10/09/2018

Humanitarian Funding Coordinator Somalia

Test instructions
Welcome to the technical test for the role of Humanitarian Funding Coordinator in Somalia
You have two (2) hours to complete this test. Please use your time effectively.
Please add your name to this document and to the Budget Exercise sheet when saving.
1) Good luck!
Questions:

a) Explain the steps involved in designing a project proposal?

b) How would you define a «high quality project»?
c) What are the usual key donor prescriptions to be considered during the implementation of a project?
d) What are the measures you can put in place to ensure a programme team implements a project respecting
donor rules and requirements?
e) What is the information needed to submit a No-Cost Extension to a donor? In general, how would you
proceed with such a request?

[20 points]
Response:
a)
 Conduct Needs assessment
 Conduct, situation analysis, stakeholders analysis
 Problem identification
 Develop problem tree/objective tree
 Develop Logical frame work
 Develop narrative and budget files
 Team work

b)
 A project that ensure
o Comprehensive analysis
o Participatory process
o Gender, environment, disability and other cross cutting issues
o SPHERE standard

c)
 Compliance with Donor regulation
 Managing Budget expenditure
 Cost of doing business
 Reporting
 Community participation and feedback mechanism

d)
 Staff training and orientation on the rules and requirements
 Control system before approving payments
 Budget follow up

e)
 Note for file on the situation
 Reasons for the under expenditure that need more time to implement
  Reasons for budget reallocation in case needed
 Prepare letter of request and submit to the donor

2) Exercise: You just came on board as Oxfam’s Humanitarian Funding Coordinator for Somalia. Welcome!!

Your position has been vacant for a while so there are many outstanding issues as the project work has been expanding
rapidly in the development and humanitarian sectors.

The context in country is also made more difficult because of clan divisions geographically and the impact on budgets of
having to employ more international staff to keep the organisation’s involvement ‘neutral’. In addition, travel by road can
be insecure so there is increasing us of domestic flights – yet another issue leading to higher costs. The teams are
stretched trying to implement activities and to prepare donor reports.

There are significant underspends across all the programmes with a mixture of donors including ECHO, UNOCHA, and
several Oxfam affiliates. [20 points]

A. There is an interim ECHO report that is due tomorrow. You have read it and know that the information is limited
and not the best quality. Here are 3 scenarios that need your response:
a) What do you do in this situation?
Response:
The best way is to approach ECHO to get extension submission date for the report mentioning the
challenges that the organization is going through (lack of adequate international staff, difficulty of
movement by road, volume of work, etc.) and that this has affected to collect adequate and quality data.
Once this is done, request the field team for more information that is needed to complete the report.

b) Your Regional Funding Coordinator is someone who is very particular and demands attention to detail and
timelines, so in this instance is likely to reply to you saying s/he will not have time to review a report that is
submitted so late. What do you do?
Response:
As mentioned above, if the request for extension is approved then there will be more time for the
Regional funding coordinator to review the report. In addition, the coordinator will be informed on the
quality of the report received from the field that needs more work.

c) The Regional Funding Coordinator has accepted the report and then picked it to pieces as you suspected and
replied to you that it cannot be sent to ECHO? What do you do?

Response:
Ask the coordinator to request submission extension from the donor and work on to improve the report.

B. As above you have significant underspends in some of the programmes. How do you deal with that?

Response:
Revise the implementation plan to increase spending.

C. As well as the ECHO deadline, you have the following:

a. a UNOCHA deadline
b. several meetings lined up with donors that are crucial and cannot be missed
c. the Dutch Ambassador – Oxfam in Somalia’s home donor - has requested to visit the country programme
d. the Country Director and the Regional Funding Team asking for updates on the various deadlines you
have to meet.

Question: How do you prioritise your work?

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 Response:
 Conduct task analysis for prioritization
 Focus on the reporting deadlines and meetings ( I do delegate staff for the meeting)
 Propose to push the ambassador visit to another convenient time
 Delegate some of the activities to team members

D. What action plan would you develop to avoid this in the future?

Response:
 Proper staffing
 Proper planning ahead of project implementation
 Fast track procurements to avoid delay of implementation and under spending
 Monthly budget follow up

Regularly monitor the plan and its progress;
I do develop a kind of check list to track the plan achievements (Develop action plan tracker)

3) You have received the attached 6-month financial report from the humanitarian programme team for submission
to UNOCHA. [20 points]

Exercise:
a) Analyse the budget and report and provide your feedback on each relevant budget line in the comments section
within the report.

b) Provide your overall assessment to the team with recommendations on how to make the report more relevant for
this submission.

Response:
 The overall expenditure level is ok though slightly more than 50%
 Some expenditure balancing can be made between different lines to adjust under/over expenditure.
This should be done only with in the same budget headings
 Some budget lines are overspent and expenditure should stop on this lines. Cost reallocation should
be made to another line with in the same budget heading to reduce the overspent lines
 Spending should start asap for the budget lines that are under spent

4) The programme team submits a first draft of a logical framework for a project being developed to you for your
review. [20 points]

Item Indicators Source of

verification
General objective (impact): Provide drinking water to 1000 families Field
1000 families in Sanaag surveys
Specific objective: As Oxfam Somalia, be an actor in 1 position paper Websites
change and thought leader in the humanitarian field.
Result 1: Families in Sanaag selected All families Field report
selected
Result 2: Strengthened capacities of local partners for 2 partners Capacity
financial management and procurement assessment
scores
Result 3: Assessment of water needs of men in women in 1 report Field report
the affected communities.

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 Activities
1.1 Community visits
1.2 Organize focal groups to discuss selection of families
1.3 Assessment of partners capacity in the field of finance
and procurement
1.4 Conduct training of key staff
1.5 Monitoring / control visits
Exercise: Present your feedback to the team including at least 5 key recommendations on how to improve the
logical framework giving reasons for your suggestions.

Response:
The logical framework is not well logically linked between activities, results, SO and general objective.
Recommendations are mentioned below:
 Change general objective to reflect something to contribute to a greater goal such as the one
mentioned under specific objective
 Change the specific objective to something that is deliverable to the community such as that mentioned
under General objective
 Results should be explained as specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bounded, so
change accordingly
 Indicators should reflect the results once results are made SMART
 Include activities that reflect water provision such as water trucking, borehole construction, etc

5) You are meeting with a humanitarian donor who plans to fund a significant response in Somaliland.
However, the donor is hesitant about including some innovative WaSH (Water Sanitation and Hygiene
promotion) approaches proposed by Oxfam’s team within this response.

Exercise: Detail how you would ‘sell’ the appropriateness and timeliness of these WaSH innovations,
mentioning the ideas in your explanation. [20 points]

Response:
 Explain the importance of conducting WASH promotion activities to save lives as the area is prone to
waterborne diseases. Show assessment reports, facts and case reports to the donor
 Explain that WASH promotion activities will definitely optimize the use of WASH facilities and that will
lead to greater achievement
 Explain on how the Innovative ideas will help to build capacity and resilience of community to manage
crises in the future and hence more sustainable
 Explain that WASH promotion activities could benefit the entire affected community and hence are
effective