial Manager
Tel: (907)786-1433
Magadan International
University
(+4 Far East Universities)
685014, Magadan Porto￾vaya S tr., 13
Sakhalin Ped. U.
Lenin Street #290
693008 Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
R Far E. Trans. U
Sarysheva St. #47
680021 Khabarovsk
Sergei Tretyak
Vice Rector
Tel: (4212) 34-30-76
Fax: (4212) 344-08-08
$173,939.00
 $62,801.00
68
HEALTH
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND I)
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant
IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date
End Date
Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
M·H·04
1 Mar 98
31 Jul 00
To develop social services program in
family medicine and educate health
care professionals and social workers
on topics relevant to the project.
St. Petersburg Medical
Academy for Post-graduate
studies (MAPS)
193, St. Petersburg,
Saltikova-Schedrina Str., 41
Olga Kuznetsova
Vice Rector of International
Programs
olgakuzn@infopro.spb.su
Tel: (812) 598-9320
Fax: (812) 598-8737
 (812) 272-2506
University of Iowa
College of Nursing
466NB
Iowa City, IA 52242
Elizabeth A. Swanson
Associate Dean for Interna￾tional Programs
Tel: (319) 335-7067
Fax: (319) 335-7108
 $187,410.00
 $146,302.00
M·H·09
PROJECT
PENDING
To improve the quality of health care
at Central Clinical Hospital by intro￾ducing the Maryland Hospital Asso￾ciation’s Quality Indicators system and
to develop a plan for disseminating
MHA Quality Indicators.
Central Clinical Hospital of
the General Management
Department of the President of
the Russian Federation
121356, Moscow
Ul. Marshala Timoshenko.,15
Oksana Chekaida
Medical Statistics Dept.
Tel: (095) 149-6684
Fax: (095) 140-42-50
Premier, Inc.
Premier Hospital Alliance
Foundation
Tree Westbrook Corpo￾rate Center
Westchester, IL 60154
Sharon Weinstein
Director, Office of Interna￾tional Affairs
Sharon_Weinstein@
Premierinc.com
$117,750.00
$97,060.00
W·H·01
1 Mar 98
31 Jul 00
To develop, initiate and evaluate a
project that will select, train, and place
community service personnel within
the City of Dubna and throughout the
Dubna oblast' to serve in the areas of
alcoholism and toxicomenia preven￾tion and smoking cessation and pre￾vention.
Gundersen Lutheran Hospi￾tal
1910 South Avenue
La Crosse, WS 54601
Sandra J. McCormick
Project Director
smccorm@gundluth.org
Tel: (608) 782-7300
 Ext. 3228
Fax: (608) 791-6334
Barb Pretasky
Financial Manager
Tel: (608)-782-7300
 Ext. 3526
Fax: (608) 791-4367
Bpretask@gundluth.org
Dubna Center for Nar￾cology Problems
"Vozrogdenie"
141980 Dubna,
Moscow Region,
Entuziastov Str.,
11, korp. 5
Olga Prokopievna Vasu￾tina
Director
Ppdanti2@ntp.dubna.su
Tel: (09621) 2-11-89
Fax: (09621) 2-11-40
(221) Code to call from
Moscow
$152,350.00
$111,645.00
69
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND I)
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date
End Date
Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
M·BD·08
1 Mar 98
30 Jun 00
To produce a cadre of professional
property managers through a series of
courses in business development,
civil society (fostering private prop￾erty), tax reform and energy. The
courses will be taught in 12 regions
across Russia.
Russian Guild of Realtors
127434, Moscow
Dmitrovskoe shosse
9B, office 502
Nikolai Ivanovich Efremov
Executive VP
Tel: (095) 976-22-81
Fax: (095) 976-22-08
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Selivanov
Head of Training Dept.
Institute of Real Estate
Management
430 N. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60610-9025
Nancy Kirk
Senior Staff Vice President
http://www.irem.org
Tel: (312) 329-6000
Fax: (312) 661-0217
(312)410-79-10
Nkirk@irem.org
$149,587.00
$103,365.00
M·BD·10
1 Mar 98
28 Feb 00
To develop a network of Grain Union
representatives to foster changes in
regional legislation aimed at market
reform and create a method for re￾porting timely and accurate market
information to local member compa￾nies.
Russian Grain Union
Moscow
113093
1st Shchipkovsky per. 20,
room 301,323
Vladimir Petrichenko
Vice President
Tel: (095) 959-6698
Fax: (095) 959-6701
U.S. Feed Grain Council
1400 K St., N.W.
Suite 1200
Washington, D.C. 20005
Kenneth Hobbie
President and CEO
Grains@grains.org
Tel: (202) 789-0789
Fax: (202) 898-0522
$107,357.00
$93,011.00
W·BD·03
1 Mar 98
28 Feb 99
To expose Russian companies to
Western mining and management
practices which will enable them to be
successful in a market environment.
Partners in Economic
Reform, Inc.
1730 Rhode Island Ave￾nue, NW
Suite 303
Washington, D.C. 20036
Lidia Ottovna Shagalina
Rep. of PIER in Moscow
Tel: (095) 242-45-03
131-28-35 (home)
James Randolph
Project Director
Tel: (202) 466-3840
Fax: (202) 296 – 1608
Email: ugol@aol.com
Norma Floriza
Financial Manager
Email: ugol@aol.com
Larissa Butrimova
PIER Regional Director
Kemerovo Russia
ph/fax: 7-3842-23-35-40,
Leninskugol Coal Com￾pany
Leninsk-Kuznetskii
652507, Leninsk-Kuznetskii
Kemerovo Region Vasiliev
Street,1 Russia
Viktor Ibryashkin
Technical Director
Tel: 38456-7-02-64
Fax: 38456-3-15-18
Yevgeny Alexeyevich
Kosminov became Gen￾eral Director
(38456)7-12-76
Zinaida Vasilievna
Secretary
Valerii Andreevich Kruch￾kov
Deputy Tech. Dir.
$144,773.00
$61,525.00
70
52-85-16 (home) (38456) 7-12-76
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND II)
Environment
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant
IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date End
Date Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
2DC-E-05
To help local and regional govern￾ments, enterprises, and NGOs deal
more effectively with environmental
pollution as a threat to public
health and natural resources by
promoting improved environmental
management practices suited to
Russia’s transitional economy
ECOLOGIA
Box 142
Hartford, PA 18823
Randy Kritkausky
Tel: (717) 434-95-88
Fax: (717) 434-95-89 fax
ecologia@glas.apc.org
ECOLINE
Moscow, P.B. 7, 125047
Dr. Marina Kho￾tulyova
Partner Director
921-38-92
ecom@glas.apc.org
$139,701.65/
$61,509.02
Health
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant
IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date End
Date Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
2DC-H-02 To establish the first Russian “Skin
Graft Bank” to help solve the
problem of burn healing, which
remains one of the most immediate
medical problems in Russian
emergency care, and to organize
training for the US specialists with
it.
LILAS International, Inc
1244 Santa Fe
Hercules, CA 945447.
Elena Garina
Vice-President
LILAS International
Tel: (650) 548-09-10
Fax: (510) 234-02-20
In Moscow:
Elena Garina,
Lev Shuvalov
Tel/fax: (095) 269-14-39
Email: lilas_group@mtu-net.ru
Mobile phone: 765-06-34
Skilfosovsky Research Institute
of Emergency Care
129010 Moscow
Bolshaya Sukharevskaya
ploshchad, 3
Russia
Prof. Sergey
Vladimirovich
Smirnov
Exec. Director
Sklifosovsky Re￾search Institute
Tel: (095)
923 41-21
Fax: (095)
280-09-41
$139,800/
$234,327
71
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND II)
Business
Development
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date
End Date
Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
2M-BD-03 To develop and disseminate four five￾day business seminars geared to￾wards the empowerment of women in
the business sector in six different
Russian cities
Volkhov International Business
Incubator and Training Center
Ul. Aviatsionnaya 48
Volkhov
Leningrad Oblast’ 187400
Valerii Vandyshev
Deputy Gen. Director for Man￾agement and Training
Igor Gruzdev
Director
Tel: (81263) 23-525
vbizinc@mail.wplus.net
Fax: (81263) 28-162
Alliance of American and
Russian Women, Inc.
42 West 39th Street 9th
Floor
New York, NY 10018
Eva Horton
American Director
Tel: (212) 730-5082
Fax: (212) 354-3400
$139,439/
$139,207
Rule of Law
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant
IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date End Date Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
2M-RL-01
To strengthen telecommunications
law in Russia through such activities
as: organizing international confer￾ences devoted to legal problems in
the telecommunications field in the
Russian Federation and abroad;
bringing specialists in the telecommu￾nications field together to prepare a
draft law; and creating a database of
all major telecommunications laws in
the US, Great Britian and Western
Moscow Media Law and Policy
Center
Andrei Georgievich Richter
Director
MMLPC
Georgii Vinocurov
george@medialaw.ru
Tel/Fax:
(095) 203-6571,
203-93-88, 737-33-71
Benjamin N. Cardozo
School of Law
55 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10003
Monroe E. Price
Danciger Professor
Benjamin N. Cardozo
School of Law
Tel.: (212) 790-0402
Fax.: (212) 790-0205
$139,840/
$60,830
72
Europe.
73
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND III)
Environment
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date
End Date
Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
3DC-E-04 To develop and test a prototye soft￾ware called the “Green House Game.”
The software will be designed to
teach people how to identify, assess
and manage the risks of exposure to
indoor pollutants associated with “sick
building syndrome” in Russia.
TerraCare Software, Inc.
PO Box 65
Strafford, Vermont 05072
Dianna Shannon
Director
Email: shannon@terracare.com
Beth Baras
Financial Manager
Email: baras@terracare.com
Tel: (802) 765-4652
Fax: (802) 765-4707
Laboratory of Ecology,
Nature Conservation and
Simulation Games, Biologi￾cal Faculty, MSU
Vorobjevy gory, Moscow,
Russia 119899
Prof. Dmitri N. Kavtaradze
Head of Laboratory Biologi￾cal Faculty, MSU
Tel: (095) 939-27-65
Fax: (095) 939-50-19
Email:ecopolis@glas.
Apc.org
$100,243/
$45,052
CivilSociety
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant
IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date
End Date Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
3DC-CS-02
To invigorate civil society and spur
economic development by strength￾ening the position of independent
community-based media centers and
fostering further training of talented
young professionals. To expand the
training for producers in Tomsk, in￾crease community participation in
decision-making processes, and
create new links among community
actors.
Downtown Community Televi￾sion Center (DCTV)
87 Lafayette St
New York, NY 10013
Hye-Jung Park
Director
DCTV
Email: park@dctvny.org
Rekha Menon
Financial Manager
Email: rmenon@el.net
Tel: (212) 966-4510
Fax: (212) 219-0248
TV-2, Tomsk
70A Ulitsa Elizarovskikh
Tomsk 244271
Arkadii Mayofis
Director
Tomsk TV-2
tv2@tv2.tomsk.su
Tel/Fax: 7-3822-420-717
Leonid Prokofiev
Project Coordinator
dctv@tv2.tomsk.su
Tel: (3822) 541-800
Fax: (3822) 420-717
$122,983/
$160,329
74
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND III)
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date
End Date
Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
3M-CS-08 To design and implement a pilot
project in conjunction with the Mos￾cow city government to achieve
meaningful opportunities for effective
public participation in environmental
health decision-making processes in
Russia. To provide comprehensive
legal education and follow-on support
to key law reform players in Russia;
and to conduct multi-media public
education campaigns, encourage
public participation in the issues and
provide direct consulting and support
services.
Ecojuris Institute of Environ￾mental Law
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 172, 103009
Moscow, Russia
Office Address:
103012, Moscow
Bogoyavlensky pr.,
Build. 3-3, room 15
Vera L. Mischenko
Director
Ecojuris
Tel/Fax: (095) 921-5174
Email: ecojuris@glasnet.ru
Earth Justice Legal Defense
Fund
180 Montgomery St,
#1400
San Francisco, CA
94104
Erika Rosenthal
Director
Tel: (415) 627-6700
Ext 145
Fax: (415) 627-6740
Email:erosenthal
@igc.apc.org
$82,891/
$94,360
75
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND III) Health
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date
End Date
Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
3DC-H-05 To improve healthcare services in
Vladimir by expanding available
nursing care and improving the
quality of nursing education. To
facilitate the travel of Vladimir stu￾dents and professors to Normal, IL
to gain exposure to the theoretical
and practical experience of their
American colleagues and to deter￾mine how this experience can best
be applied in Russia.
Sister City Association Medical
Partnership Committee
P/o 485
Normal, Illinois 61765
Jana Edge
Director
SCA
Tel: (309) 452-3021
Christine Eggan
Financial Manager
Tel: (309) 452-7495
Fax: (309) 452-2016
Email: edge@math.ilstu.edu
Vladimir Partnership Asso￾ciation Medical Partnership
Committee (Vladimir)
Russia, Vladimir
Letneperevesenskaya
Str. 3
Helen Vladimirova
Director
Tel: (0922) 23 66 37
Fax: (0922) 23 35 03
Email: vlchnkv@
hosp3.vladimir.ru
$95,274/
$46,610
76
SPAN TABLE OF FINALISTS (ROUND III)
Business
Development
Project Code Project Goal Lead Applicant Partner Applicant IREX Grant
Match Sum
Start Date
End Date
Organization Contact Person/s Organization Contact Person/s
3DC-BD-4 To increase the scope of the practical
training provided by the Russian
Initiative for Self-Employment (RISE)
program, which provides instruction,
as well as loans and leases, for men
and women seeking to start their own
business. The SPAN project will
focus on strengthening the garment
sector by providing entrepreneurs with
both classroom training and practical
work experience in the form of intern￾ships in that sector.
Center for Citizen Initatives
Presidio of San Francisco,
General Kennedy Avenue
P.O. Box 29912
San Francisco, CA 94129
Susan Starrett
Project Coordinator
CCI- in St. Petersburg
Tel: 7-812-327-55-95
Fax: 7-812-327-97-99
Email: susan@neva.spb.ru
Gisela Geisler
Financial Manager
Tel: (415) 561-7777 x206
Fax: (415) 561-7778
Email: ccigisela@igc.org
Training Center
Ul. Drovyanaya 6/8
St. Petersburg
Russia 198103
Tatiana Kovaleva
Project Director
Tel: (812) 327-5595
Fax: (812) 327-9799
Email:
RISE@neva.spb.ru
$94,053/
$213,586
77
Annex VI
What are the major constraints facing the individual partnerships?
None of the partners said that the problems they faced had any significant impact on the overall project
implementation process. We organized the major constraints the partnerships faced into several groups:
· Financial issues
· Programmatic issues
· Issues related to the joint work with the foreign partner
· Technical issues and equipment
· Unpredictable unexpected events
· Personnel issues
The following quotations from the interviews with the partners illustrate each of these groups .
Financial issues
«We received «profit» because of the dollar rate growth and were asked to pay tax, which was against the
Russian laws.»
«The lead partner is a Russian state institution which, according to the Russian laws, can’t wire funds abroad
and has to pay all taxes related to the salary of the foreign partners.»
«Russian banks charge too much for their services.»
«Part of our funds were «frozen» during the crises. IREX helped to cope with that situation.»
«The American business trip expense reimbursement scheme which we used didn’t fit Russian legislation.»
Programmatic issues
«We had to change our target group since we discovered that the group we selected initially was not respon￾sive enough.»
«We planned to use American software but it turned out not to be the right one.»
«We developed our own tool.»
«The election campaign slowed down our project activities.»
«We decided to refuse from teleconferences with the USA - too expensive!»
«We didn’t budget for preliminary business trips to the regions and had to renegotiate the project budget.»
«Equipment was installed later than we expected because of the dealer.»
«It was a slow start. We had to spend several months following formal procedures required by local legisla￾tion.»
Issues related to the joint work with the foreign partner
«Our partner’s goals and mission differed from ours.»
«Our partners didn’t come to the workshop in Golitsyno.»
«We had problems with visa support because of the Christmas holidays in the US.»
«We were made to buy American equipment although it was not our preference.»
«We had some problems finding a common professional language.»
«We do more than our partner.»
«Our partner sometimes dominates the decision-making process.»
78
Technical issues, equipment
«Poor quality of communications.»
«Our Russian partner can’t implement modern information technologies because he doesn’t have appro￾priate equipment.»
«Our American partner generates new ideas which are great but could not be implemented in Russia be￾cause of the technical issues.»
«We do not have enough space for the equipment we purchased.»
Unpredictable unexpected events
«We had to postpone the dates of the campaign because of the explosions in Moscow.»
«The «August crises» (1998) caused certain problems in promoting environmentally safe technologies.»
«We lost some money during the crises amounting to about 1% of the total budget.»
«We lost some clients because of the crises.»
Personnel issues
«Our financial director left the organization.»
«We lost some time developing relationships with the new project coordinator on the other side.»
«It was difficult to find the right professionals in Russia.»
«Some personal problems our partner faced caused some problems in the project implementation.»
79
Annex VII
The number of site visits conducted by IREX managers to particular partnerships
Partnership
Lead Partner Partner
Total # of
the site
visits
# of the site
visits to the
lead partner
# of the site
visits to the
partner
1. The Baikal Environmental Wave Baikal Watch at Earth Island Institute 2 1 1
2. Institute for Sustainable Communities Clean Home 2 1 1
3. Human Soul House-Moscow Fountain House 2 1 1
4. Counterpart International Partner Foundation 2 2 -
5. World Institute on Disability Perspektiva 3 1 2
6. Education Development Center, Inc.
(EDC)
FOCUS 6 1 5
7. Opportunity International Vozmozhnost Dlya Vsekh 2 1 1
8. Junior Achievement International (JAI) Junior Achievement of Russia 3 1 2
9. University of Alaska/Anchorage Magadan International University, Sakhalin
Ped. U., R Far E. Trans. U
2 1 1
10. St. Petersburg Medical Academy for
Post-graduate studies (MAPS)
University of Iowa College of Nursing 2 2 -
11. Central Clinical Hospital of the General
Management
Premier, Inc 5 3 2
12. Gundersen Lutheran Hospital Dubna Center for Narcology Problems
"Vozrogdenie"
3 1 2
13. Russian Guild of Realtors Institute of Real Estate Management 7 6 1
14. Russian Grain Union Feed Grain Council 3 3 -
15. Partners in Economic Reform, Inc. Leninskugol Coal Company 3 2 1
16. ECOLOGIA ECOLINE 4 1 3
17. LILAS International, Inc Skilfosovsky Research Institute of Emer￾gency Care
4 1 3
18. Volkhov International Business Incuba￾tor and Training Center
Alliance of American and Russian Women,
Inc.
5 4 1
19. Moscow Media Law and Policy Center Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law 2 2 -
20. TerraCare Software, Inc. Laboratory of Ecology, Nature Conserva￾tion and Simulation Games, Biological
Faculty, MSU
1 - 1
21. Downtown Community Television Cen￾ter (DCTV)
TV-2, Tomsk 3 1 2
22. Ecojuris Institute of Environmental Law Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund 1 1 -
23. Sister City Association Medical Partner￾ship Committee
Vladimir Partnership Association Medical
Partnership Committee (Vladimir)
4 2 2
24. Center for Citizen Initatives Training Center, St.Petersburg 3 1 2
Total 74 40 34