OPPORTUNITIES INDUSTRIALIZATION 
CENTERS INTERNATIONAL (OICI) 
Institutional Capacity Building Programme 
(ICB) 
MID-TERM REVIEW 
Prepared by 
TANGO International, Inc. 
May-June 2006 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
I. Executive Summary 3 – 5 
II. Background and Introduction to the OICI ICB 6 – 7 
III. Evaluation Methodology 7 – 9 
IV. Mid-term Review Findings 9
1. General Findings: Overall Improvements 9 – 10 
2. Review of Project Management Responsiveness & 
Efficiency – SO1 
10 – 21 
3. Support for Technical Excellence and Innovation – 
SO2 
22 – 25 
V. Mid-term Review Recommendations 25 - 29
Appendices Type of Supporting Document Page Numbers
Appendix A ICB Mid-term Review Scope of Work 1-5
Appendix B ICB Mid-term Focus Question Topical Outline 6-12
Appendix C List of Persons Interviewed 13
Appendix D OICI Focus Question Matrix 14-25
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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 
Opportunities Industrialization Centers International, Inc. (OICI) received a grant 
from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to implement a five￾year Institutional Capacity Building (ICB) Initiative, which was approved in the 
fourth quarter of FY 2004. The purpose of the ICB initiative has been to support 
OICI’s Title II programs currently operating in Guinea and Ghana. The goal of the 
ICB initiative has been to increase the impact of food security programs in the 
field, by working together with local community organizations and international 
partners. The ICB proposal identified the following expected results: 
• Responsive and efficient program management achieved; and 
• Technical excellence and innovation supported. 
In May 2006 TANGO International was contracted to undertake a mid-term 
review in order to assess OICI progress towards implementation of the ICB grant. 
This report documents the impact of the ICB grant on the stated goal, to increase 
the impact of food security programs in the field in order to enhance the 
institutional capacity to undertake Title II food security programs. The report 
outlines progress toward realizing results at the half-way point of the ICB, 
examines results achieved, and sets forth recommendations for OICI 
management consideration as it implements the final two years of the ICB and 
strategizes for the future. 
Key Findings
The evaluator believes that OICI has achieved substantial gains in both of the 
expected results – responsive and efficient program management and enhanced 
support for technical excellence and innovation. Although it is too early to assess 
the overall goal of the project – the impact of ICB on food security and program 
implementation activities – progress toward this goal is clearly occurring. 
However, due to the late approval and funding of the ICB, most of the activities, 
particularly the training and manual development, have only occurred over the 
course of the last year. OICI is now well placed to implement monetization as 
well as commodity management, instead of remaining dependent on others to 
implement; OICI can begin to take on leadership in these areas instead of 
participating as a junior partner. 
Specific Achievements:
♦ The professionalism and the technical skills of OICI staff involved in food 
security programming have increased since the ICB inception. The training 
program established and overseen by the food security team has 
strengthened field staff capacity and program monitoring and evaluation. 
♦ ICB has exceeded several targets, particularly in training staff and improving 
capacity in some key technical and conceptual programming areas. 
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♦ ICB has used resources efficiently: Ghanaian & Guinea Teams were trained 
together; Supply chain management & Monetization training occurred back￾to-back to maximize resources. The training workshops have provided an 
important mechanism to bring together Staff, who learned new sets of skills, 
from different country offices. 
♦ The cross-fertilization of training, including Staff from Africare, World Vision, 
and ADRA, allowed OICI Staff to learn from the experience of other 
organizations and country contexts. 
♦ Training has been used to create a core of technical staff in West Africa who 
will use some of the tools to expand their activities and vary OICI 
programming and portfolio. Regional Staff now hopefully will be able to work 
together to design and develop new proposals as well as build on new tools 
and techniques. This is essential for OICI to compete with other 
organizations for Title II as well as other programming in West Africa. Staff 
can now assume a larger role within the PVO and development community in 
specific country contexts as well as within the OICI programming strategy. 
♦ OICI brought in technical expertise to produce sixteen specific technical 
manuals and tools based on best practices in the programming sectors of 
agricultural extension, water and sanitation, post-harvest crop management, 
and animal husbandry. 
♦ OICI has created its first Commodity Tracking System, which commenced in 
2005. 
Setback: MYAP development has been put on hold because of the USAID Title 
II downsizing and prioritization process. FFP has prioritized sixteen countries for 
Title II support; neither Ghana nor Guinea is included. OICI now must try to 
identify potential countries for MYAP development. The problem is that OICI is 
not currently strategically placed in countries such as Sierra Leone or Liberia, 
where other PVOs that have experience in those country contexts have 
comparative advantage in developing their Title II programs. 
ICB Shortfalls:
♦ OICI has been unable to expand Food Security Programming with FFP. Their 
current DAPs may be discontinued and OICI lacks comparative advantage in 
FFP priority countries. 
♦ The timeframe has been problematic: The ICB was approved late, creating 
substantial difficulties in achieving the objectives, although OICI has done a 
commendable job in achieving most targets. Although the original proposal 
was originally scheduled to commence from October 2003, the ICB was not 
approved until June 2004. ICB funding did not arrive in time to contribute to 
the first year development of the Ghana & Guinea DAPs. 
♦ The ICB design was too prescriptive, not allowing for the flexibility of changing 
contexts. For example: 
ƒ The CRS partnership in Ghana has never coalesced or developed 
sufficiently. 
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ƒ It has not been possible to test the Internal Capacity Assessment tool 
in partnership with Africare, primarily because Africare did not prioritize 
this activity in its own ICB. 
ƒ It has proven impossible to develop a DAP in Chad or other country 
offices, particularly in the two West African countries of Liberia and 
Sierra Leone. 
♦ Recruitment of key positions at OICI headquarters has been slow. The M&E 
Coordinator position was vacant for nearly a year, which adversely affected 
M&E activities. As a result, OICI was dependent on FANTA assistance in 
M&E programming. OICI M&E systems are relatively weak. The Program 
Assistant position was similarly unfilled for months. 
♦ The management structure in OICI hobbled ICB progress for awhile. Prior to 
its current leadership, OICI experienced a lack of transparency and an 
arbitrary decision-making process. Over the past two years, OICI has 
facilitated key structural and human resources changes at the senior 
management level. Two of the Vice President positions have been abolished 
because the organization appeared too top-heavy. The Finance department 
was particularly poorly served and after restructuring is now led by a more 
professional Finance VP. As a consequence, some good people left the 
organization and the organization was beset by an atmosphere of crisis 
management that affected program progress and quality. Finally, when the 
CEO and the VP-Finance were forced out of the organization, new board 
members selected a new CEO and OICI commenced the rebuilding process. 
♦ As part of the restructuring process, some positions have not been replaced, 
including for example, a Health/nutrition/HIV-AIDS Director and a Small 
Enterprise Development Director. The country offices have developed new 
project management teams, and M&E systems are managed by capable 
hands now. A new VP-finance has established the necessary controls and 
installed corrective measures to improve the business operations climate. 
Key Recommendations 
Below is a much abbreviated version of the key recommendations, which are 
discussed in detail at the end of this report: 
1. Continue to Systematically Build Capacity.
2. Consider strengthening the Food Security Unit by adding key Staff.
3. Develop a Food Security Framework that defines OICI food security 
programming. 
4. Build on Monitoring & Evaluation Progress.
5. Develop Sustainability Mechanisms in the DAPs.
6. Consider establishing strategic coalitions with PVOs in order to 
develop new food security programs in USAID priority countries and 
elsewhere. 
7. The ICB Final Evaluation Process should include sufficient time and 
financial resources for field visits to the country offices.
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II BACKGROUND & INTRODUCTION 
OICI is a non-profit, nongovernmental international development organization 
headquartered in Philadelphia and currently working with 49 affiliated programs 
in 22 countries – 20 in sub-Saharan Africa, one in Poland, and one in the 
Philippines. Since 1970 when the first international OIC programs were started 
in Ghana and Nigeria, OICI-supported programs have served at least a quarter￾million youth and adults, more than half of them women, in a broad range of 
countries. Dedicated to “transforming hopelessness to hope” through 
sustainable human resource development services and direct humanitarian relief, 
OICI aims to improve the quality of life of low-income, disadvantaged individuals 
in developing and transitional countries. 
The overall goal of the Institutional Capacity Building (ICB) program was to 
improve the OICI institutional capacity to undertake effective food security 
programming using USAID P.L.480 Title II resources. The objectives were to 
strengthen the institutional and technical capacities of OICI to design and 
manage sound and appropriate food aid interventions; to manage for results; to 
account for Title II commodities; and to improve collaboration among Title II 
PVOs. To this effect, OICI sought to give particular attention to strengthening its 
capacity to integrate direct relief food distribution and nutrition and health related 
programs into its traditional food production, storage and processing and other 
income generating interventions. These include the capability to conduct food 
assessments, the ability to design and manage programs, and above all, the 
ability to monitor and evaluate its program processes and impacts for fine-tuning 
its operations from lessons that will be learned in the process. 
ICB funds have also supported needs assessments aimed at initiating Title II 
activities in new countries or in new regions not currently served by OICI Title II 
activities. 
The two Strategic Objectives (SO) of the ICB grant have included: 
SO1: Responsive and efficient program management achieved. 
IR 1.1 Scale efficiencies achieved through collaboration with other PVOs and 
program integration. 
IR 1.2 OICI capacities in key technical areas strengthened. 
IR1.3 OICI’s human resources for food security program management 
strengthened. 
SO2: Technical excellence and innovation supported. 
IR 2.1: Promising tools, methods and best practices identified and disseminated, 
and headquarters/field technical information exchange facilitated. 
IR2.2 Participation in food aid community discussions and decision-making 
enhanced. 
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OICI’s five-year ICB Program was approved in the fourth quarter of FY 2004 
which also constituted the first year of implementation. In essence the program 
has been operational for approximately two years at the time of this midterm 
evaluation. 
III EVALUATION METHODOLOGY 
1. Evaluation Objectives
The purpose of the mid-term review has been to assess the extent to which 
activities are occurring as originally planned. The evaluation should also provide 
an opportunity for OICI staff to step back and review these plans and ascertain 
the extent to which they are meeting the capacity building needs of the 
organization. This review therefore seeks to be directed toward learning as well 
as measuring results achieved. 
The evaluator has been asked to i) assess the degree to which program 
benchmarks with respect to specific activities as well as larger objectives have 
been achieved at this point in the implementation of the initiative, and ii) make 
recommendations about how future activities may be directed to best achieve 
program objectives, with the possibility that program goal and objectives may 
need to be revised on the basis of developments since the inception of the 
initiative. The midterm review should assess: 
♦ How effectively program design, implementation, M&E have been integrated 
around food security program goals, 
♦ How appropriate are ICB activities for meeting the capacity-building needs of 
OICI, 
♦ OICI progress toward achieving ICB program goals, 
♦ Achievement of planned activities; 
♦ How effectively staff at all levels of the organization understand food security 
program goals and incorporate them into their implementation or 
management responsibilities, 
♦ Perceptions of organizational strengths and weaknesses in program design, 
implementation, evaluation, and 
♦ Suggestions for how the remaining resources may be most effectively used to 
strengthen OIC capacities to implement effective food security programs. 
The ICB Midterm Review Scope of Work (SOW) is attached as Appendix A. 
2. Mid-Term Review Approach & Schedule 
The midterm evaluation process commenced with a review of key documents 
produced and used by or for the ICB, including: 
♦ ICB Proposal of March 2004; 
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♦ ICB Annual Reports, 2004 & 2005; 
♦ Enhance Program DAP, OICI Ghana, June 2004; 
♦ Guinea Food & Livelihood Security Project DAP, February 2004 
♦ Food Security Assessment Report, Ghana, 2004 
♦ Baseline Study of Food & Livelihood Security, Guinea, February 2005 
♦ Baseline Survey for ENHANCE, Ghana, 2005 
♦ Workshop Report on Development Relief Approach, TANGO, February 2006 
♦ Risk & Vulnerability Assessment Guideline, TANGO, February 2006 
♦ ENHANCE Monitoring & Evaluation Manual, Ghana, March 2006 
♦ OICI Program Operations: Background & Strategy, May 2006. 
The evaluator held initial phone discussions with the OICI Director of Food 
Security Programs prior to undertaking the office and field interviews in order to 
achieve clarity on the mid-term review objectives, process, and logistical 
arrangements. A topical outline for Interview Focus Questions was developed 
and shared with the OICI Director of Programming prior to commencing the 
interviews. The topical outline was amended a second time in Philadelphia after 
key program management staff got the chance to suggest changes and 
additions. 
The Headquarters and Field Staff Focus Interview Topical Outline is attached as 
Appendix B.
In order to fulfil the SOW described above, the evaluator visited the OICI 
headquarters in Philadelphia for three full initial days of discussions with key OICI 
headquarters staff during the third week of June 2006, followed by three days of 
meetings in Washington DC with NGO partner agencies Africare and ADRA as 
well as USAID officials familiar with the OICI ICB, before returning to Philadelphia 
to debrief on the Washington DC meetings and complete the interview schedule 
with the Vice President of Programs. 
A complete list of persons and positions interviewed by organisation is attached 
as Appendix C.
OICI field offices in Ghana and Guinea contributed to the midterm review by 
interviewing their key program staff in a focus group setting and then sending the 
results of the discussions to the Evaluator. Finally, the USAID Food for Peace 
Office in Ghana provided perspectives on the ICB contribution to food security 
programming in the Ghana context. 
3. Analysis & Documentation of Findings 
The midterm review allowed time for debriefings and provided ample opportunity 
for discussion of findings, particularly with the Director of Food Security 
Programs, who participated in the review focus group discussions in Washington 
DC. The evaluator amalgamated the interview notes into Focus Interview 
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matrices, which are included as Appendix D. The interview discussions form the 
most substantial inputs into the midterm review analysis, which is presented 
below. 
IV MIDTERM REVIEW FINDINGS
The ICB has sought to realize two strategic objectives, to 
(1) Achieve responsive and efficient program management through three 
relevant intermediate results, and 
(2) Support technical excellence and innovation through two IRs. 
1. General Findings: Overall Improvements in OICI Capacity to 
Implement Food Security Programs 
Program management, professionalism and the technical skills of staff involved 
in food security programming have increased substantially since the inception of 
the current ICB. Training events have improved OICI staff understanding of 
program design and implementation, development-relief programming, as well as 
commodity management. OICI management has successfully restructured and 
brought in new staff to manage food security programming at headquarters and 
country office levels, providing Title II programs with a highly competent team for 
grant management, financial tracking, and commodity management. 
The intensive training program was designed and developed to strengthen the 
understanding of field staff and managers as well of food security concepts, 
commodity management, monetization, the application of assessment methods, 
and some monitoring and evaluation. As a result, the perception of food aid 
within the agency has improved and personnel in the field offices as well as 
headquarters are more receptive to projects that use food as a resource. OICI 
has dedicated enhanced attention to program learning, documentation, and 
development of best practices models at the field level in Ghana and Guinea as 
well as from headquarters. 
The Food security team has developed a good relationship with other partners in 
the field, including ADRA and Africare. Building on this collaboration, future 
efforts could focus on sharing responsibilities with regards to emergency 
preparedness interventions and transitions and building field capacity in relief 
development programming. 
Several important events have contributed to improved understanding of food 
security programming within the organization: 
1. Key positions have been filled, including the Monitoring & Evaluation 
(M&E) position, the Program Assistant, as well as the essential Food 
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Security Director position, although some of the positions were vacant for 
relatively long periods of time, adversely affecting program progress. 
2. Training in several key programming areas has been successfully 
completed. The training workshops included: 
a. Development-relief, 
b. Supply chain management, and 
c. Monetization. 
3. The training workshops have given OICI a core of technical personnel who 
are now available to assist country offices throughout the West Africa 
region. 
4. The OICI food security unit, working through consultants and OICI 
technical staff in Ghana and Togo, has developed seven manuals in order 
to improve the technical quality of agricultural extension, water and 
sanitation, post-harvest crop management, and animal husbandry 
interventions in their food security programming. 
5. The Ghana and Guinea country offices both reported improved technical 
assistance from headquarters during the past two years resulting from 
increased field visits from headquarters as well as improved quality of 
management and field staff at both headquarters and in the field. The 
field offices would like to see intensified visits focused on specific technical 
assistance and enhanced involvement by the food security team in field 
activities. 
6. USAID has continued to be supportive of OICI efforts in relation to ICB 
activities and the learning food security curve for the organization. 
Appendix F presents the OICI ICB performance indicator tracking table, which 
covers the initial two years of the ICB. 
2. Review of Program Management Responsiveness & Efficiency – SO1 
The first strategic objective sought to accomplish the following: 
SO1: Responsive and efficient program management achieved 
We will initially assess the first Intermediate Result, IR 1.1 – Scale efficiencies 
achieved through collaboration with other PVOs and program integration. 
The following constitute the primary activities of IR 1.1: 
• Conduct food security assessments and develop two new food security 
program models in Africa. 
• Collaborate with Africare to conduct FS Assessment (1of 2 cited above) in 
a new target country. 
• Redesign Guinea and Ghana Title II program models integrating 
developmental relief with PVO partners in emergency areas.
Supporting Activities: 
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• Integrate FS designs with the OICI Farmer-to-Farmer, Food for Progress 
and conflict resolution/mitigation programs. 
• Integrate into FS programming food distribution with PLWHA and OVCs. 
• Collaborate with CRS on developing common indicators in Ghana. 
• Obtain mission support for program to respond to PLWHA and OVC. 
Food Security Assessments: Even prior to the ICB, OICI has used food 
security assessments as an input to program design, activity development, and 
targeting for the DAPs. These food security assessments in Ghana and Guinea 
have been of high quality. The Ghana program for example utilized the food 
security assessment nutrition data to design a critical MCH food distribution 
component, promote HIV/AIDS programming activities, and target community 
selection. The assessments however were undertaken prior to the DAP project 
design process and during the time when the ICB proposal was under review 
prior to its approval. OIC-Guinea is planning to use the data from the 
assessment to design a Food for Education proposal. 
Needs assessments have included: 
1. Secondary data review; 
2. Informal meetings with donors, NGOs, & USAID; and 
3. Four Focus groups in target area in Guinea; each of the focus groups 
analyzed fifteen discussion questions. 
The original ICB design however called for a partnership or collaboration 
between OICI and Africare to jointly conduct at least one food security 
assessment in a new target country. This has not taken place; nor apparently is 
a joint assessment planned for the future. One issue is that Africare did not 
budget for this activity. OICI is apparently planning other assessments in the 
pipeline, though they have yet to be defined. Assessments will hopefully lead in 
to project designs and proposals. 
Program Design & Proposal Development: OICI has not used ICB funds to 
develop new proposals, which is not allowed anyway by USAID Food for Peace. 
In fact, the two DAPs currently implanted by OICI in Ghana and Guinea were 
designed and commenced during the ICB approval process; this ICB didn’t 
contribute to DAP designs. There has been a problem of continuity in the DAPs. 
The previous DAPs required a year of extension until the current DAPs were 
approved and commenced implementation. The current DAPs may end 
prematurely in Ghana and Guinea, which are no longer Title II countries for 
USAID. OIC personnel in the two country programs are naturally quite anxious 
about the future of these programs. 
USAID considers the both of the OICI DAPs in Ghana and Guinea to be strong 
proposals and well designed, partly a result of the strong food security 
assessment process. This evaluator concurs. USAID pronounced the OIC￾Ghana DAP to be the strongest of all the proposals submitted for funding. 
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HIV/AIDS programming is well integrated into the food security program strategy. 
Agriculture and health are strong components of the Guinea program although 
the sectors are only weakly linked. For example, agriculture extension activities 
should be closely linked to Hearth activities within the communities; such a 
linkage is currently missing in the program approach. 
The current ICB has not contributed to the expansion of the OICI programming 
portfolio. No new DAPs or MYAPs have been designed during the past two 
years. OICI is now in a bit of a dilemma concerning future Title II programming, 
particularly since USAID FFP announced the list of narrowing priority Title II 
countries, which does not include either Ghana or Guinea. OICI does not 
currently have a presence in two other countries on the list, Sierra Leone and 
Liberia. Other larger NGOs have decades of experience in these two West 
African countries and in at least one case have formed coalitions to partner 
together in designing fundable MYAP proposals. It would be difficult for OICI to 
compete for fundable proposals within this context. 
OICI regional teams are nevertheless now in the early planning stages of 
initiating a MYAP design strategy aimed at developing MYAPs, drawing on the 
training, which is described below. It is hoped that regional Staff in West Africa 
can now become directly as well as indirectly involved in the design and 
development of fundable project proposals. OICI has targeted the design and 
development of one new food security program sometime during FY07 and 
another two the following year. 
In total, four MYAPs are planned for the future, if funding can be secured. The 
training workshops have theoretically increased OICI competitiveness. It is 
hoped that OICI is now well placed to rapidly respond to proposal development 
and implementation, although this has yet to be demonstrated. New proposals 
have not been forthcoming since the inception of the ICB. 
Finally, ICB has not promoted a model or conceptual framework for food security; 
such a model would help OICI promote a food security program approach or 
focus. Lack of a conceptual food security framework has contributed to a failure 
to redesign the Title II program models in Guinea and Ghana by integrating 
developmental relief with PVO partners in emergency areas. Such a model will 
prove essential in future efforts in all priority Title II country contexts. FFP priority 
countries all require a development-relief approach. 
Program Integration: In general, program coordination is country specific. One 
project can help strengthen and improve other projects. OICI is now promoting a 
regional approach that necessitates much better program coordination; one 
country office can assist in another country context. 
FS programming approaches and knowledge are not currently integrated into 
other OICI international programmes, such as the Farmer to Farmer program or 
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the BGB curriculum. The country offices, however, host the farmers participating 
from the Farmer to Farmer program. Farm Serve feeds into other projects and 
Farm Serve volunteers continue to provide advice on agricultural practices to 
Title II project participants in Ghana and Guinea. 
Agriculture programming liaison and coordination with food security is currently 
not strong. Similarly, although OICI programming and headquarters Staff are 
now aware of the importance of integrating nutritional analysis and nutritional 
programming into OIC programming, this has yet to be applied. 
Program integration within projects could be stronger. The ICB could be used to 
promote a program approach integrating health and agriculture extension 
techniques and methodologies for example. Agricultural extension should feed 
directly into the Positive Deviance, or Hearth model of nutrition programming, for 
example. The development and proactive dissemination of a food security 
framework (discussed above in the previous section) would help field staff to 
realize these types of linkages as necessary in promoting food security. 
Documents are shared across the organization so that field Staff as well as 
headquarter Staff in all programming areas are aware of progress in other 
programs. Field offices referred in particular to the usefulness of documents 
relating to HIV/AIDS, FarmServe, and food aid issues emanating from 
Washington. The Food Security Group is involved in ensuring a thorough review 
process that includes all departments. 
The OICI approach to food security should be included during Staff orientation as 
they come on board; this is not currently the practice. 
Collaboration with other PVOs: OICI has established and maintained effective 
functional partnerships with other PVOs operating in Ghana and Guinea. The 
DAPs in each of those countries have joint monetization arrangements, led by 
CRS in Ghana and Africare in Guinea, which includes ADRA as well as OICI in 
the Monetization group. The monetization process is quite smooth and running 
well, especially in Guinea. The monetization partnership includes joint decision￾making, but OICI is not registered to actually carry out the monetization, which is 
done by Africare in Guinea and CRS in Ghana. The partnering experience has 
not been as smooth with CRS as with Africare and ADRA. Together the PVOs 
make commodity requests and coordinate commodity arrival in country although 
each PVO prepares separate call forwards. As is the case with other PVOs, 
OICI continues to monetize eighty percent of food commodities in Guinea. 
OICI participates in periodic Monetization Coordination Meetings to discuss the 
commodity monetization process. These meetings, involving ADRA, Africare, 
and OICI, also provide settings to discuss a range of issues related to program 
implementation. Cross visits to project sites have been arranged. For example, 
the OICI Health Coordinator was able to visit Africare’s health program activities 
13
in Guinea, meeting with field staff to exchange health programming experience. 
Similarly, the OICI Agriculture Coordinator, accompanied by the M&E officer, 
observed ADRA agricultural credit and extension service activities. 
OICI collaborated with CRS in a very lengthy but successful process to develop 
common monitoring and evaluation indicators relating to MCH and HIV/AIDS 
activities for their DAP programs in Ghana. OIC-Ghana in turn provides 
boreholes to communities working through CRS. Counterpart International is 
providing training to OICI staff on HIV/AIDS in Ghana as well. OIC-Ghana has 
partnered with Heifer International and Counterpart International to enhance 
animal husbandry and MCH program strategies. 
The most substantial collaboration occurred in two training workshops organized 
by OICI for two back-to-back weeks in Guinea, the first week devoted to Supply 
Chain Management and the second week devoted to Monetization. Ten 
participants from Africare, ADRA, and World Vision participated with OICI field 
staff in the workshops. 
Collaboration is clearly strongest at the country office levels. Because each PVO 
is competing for ICB support from USAID, which administers each ICB grant 
separately, the system unfortunately discourages organizational coordination in a 
systematic way. It is also true that collaboration activities proposed in one ICB 
by one PVO may not show up as an activity in another PVO’s ICB. For example, 
OICI proposed to jointly undertake food security assessments as well as test 
capacity building index methodologies with Africare in its ICB proposal, but 
Africare did not include nor budget for these activities in its proposal. 
IR 1.2 OICI capacities in key technical areas strengthened 
Primary Activities in support of IR 1.2 have included: 
• Standardize FS assessment methodology incorporating risks and 
vulnerabilities analysis and adopt standard Design, Monitoring and 
Evaluation (DME) methodologies into FS programming. 
• Train staff in developmental relief and new food security framework 
through joint and/or in-house workshops. 
• Train staff in Supply Chain Management (SCM) through CARE technical 
assistance. 
• Train staff in Health and Nutrition (H&N) and HIV/AIDS programming 
through technical assistance from partner PVOs, academic and research 
institutions 
Supporting Activities: 
• Participate in training on Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DME). 
• Participate in market analysis and Bellmon determination training. 
• Participate in environmental compliance and gender training. 
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• Define OICI SCM strategy. 
• Adopt H&N assessment tools, and integrate nutrition education in FS 
design. 
Capacity Building through Training: Capacity building is a niche of OICI, 
which structured the ICB to create training opportunities in several key 
programming areas over the initial two years of the ICB. The capacity building 
strategy represents perhaps the strongest use of ICB resources. 
The evolution of OICI as a Title II FFP implementing partner has been a long￾term process for the organization, which is smaller, less bureaucratic, and less 
experienced in food security programming than many of USAID’s other traditional 
PVO partners such as CARE, World Vision, CRS, Save the Children, ADRA, or 
Africare. OICI is clearly successfully making rapid strides toward achieving the 
broad goal of building capacity in order to more efficiently manage Title II 
programs. Capacity building remains an ongoing process for OICI’s food security 
team. 
ICB promoted training workshops have increased the capacity of Staff to 
implement project activities and take on new technical activities that OICI has not 
heretofore taken on, such as monetization, commodity management, and project 
design and development; OICI now has new programming capacity in those 
areas. The impact from the training activities hasn’t yet emerged however. 
The quality of training offered by the OICI through consultants and partners has 
been rated across the board as very good. Responses to the Interview Focus 
Questions for OICI Field Personnel as well as through individual participant 
evaluations at headquarters and with partners consistently gave high ratings to 
the training methodologies as well as content of the OICI-sponsored workshops. 
To summarize the training workshop events: 
♦ Fourteen management-level staff members have received training in 
development-relief and the USAID food security framework, which was 
facilitated by the consulting group TANGO International. The training 
was rated as very good by participants, supplying field staff and 
management with newly acquired skills to design food security 
programs in a development-relief transitional country setting. 
However, field Staff have yet to apply the results or outcomes of the 
development relief workshop. 
♦ Ten management and field Staff received training in supply chain 
management, which was facilitated by CARE. The OICI Director of 
Food Security followed up the workshop by providing staff with training 
in commodity management and logistics, including call-forwards, port 
operations, transportation, storage, and distribution. One outcome was 
the initiation of a commodity tracking system, the first for OICI, 
providing the organization with incipient capacity to track and manage 
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commodities. Prior to the commencement of the current DAP, OICI 
had never been involved in direct distribution of Title II commodities. 
Field Staff have now been introduced to USAID food programming 
regulations and procedures. Successful commodity management 
training will undoubtedly be of critical importance to OICI in both the 
medium term as well as long term. In the medium-term, OICI may be 
the only FFP PVO remaining in Ghana and Guinea during the last two 
years of the program (if the Title II programs continue) as other PVOs 
withdraw, thereby requiring OICI to assume sole responsibility to 
manage the commodities. In the long-term, strong commodity 
management capacity will enhance OICI’s reputation to undertake food 
programs in other Title II countries, thereby strengthening OICI 
comparative advantage. 
♦ The same ten management and field Staff received training in 
monetization, which was facilitated by a consultant provide by Save the 
Children in a workshop immediately following the supply chain 
management workshop. Workshop participants ranked the 
monetization workshop as particularly creative and practical. 
♦ Over fifty Staff received training in health and nutrition and HIV/AIDS 
programming through technical assistance from partners PVOs, 
notably CRS. 
♦ Five food security team management Staff received training in 
environmental analysis, providing OICI with some in-house capacity in 
environmental assessment and analysis methodologies. 
♦ Nine food security team members have participated in gender analysis 
training. 
♦ Although OICI field Staff in the two Title II countries participated in 
research that contributed to the Bellmon Analyses for Ghana and 
Guinea, OICI personnel have yet to participate in formal market 
analysis and Bellmon determination training. 
Although the training workshop process received highly favourable ratings, 
participants offered a few bits of advice to galvanize improvements in future 
training events. Training Francophone & Anglophone speakers in English in one 
setting was a challenge. More days were needed, given the translation 
requirements, which slowed down the training workshop process. Training Staff 
from different settings was a positive development in another sense however. 
Field Staff learned from each other and allowed OICI to form regional technical 
teams that could use their training across the region. The Monetization 
workshop was rated as the most participatory and therefore most engaging of the 
workshops discussed above. 
Most of the training events outlined above – particularly the development-relief, 
supply chain management, and monetization workshops, brought together Staff 
from both Ghana and Guinea programs, allowing cross-learning. The demand to 
participate in these workshops has been high. In addition, other partners and 
16
PVOs, including Africare, ADRA, and World Vision, sent representative Staff to 
participate in workshops. 
Particularly notable is that OICI now has a cadre of qualified food security field 
staff, project managers and headquarters management. However, that cadre 
currently represents a thin layer; the departure of one or two DAP managers and 
key technical staff in the field or managers at headquarters would leave OICI 
exposed. 
Staff can theoretically return and re-train other Staff. In reality, OICI-Ghana and 
Guinea Staff remain a bit discouraged because the programs may be 
discontinued relatively soon, and the retraining process has been negatively 
affected. The incentive to apply the training has been lost. The challenge is to 
apply the training in new geographical localities. 
Field as well as headquarters Staff mentioned other programming areas in need 
of capacity building exercises, including: 
♦ M&E and MIS development; 
♦ MCH, and health programming; 
♦ Agricultural production development methods; 
♦ Agricultural extension methods as well as agricultural marketing to be 
able to promote training to farmers; 
♦ Nutrition and sanitation; 
♦ HIV/AIDS care & support; and 
♦ Small business micro-enterprise development. 
OICI has used the training to galvanize the production of technical manuals such 
as the Risk-Vulnerability manual, developed in partnership with TANGO 
International, which has direct relevance in the FFP priority countries of Liberia 
and Sierra Leone, where OICI is contemplating Title II program proposals. 
Monitoring & Evaluation: OICI has only relatively recently initiated a strong 
effort to improve the M&E capacity of the field offices implementing DAPs. Prior 
to the present ICB, M&E capacity demonstrated in DAP implementation was 
poor. In addition, M&E was not given much priority by OICI senior management. 
Through the current ICB, senior management committed to the important task of 
improving its M&E focus from headquarters as well for the field programs. 
One initial step was to expose six Title II staff to food security methodologies 
incorporating risks and vulnerability analysis standardized for Design, Monitoring 
and Evaluation. OICI has also initiated a great deal of emphasis on the 
importance of good effective baselines and appropriate ways to carry out these 
studies. The baselines conducted in Ghana and Guinea will allow OICI to 
evaluate appropriate indicators useful to track to test program effects and impact. 
Although USAID is satisfied with the timeliness and content of quarterly and 
annual reports, less emphasis has been given to annual monitoring systems and 
17
good report writing. This was primarily due to personnel constraints, changes, 
and vacancies during the initial two years of the ICB. OICI has hired an M&E 
specialist, who came on board earlier this year. The position was vacant for the 
better part of a year. The long vacancy did not allow OICI to move forward in 
terms of M&E systems, which suffered as a result. 
The previous M&E Specialist had developed M&E instruments and tools, 
including DAP Reporting Manuals for the two programs in Ghana and Guinea, 
which were deemed to be inappropriate and not useful in the country office 
settings, although this evaluator found the manuals to be coherent and useful. 
The Dap Reporting Manuals were comprehensive and offered field staff an 
introduction to M&E systems, USAID FFP M&E reporting requirements and 
guidelines, an introduction to Performance Monitoring Plans, a clear explanation 
of the performance indicators to be monitored in the M&E system, and a clear but 
long computerized M&E reporting system. Although a lot of thought and work 
went into creating the M&E manuals, OICI Staff complained that the data bases 
created from headquarters were neither strong nor user friendly and were one of 
the disconnections between headquarters and the field, which perceived the data 
bases as too headquarter-based, not based on actual field experience or context, 
incomplete, and not holistic. The system failed to account for variations in the 
field, differences between the Ghanaian and Guinea programs. The current M&E 
specialist is attempting to standardize M&E for use in both DAP programs. 
Although the personnel changes and planned systems changes augur 
improvements in the M&E systems, OICI has yet to implement improved M&E 
systems. The plan is to establish a MIS structure to facilitate and manage the 
program Results Framework as well as provide field Staff with the ability to 
access M&E reports and other pertinent reports from other country office 
contexts with the OICI global world. OICI has in place an Intranet, which is 
underused. It is hoped that OICI can establish an MIS to connect the field offices 
with headquarters within the next year. But this will be a large endeavor 
requiring some financial and human resource commitment. 
Interview discussions with OICI personnel revealed a desire for enhanced 
support in M&E. OICI management recognizes that M&E systems remain are 
currently not an organizational strength, although the recent personnel changes 
offer promise and potential. Control mechanisms are weak; a commodity 
management & tracking system is needed. M&E capabilities have recently 
increased throughout the organization with the hiring of the headquarters M&E 
specialist, as well as an M&E consultant in Ghana, where M&E is better 
integrated into program activities than has been the case in Guinea. The Ghana 
country office for example hired experienced M&E manager and officer as well as 
a consultant to redesign the M&E system; commenced planning on a 
comprehensive MIS; and developed qualitative and quantitative tools for 
assessments and evaluations. OIC-Ghana also actively engaged the USAID 
FFP in constructive discussions in successful efforts to improve M&E and 
18
reporting of program results, which has been a wise collaboration process. In 
Guinea, the M&E officer reports directly to the CD in an effort to promote 
accountability. However, M&E is therefore removed from effective program 
implementation. 
For over six months, M&E functions were outsourced, principally to FANTA. 
OICI belongs to the FANTA working group, which meets bi-monthly in DC to 
establish performance indicators that can cut across different programs and 
geographic regions; the goal is to create objective, cross-cutting, systematically 
applied indicators.
Finally, as the food security team focuses more intensively on program 
management support, monitoring and evaluation will become increasingly 
important. Knowledgeable personnel with M&E skills will be critical to ensure 
that OICI can engage in dialogues with USAID on appropriate sampling 
strategies, indicator selection, and baseline data collection. The emphasis 
should be on information systems that allow for program learning and contribute 
to program quality, not just on meeting donor requirements. 
ICB Performance Indicators: Although considerable effort has been focused 
on strengthening the field office capacity to improve monitoring and evaluation 
capacity and enhances M&E systems, less attention has been concentrated on 
monitoring the impact, in addition to the outputs, of the ICB. Although efforts 
have been made to track a number of output indicators (for example, types of 
training modules developed, number of training events conducted, number of 
participants trained, number of training manuals developed, number of baselines 
and assessments conducted, number of staff or specialists hired), less emphasis 
has been gone into tracking program quality improvements (outcome measures). 
The main problem with the Indicator Performance Tracking Table (IPTT) is that it 
does not really have any measures of capacity building or quality program 
improvements. It primarily consists of indicators that track output. In addition, 
the annual reports currently only reflect outputs achieved and beyond that 
provide only a limited amount of information. M&E and annual reports give the 
food security team a great opportunity to capture issues related to program 
quality and lessons learned. 
IR1.3: OICI’s human resources for food security program management 
strengthened 
Primary Activity 
• Develop staffing plan utilizing field-based regional staff. 
Supporting Activities 
• Develop Design, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist staff position. 
• Develop Supply Chain Management Specialist staff capacity. 
19
Strengthened Human Resources: As mentioned above, the training strategy 
has improved field staff as well as management capacity in program diagnostics 
and design, commodity management, and monetization. Intended to strengthen 
Staff capacity, the ICB has succeeded. Field Staff are now qualified to 
implement food security and development-relief transitional programs as a result 
of the workshops. Training workshops have also imbued staff with a better 
understanding of DAPs and the process of design and implementation. The OICI 
food security team has encouraged cross-learning between the two DAPs in 
Ghana and Guinea. 
However, the results from the Development-Relief workshop have yet to be 
demonstrated. OICI has not developed new food security programming during 
the short life of this ICB. 
One issue is that all country office personnel realize that the DAPs may close 
down within the next year in Ghana and Guinea. Morale of DAP field Staff is in 
serious question due to threat of DAP cut-off after FY07. USAID is evaluating 
the feasibility and desirability of prematurely cutting off the Title II programs 
before project participants have the opportunity of benefiting in any type of 
sustainable fashion from a full project cycle. Many in FFP would like the current 
programs to be able to continue through the projected end of project even in the 
non-prioritised countries such as Ghana and Guinea, where OICI is currently 
based. In the meantime, OICI would like to create a core group of regional 
technical personnel with expertise in different development arenas to search for 
opportunities for program development and proposal funding elsewhere. 
Staffing Structure & Plan: The food security staffing structure has been in flux 
and seen substantial changes over the past two years. The food security team is 
in a much stronger position, with the key positions filled following a substantial 
period of unfilled key positions. OICI has made significant strides in promoting 
professionalism within the management structure of the organization and the 
food security program over the past year. Specifically, OICI program 
management includes a Director of Food Security, an Assistant to the unit, and a 
Monitoring & Evaluation Director. Program decision-making is a result of team 
efforts, taking into account the program approach and the geographic targeting. 
New programming roles & responsibilities as well as new personnel active on the 
food security team include the following: 
♦ The VP – Food Security position has been eliminated. Now there is a VP for 
Programming with the Director of Food Security reporting to the VP; 
♦ A Dir of Agriculture has been brought in. This position currently concentrates 
substantially on implementing the Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer program, 
leaving little time to devote to supporting food security program field staff in 
technical assistance in agricultural systems, extension methodologies, or 
agricultural marketing. 
20
♦ New job descriptions have been created. Field Staff have been able to feed 
off of the experience and expertise that has recently been brought into 
headquarters. 
♦ The M&E position was a vacuum for virtually a full year; the ICB helped to 
deliver the M&E Director position. 
♦ Ghana and Guinea country offices have developed new project management 
teams, including new M&E officers. 
♦ The original ICB proposal budgeted forty percent for an Associate Director of 
Food Security. That position has remained unfilled. 
♦ Administrative functions have recently been filled with the hiring of a Program 
Assistant. 
♦ Country offices have strengthened their technical capacity to implement 
programs. OICI-Ghana for example has hired HIV/AIDS specialists and 
agriculture marketing specialists in addition to partnering with Heifer 
International and CPI to improve animal husbandry and MCH staff capacity. 
Other country office positions have remained unfilled however, affecting 
program quality. 
♦ Some headquarters food security team programming positions remain 
unfilled. OICI lacks health/sanitation/HIV expertise at HQ; these positions are 
needed. The health/nutrition position has remained empty for years. At least 
one person is needed to provide OICI food security programming with 
technical assistance in support of nutrition, HIV/AIDS, and MCH 
programming. OICI management and field offices all recognize this as a 
current void in the organization. 
The original proposal called for the establishment of a regional management and 
technical assistance unit to oversee and manage programming in the West Africa 
region. The regional unit was never formally created or put into place, because 
OICI was never able to financially support it. The newly constituted OICI Board 
of Directors shut down the Unit. The rationale for the regional positions remains 
under debate, given the growing regionalization of OICI programming and an 
intensified effort to improve program quality across the region that began with the 
regional workshops. 
What remains clear however is that OICI would like to create a team of regional 
technical staff to develop programs and support those programs with technical 
expertise. Staff based in country offices could provide technical assistance to 
other country office programs while managing or implementing country specific 
programs. This unit may not be required and OICI lacks the financial 
wherewithal to finance such a unit at the regional level anyway. 
3. Support for Technical Excellence & Innovation – SO2 
SO2: Technical excellence and innovation supported 
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IR 2.1: Promising tools, methods and best practices identified and disseminated, 
and headquarters/field technical information exchange facilitated. 
Primary Activities 
• Formalize and document OICI methodology in extension and capacity 
building and share with the broader community. 
• Collaborate with Africare on testing Africare's capacity building index, 
and co-publish with Africare results of collaboration. 
Supporting Activity 
• Document and share agriculture, Watsan and other FS program 
experiences and best practices across OICI programs and the broader 
community through targeted workshops, conferences and publications. 
Development of Tools & Best Practices: OICI hired three consultants to work 
with technical staff from the Ghana DAP to develop draft manuals and modules 
based on best practices in the programming sectors of agricultural extension, 
water and sanitation, post-harvest crop management, and animal husbandry. 
The manuals have very recently been developed and are still at the draft stage. 
None of them has therefore been used in the field as of yet, although OICI￾Ghana has already reported an improvement in extension methodologies 
resulting from the revision and upgrading of the training manuals. The next step 
will be to publish the manuals and make them available for use by other 
organizations as well as by OICI field staff. OICI plans to simultaneously 
translate the English manuals into French for use in Guinea. The documents are 
in the process of being retooled drawing on comments from the field. 
Organizations (ADRA in particular mentioned this) are aware of these tools and 
eagerly await final publication and dissemination across PVOs. 
The sixteen draft manuals, which document food security program experiences 
and best practices across OICI food security programs as well as other program 
experiences, include; 
♦ Community animation and training, which consists of group management 
& dynamics, team building, effective communication, facilitation 
techniques, conflict resolution, crisis management, and record keeping 
and bookkeeping; 
♦ Financial and business management, which consists of credit 
management, micro-credit approaches, entrepreneurial skills 
development, causes & consequences of poverty, financial planning, and 
financial decision-making; 
♦ Water and sanitation, consisting of WATSAN committee formation, water 
supply systems, project cycles, hygiene and sanitation, and technical 
planning issues; 
♦ Micro-enterprise development, consisting of enterprise assessment 
methods, business planning, enterprise initiation, costing and pricing, 
22
marketing, processing, packaging and labelling, rural enterprise 
development and marketing issues, and pricing goods and products. 
♦ Agriculture, consisting of post-harvest systems, causes of post-harvest 
losses, storage treatment, solar heaters for cowpea storage, types of 
storage structures, participatory farm management, causal diagramming, 
participatory budgeting, resource allocation mapping, resource flow 
diagrams, record-keeping, and vegetable production, including kitchen 
gardens; 
♦ Maternal & Child Health and Nutrition (MCH), consisting of community 
participatory methods, nutrition, the prevention and treatment of illnesses 
and malnutrition, growth monitoring, prevention & treatment of water￾borne diseases, diarrhoeal diseases, HIV/AIDS, water treatment, 
hygiene and health, and sanitation; 
♦ Marketing, consisting of agricultural marketing, marketing channels, 
agricultural marketing functions, and problems, solutions, and strategies 
relating to agricultural marketing. 
Besides printing up the draft technical manuals, the ICB has not contributed to 
promoting extension methodologies. The programming extension approach was 
already built into the DAP proposals; the ICB has not added to that approach. In 
general, OICI works through host government extension agents to implement 
extension activities. 
The original ICB proposal called for Africare and ICB to partner in testing their 
Capacity Building Index. Unfortunately collaboration around this activity never 
took place because Africare did not promote this or budget for this activity in its 
own ICB. OIC has a functional relationship with Africare and ADRA at the field 
level; extension staff occasionally work together in the field and the Country 
Directors often collaborate. 
Finally although OICI has not attended FANTA training workshops in support of 
food aid standards, OICI has relied on FANTA to support M&E functions for the 
DAPs for approximately one year while OICI was searching for a suitable M&E 
Coordinator. FANTA has helped OICI develop appropriate performance 
indicators to track project performance, effects and impact. FANTA’s contribution 
to the OICI programs has been profound. 
IR2.2 Participation in food aid community discussions and decision-making 
enhanced 
Primary Activity 
• Participate actively in FAM and FANTA activities, notably in developing 
food aid standards. 
23
The Food Security Dialogue & Advocacy: OICI has not specifically taken 
positions on food aid, food security, and monetization, but defers to the Food Aid 
Coalition, which has taken positions on the WTO, monetization, and food aid. 
The ICB allows OICI headquarter personnel, particularly the Food Security 
Director but also the M&E Director, to regularly participate in the Food Aid 
Coalition meetings, activities and working groups, increasing the OICI 
understanding of the global environment relating to its work. OICI used to 
participate as well in the Food Aid Management (FAM) group, which has been 
defunct since 2005 after USAID discontinued funding support. 
The Food Aid Coalition, which is currently undergoing a crisis of sorts resulting 
from differences in opinion over its focus and purpose involving some of the 
larger and more influential PVOs, has advocated on specific issues of interest to 
the PVO community. The current big issue is that of the future of monetization to 
help support Title II programs. The coalition also advocates for fully funded 
DAPs. OICI is an active member of the Food Aid coalition. OICI also 
participated in the Kansas City meetings, where the Food Aid Coalition 
strategized about positions vis-à-vis food aid and the future of the coalition. OICI 
by itself does not engage in advocacy, but joins coalitions. 
Field offices have managed to move forward without input from the 
headquarters-based food security team; for example OICI-Ghana has developed 
a magazine called “Opportunity” which discusses development programming in 
the Ghanaian context. The food security team hopes in the future to create a 
functioning website to promote enhanced visibility of food security and food aid 
issues as well as sector-specific state-of-the-art developments. 
4. Other Findings: ICB Budgeting and Finance
OICI initially budgeted $1.3 million to support ICB activities; FFP finally approved 
the ICB for one million dollars over five years, an amount that appears to be 
adequate to implement most of the activities proposed. However, fund 
disbursement for the ICB was delayed during 2004, the initial year of the ICB. 
Programme activities were therefore delayed for nearly a year, including the 
hiring of key personnel, affecting ICB start-up activities and seriously delaying 
ICB progress. After the slow start, the food security team has promoted an 
activity implementation schedule to catch up. 
Although the funding for the DAPs may not have been adequate, the ICB has 
been adequately budgeted. Some line items are under-budgeted however, 
though the ICB funding arrangements are relatively flexible. The food security 
team is particularly scrambling to undertake international travel, training, and 
consultancies. Funding for the DAPs (and OICI entire global Title II portfolio) 
through FY 08-09 is in jeopardy because Ghana and Guinea are not listed 
amongst the fifteen priority Title II countries and USAID FFP is facing serious 
budget constraints. 
24
V MIDTERM REVIEW RECOMMENDATIONS 
This evaluator believes that OICI Staff have used the ICB resources efficiently 
and effectively to strengthen food security programming. From an external 
perspective, the program designs are of high quality and were based on a good 
understanding of the food security context. OICI has rebuilt the capacity of field 
and headquarters Staff to improve the technical quality of food security 
programming and create a cadre of Staff to allow OICI to expand quality 
programming. The following recommendations are for the consideration of OICI 
as the organization moves into the second half of the ICB five-year programming 
timeframe and constructs strategies for the future. 
1. Continue to Systematically Build Capacity
It is important to continue to strengthen OICI capacity in food security and 
vulnerability programming, including disaster preparedness and program 
implementation. OICI needs to become more competitive in food security 
programming, so training and capacity building activities must continue to be 
emphasized, particularly in the realms of development-relief programming and 
programming within conflict-prone areas, which are the types of countries that 
USAID is prioritising and is seeking PVO partners. 
Training & capacity building is the OICI niche and is an excellent approach. 
Promote follow-on training to ensure full utilization of the training. Include 
Executive Staff in training events. Program success depends on attracting and 
retaining qualified, capable staff both in headquarters and the field. The food 
security team should not overlook orientation training and training in specific 
technical areas for staff themselves. Providing opportunities for professional 
development and mentoring should be an integral part of any training strategy. 
 
The food security training strategy should seek to build a DAP leadership pipeline 
to provide more depth throughout the continent and from headquarters. This 
pipeline should draw not only on those with commodity management experience, 
but also on potential managers with strong programming experience. 
Potential training subjects or retraining exercises include: 
♦ Holistic food security framework and its application (explained in more 
detail below under Recommendation #3); 
♦ Detailed MYAP and other project design process, including problem 
analysis based on food security assessments; 
♦ Participatory extension methodologies; 
♦ Monitoring & Evaluation refresher training (explained more thoroughly 
below under Recommendation #4). 
♦ Technical training related to the publication of key programming 
manuals. 
25
2. Consider strengthening the Food Security Unit by adding key Staff.
If OICI is seriously considering expanding its food security programming portfolio, 
including pursuing Title II program opportunities, the organization should 
consider filling essential positions which in turn will strengthen the organization 
over the long term. ICB and food security programming is currently understaffed 
at headquarters. A Program Assistant and the M&E Coordinator are finally on 
board. The programming department in general and the food security unit in 
particular should consider adding: 
♦ An Assistant Director of food security to either concentrate on 
commodity management, commodity accounting, contracts, the 
monetization process, and the food aid tracking process; while the 
Director of Food Security focuses on program quality issues, liaison in 
Washington, liaison with country offices, and new project proposals in 
coordination with the Grants Director; 
♦ A Health/HIV/AIDS/Nutrition/Sanitation Coordinator/Director or 
Technical Advisor. This position is very important but funding 
constraints have kept this position empty. Title II and food security 
programs normally require the integration of nutrition programming and 
some kind of nutrition tracking. HIV/AIDS program activities are really 
required in any kind of food security program. Water and Sanitation 
(WATSAN) or hygiene and sanitation project activities are frequently 
designed to respond to community food security constraints. 
♦ A Grants person to develop proposals and lead the process of grant 
and proposal documentation (although external consultants can also 
help fulfil part of this role if OICI decides it is too early to expand in this 
area). 
Although national Staff based overseas currently fulfil some of the technical 
expertise voids mentioned above, it is important to fill these voids at 
headquarters. 
As a point of comparison, the evaluation team observed the staffing 
arrangements of other mid-sized organisations currently undertaking Title II and 
food security programming. (Africare and ADRA each currently implement 
eleven Title II projects): 
♦ ADRA’s Food Security Unit consists of six core members (and a 
seventh core member who is not currently on board): 
ƒ 1 Food Security Director; 
ƒ 2 Assistant Directors concentrating on: 
• Commodity logistics, including contracts, monetization, 
and commodity training 
• Liaison with country offices, FFP, USDA, and partners. 
ƒ 2 Grant Managers, concentrating on: 
• Grant documentation, amendments, program close-out; 
26
• Requests, reports, amendments, CSR4 reports, logistics 
input, M&E 
ƒ 2 M&E staff, concentrating of indicators, Detailed 
Implementation Plans, IPTTs, contracts with M&E officers in the 
field, and M&E training. 
ƒ Emergency Programming Assistant Director (not currently in 
place in ADRA) 
ƒ Administrative staff. 
ƒ Other Sectors coordinate with the Food Security Unit and 
provide technical assistance when needed, including 
• Internal Compliance Finance, which oversees country 
office accounting, training, and closing audit 
recommendations; 
• Health Sector, led by a Nutrition/Public Health Expert 
(this position is completely funded through the Food 
Security Unit); 
• Economic Development Sector, consisting of two Staff. 
♦ Africare’s Food for Development Division currently consists of five 
staff, including: 
ƒ Director of Food for Development; 
ƒ 2 FFD Program Managers, who split up responsibilities in 
overseeing the eleven country programs; 
ƒ Commodities/Monetization Manager; 
ƒ Office Assistant; 
ƒ One additional Program Manager who is not currently on board. 
ƒ The Director of Health & HIV/AIDS provides technical 
assistance to support Food for Development activities. 
ƒ The Director of Agriculture similarly provides technical 
assistance. 
3. Develop a Food Security Framework that defines OICI food security 
programming. 
A cohesive holistic food security framework would help define a programming 
approach based on the premise that food security is a compendium of food 
availability, assess, and utilization, the understanding of contextual basic causes 
of food insecurity, and a coordinated or integrated programming approach. Food 
security or livelihood frameworks help organizations to define a programming 
approach for potential donors that root their program design in a coherent 
strategy. Food security frameworks offer a means to integrate program 
components, which is always attractive to potential donors. For example, USAID 
commented, during the course of this mid-term review, that nutrition components 
need to be more effectively integrated with agricultural development components. 
A coherent framework could help drive a strategy toward improving the nutrition￾agriculture linkages and as well help field Staff to step out of their sector boxes to 
coordinate their activities. Many organizations, such as CARE or Save the 
27
Children, have developed food security or livelihoods programming frameworks, 
which are displaced beside their core values and mission statements to define 
their organizational approach. 
OICI should consider bringing in short-term assistance to facilitate a process of 
food security framework development. 
4. Build on Monitoring & Evaluation Progress
OICI has made substantial strides in building monitoring and evaluation capacity 
at the country office and headquarters levels, primarily by hiring new talented 
M&E experts. The area of M&E should continue to be a high priority for technical 
assistance, as monitoring and evaluation activities need to be strengthened 
throughout the DAPs and the organization. Capacity should be built within field 
offices to do good monitoring and evaluation that contributes to program learning 
and reporting on DAP results. This would also allow OICI to engage USAID, 
FANTA and others on appropriate practices with regards to baselines and 
selection of indicators. Specifically, 
♦ It is time to establish an organization-wide Management Information 
System to facilitate and manage the program Results Framework and 
provide country offices with a means of easily accessing pertinent 
reports and state-of-the-art technical developments. The MIS would 
also improve reporting from the country offices. 
♦ Establish effect-level and impact-level indicators for the ICB to be able 
to measure qualitative program improvements and the effects of 
capacity building (not just the outputs). 
5. Develop Sustainability Mechanisms in the DAPs
Given the real possibility that OICI will be forced to curtail DAP programming 
activities in Ghana and Guinea, OICI Staff should construct adaptable exit 
strategies that promote sustainable mechanisms to sustain OICI field efforts even 
after OICI leaves the working areas. 
OICI should develop a long-term approach to sustainable development that 
includes agriculture, health, and nutrition in its programming approach. 
New proposals should promote synergies more broadly, bringing in agriculture 
and nutrition outcomes. 
6. Consider establishing strategic coalitions with PVOs in order to 
develop new food security programs in USAID priority countries and 
elsewhere. 
It is now clear that USAID will no longer fund Title II programs in Ghana, Guinea, 
and many other countries in Africa where Food for Peace once operated after 
FY07 or FY08. FFP will be operating in far fewer countries and the competition 
28
amongst PVOs to implement country programs will intensify. FFP is limiting Title 
II programming in West Africa to the transitional countries of Liberia and Sierra 
Leone, where OICI has limited programming experience but where other larger 
PVOs have worked for decades. OICI is at a comparative disadvantage 
attempting to design new project proposals in these countries. It is therefore 
strategically advisable to form alliances with like-minded PVOs in order to 
establish consortia that would be able to develop strong proposals drawing on 
comparative sectoral strengths by organization, sharing resources, and allocating 
geographic targeting by PVO. While it is undoubtedly true that OICI has had 
some bitter experiences with consortia proposals and PVO alliances in the past, 
it is also true that USAID is increasingly encouraging MYAP design and 
development through consortia, which can provide economies of scale and 
strong project designs. It is also true that standing alone, OICI is currently in a 
weak position vis-à-vis MYAP food security programming potential in Liberia and 
Sierra Leone. 
OICI should nevertheless immediately commence the process of organizational 
and country assessments to find the right fit and expand food security 
programming potential in the region. 
7. The ICB Final Evaluation Process
OICI should ensure that the Final Evaluation of the ICB, which will be undertaken 
in approximately two years, allows sufficient time and resources for the 
evaluation team to visit the field offices in Guinea and Ghana and discuss 
program outcomes with a wide variety of field staff and partners. 
29