Our Experience

theIDLgroup is experienced in a wide range of sectors, service areas and geographical regions. For details, please browse our portfolio, services and regional pages. Contact us if you want more information about our experience in a particular area. In the meantime, some of our more recent work is presented below:

Forest Governanc Trade Support in Ghana and Liberia (FLEGT)

theIDLgroup is providing technical and process facilitation support to bilateral trade negotiations between the EU and the Governments of Ghana, Liberia and elsewhere in West Africa, under the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA). Since September 2007 theIDLgroup has provided full time support in the region, based originally in Ghana, and currently in Liberia with additional support to other countries in West Africa. The FLEGT initiative aims to control the flow of timber and timber products into the EU to ensure that only legally sourced timber is able to access the EU market. It engages with a wide range of local, national, regional and international stakeholders in the forestry sector, to improve governance of forest areas and timber resources. In addition, theIDLgroup is providing a mechanism for DFID to offer over $950,000 of accountable grant funding to the Government of Liberia, to establish a Technical Secretariat that will oversee FLEGT VPA negotiations with the EU. In 2009, an initial scoping and support mission was undertaken in order to identify potential opportunities for the FLEGT initiative in Cote D'Ivoire.

Development of Ghana REDD+

theIDLgroup in collaboration with Winrock International and Climate Focus provided support to the Government of Ghana in the development to of their REDD+ Readiness Preparation Proposal. The document creates a roadmap for preparations for an international mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. It identifies existing and historical challenges within the forest sector and opportunities to incorporate mechanisms for REDD+ within the evolving forest governance agenda. The document also identifies activities that need to be undertaken for a mechanism for REDD+ to be developed in Ghana and presents a costed proposal for these.

Risk Financing Mechanisms

The traditional response to a shock in Ethiopia has been for the humanitarian emergency system to provide support for transitory needs. This response has historically been effective at saving lives which is the prime concern of a humanitarian response, but it has been less effective at saving livelihoods. This is because the assessment relies on evidence that an emergency is actually happening so can only be conducted once visible signs are present. The appeal process and the mobilisation and delivery of resources takes significant time, such that the actual delivery of emergency resources typically occurs some months after the need has been identified. To address this problem, the Government of Ethiopia contracted theIDLgroup to design and develop guidelines for a Risk Financing Mechanism, as part of the Productive Safety Net Programme. This mechanism aims to enable the Government of Ethiopia to more accurately predict natural, social and economic risks that result in humanitarian disasters and operate timely financing instruments to effectively reduce the level of chronic vulnerability in the country. The Team worked through a highly consultative process to produce the following outputs: an Inception Report detailing the scope of work as agreed with the Risk Financing Steering Committee; designing the risk financing mechanism; drafting guidelines, and producing final guidelines, for risk financing implementation.

M&E Support to the State Accountability and Voice Initiative (SAVI)

theIDLgroup was contracted to provide M&E technical assistance to SAVI, a 5 year civil society strengthening programme concerned with improving Nigeria’s use of its own resources. SAVI aims to strengthen civil society and government to better fulfil their responsibilities in improving the use of public resources (reflecting measures of effectiveness and efficiency).

Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness: Thematic Study on its Applicability in Fragile Situations and Conflict Affected Areas

In preparation for the September 2008 High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, theIDLgroup was commissioned to conduct a review of the aid effectiveness challenges facing development partners in fragile situations and conflict affected areas. The review explored the relevance and usefulness of the Paris Declaration and Fragile States Principles and how these two sets of international guidance have been applied in practice. This involved work on three case studies (Nepal, Afghanistan and Burundi).  As part of the review process, theIDLgroup has also been commissioned to develop a monitoring framework for the Fragile States Principles.  Download a copy of the report here.

The Ghana Rights and Voice Initiative (RAVI)

RAVI is a large multi-sectoral funding facility which aims to strengthen civil society and enhance citizen engagement with government in relation to the respect, protection and fulfillment of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.  A particular emphasis of RAVI is capacity building of national NGOs and Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) in the areas of rights and people centered advocacy. Civil society organisations benefiting from RAVI include disability groups, women's groups, think tanks, mining advocacy groups, forest watchdogs, agricultural trade unions and a variety of local CBOs.  We are part of the management consortium and are responsible for the design and implementation of a rights based monitoring and evaluation framework to monitor the impact of the programme and the dissemination of lessons learnt.  In addition we provide technical advice on grant making mechanisms and reporting frameworks and capacity building support to RAVI partners, CBOs and intermediary organisations.  Click here to visit the RAVI website.

Technical Assistance to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia for Conflict Mapping Project

theIDLgroup was contracted to design and oversee implementation of national conflict mapping research project in Liberia. This work was in support of the national peace, security, unity and reconciliation objectives of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Liberia.  The project includes a national programme of survey and research in all counties in Liberia to ascertain the factors under-pinning causes of conflict in the country. The project also aims to develop conflict sensitive development policies to promote the local and national development agenda. Specifically the project looks at the application of the country’s poverty reduction strategy, informing peace building processes, dialogue, development of partnerships and community development initiatives for sustainable peace building.  This was the start of a high profile dialogue process, critical to the future work of the TRC, as well as other agencies dealing with contested rights in Liberia (such as the Lands Commission).

Orissa Forest Sector Support Project (India)

theIDLgroup was the lead contractor on the Orissa Forest Sector Support Project (OFSSP) which was a £1.5 million DFID funded project that aimed to generate pro-poor economic growth in one of India’s poorest states.  As part of a wider programme which included fisheries and tourism, OFSSP focused on activities to develop policy, increase capacity and improve the effectiveness of the forest sector, as well as promoting sustainable utilisation of valuable forest resources.  A number of policy studies were undertaken in areas such as deregulation of non-timber forest products, harvesting of bamboo, and promoting greater utilisation of trees outside of forests.  Other initiatives were undertaken to improve efficiency of the Orissa Forest Department, including introduction of a Human Resources Management Information System and the development of an external communications strategy to enable the Department to communicate better with forest dependant communities. The project also implemented a series of innovative pilot projects which aimed to promote income generation activities for forest dwelling tribal communities, including development of community based eco-tourism ventures in selected national parks and nature reserves, and providing support and training to local communities in value addition, marketing and certification of key non-timber forest products (NTFPs).   Visit the OFSSP website here. 

A Review of the Sustainability of World Vision's Food For Work/Food For Aid Programmes

This six month study reviewed experiences emerging from WVI FFW/FFA interventions and their ability to contribute to the sustainable creation and rehabilitation of productive assets. Historically, meeting immediate food shortages for families through public employment guarantee schemes while in the process building or maintaining public assets, has been the ultimate goal of many FFW programmes. It is now recognised however, that well designed FFW interventions have the potential to actually contribute to increasing household resilience to food insecurity in chronically food insecure areas as well as meeting the immediate food shortage.  The aim of this study was to first look at FFW/FFA programmes and the sustainability of assets created within these programmes, and then secondly, review the extent to which these programmes had been able to move beyond just asset creation, to be able to contribute to sustained benefits to the household i.e. increasing household resilience to food insecurity. Four country case studies were undertaken in; Lesotho, Laos, Georgia and Ethiopia which ensured experience from the ground fed into global learning within WVI. The study recorded achievements, analysed constraints, made recommendations for improving the sustainability of FFW/FFA interventions and finally made organisational policy recommendations for strengthening food security interventions more broadly.