Behind the Scenes of Programme Management at Amref

Do we ever refuse funding opportunities from potential partners? 

On occasion – yes, we do. We are always really honest with donors about where we have and don’t have expertise. Sometimes, where we are lacking sufficient experience or networks, we bring on a partner with the expertise needed to deliver a project or suggest the donor work with a different NGO. Similarly, if we can’t find common ground between Amref’s priorities in Africa and what a donor is looking to fund, we will say no.

We do sometimes have to refuse gifts from certain places and people. Amref doesn’t endorse products or accept funds from areas we feel conflict with our work and ethos, such as companies making profits from conflict zones or weapons manufacturing.

Our colleagues in Africa country offices also work with the county’s department for health at a national level and technical working groups to look at key data and indicators for an issue, for example reducing malaria indicators, and discuss each person's contributions to this process. A committee of experts will give updates on a quarterly basis in terms of progress, research, new knowledge and understanding, and to share experiences. The UK and country programme managers catch up monthly to discuss what is happening on the ground and if we need to make any changes to keep our projects on the right track.

Monitoring in the UK 

Here in the UK, our monitoring is mainly focused on the requirements of the donor and in particular, the budget. Throughout a project we look at whether we are achieving what we set out to, whether we are on track to achieve it within the timeframe and using the money available. A ‘log frame’ is used to keep track of our objectives and what we hope to achieve for each of them. For example, if we are carrying out a TB and malaria project, one objective may be to train 300 health workers. We would be monitoring this regularly, checking whether we are on track to train the total number by the end of the project. We also look beyond this, and track whether the training of health workers is leading to the lasting health change we want to see on the ground – e.g., increasing the number of TB and malaria patients being supported. Lastly, we look at whether we are achieving our objectives using the money we have budgeted for the project. We track how much we are spending and whether we need to reallocate resources to be able to reach our goals, without overspending or compromising the quality of our work.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were many external factors affecting our programmes and their impact, that were outside our control. The numbers of people accessing our services dropped due to lockdown restrictions. Health workers dropped out of training courses, for various reasons. When issues affecting the progress of a project occur, the team flag concerns as and when they happen, keeping the donor informed and quickly coming up with solutions to mitigate them.

When a project is successfully completed, we conduct an endline assessment (having already done a baseline at the start as well as continuous monitoring and evaluation). This looks into how effective the programme and our approach was and gives recommendations for future work. We look to find evidence which tells us whether we should continue our approach for future projects or whether we need to change it. Amref takes this approach into every project to make sure the work we deliver is effective, impactful and to ensure we are constantly learning from it.