News from PAB

During the PAB meeting the PAB members elected Donald Sakala from Petauke District Council as new Vice Chairperson. Mr. Sakala is replacing Ms. Lubinda from the Zambia Alliance for Women, which is no longer in partnership with MS-Zambia and therefore can not sit on the PAB. Former substitute Mr. Elias K. Phiri from Luangwa District Council is now a full time member of the PAB.

Theme for the Annual Meeting 2005

During the July PAB meeting, it was decided that the theme for the Annual Meeting 2005 will be Communication for Empowerment.

Supported by a PAB working group, the Country Office will soon prepare a concept paper to start the process of getting partners and DWs preparing themselves for empowerment through communication. Further the December issue of NewZ will be dedicated to the theme in order to start discussions on it prior to the Annual Meeting in February 2005.

Partner Review Workshops

By mid August all partners and would be partners will have undergone a two-day partnership review workshop. Following these partner review workshops many partners have signed revised partnership agreements with clear objectives, results and activities aimed at implementing the MS-Zambia policy paper. The revised partnership agreements are more detailed in terms of how to address the five dimensions of empowerment of Well-being, Awareness, Participation in decision making, Access and Control.

After the review workshops, the major task ahead is to ensure that the revised partnership agreements are implemented. In order to achieve this, the Country Office will embark on an inception process of implementing the revised partnership activities and to prepare a work plan and activity based budget for each partner. This exercise will start in September, 2004.

Provincial Meetings

PAB decided that the provincial meetings will be held in all three provinces from the 2nd to 3rd November 2005.

During the Provincial Meetings partners will be asked to provide their inputs to the Annual Report 2004, so that it reflects partners concerns more than was the case with the Annual Report 2003.

ICT training for partners

MS-Zambia has decided not to go ahead with the plan of setting up fully equipped Tele Centres in Kawambwa and Mnkhanya. The alternative, however, is that MS-Zambia will provide training for partners in accessing and disseminating relevant information from the Internet.

The decision was taken after assessing the viability of the community tele-centres in the light of the liberalised market where there has been a rapid growth in small private initiatives with regards to providing services within ICT.  It has become evident that MS-Zambia would not wish to interfere in the open market. The first ICT training for MS-Zambia partners took place in August 2004.

Another kind of Development Workers

In the near future we will not only see Development Workers from Denmark within MS. Based on the recommendations from the Evaluation of MS, MS will very soon start the process of introducing Development Workers from the South. More information will be availed.

Monitoring

Programme Officer Charlton Sulwe, who is a member of the overall MS Monitoring and Evaluation Travelling Topic Team, informed PAB that new monitoring tools have been developed and guidelines will be availed.

During the inception workshops taking place from September partners will be introduced to the new tools and how to use them in monitoring and evaluating of their development activities. The new Monitoring and Evaluation tools will also be incorporated in the revised partnerships agreements. By 2005 all partners and the Country Office should be able to use the new monitoring tools.