Resource Mobilization Strategy

A Report by Martin C. Yerg, Jr.

31 October 2002

A Report by Martin C. Yerg, Jr.

October 2002

Overview

Resource mobilization covers a wide array of possible interpretations. In the narrow sense, it refers to securing funds for a specific purpose. More broadly, it means engaging in all the preparatory and implementation activities involved with securing funds, equipment, personnel, training, and any other means to produce the data, product and services, as agreed, to meet the priorities of the donor.

In fact, resource mobilization is not a trivial concept. One cannot arbitrarily decide one day to ask for funds for an idea or concept, write a quick proposal, meet one time with a funding institution, and then expect to get support. Likewise, experience has shown that writing down a concept and broadly mailing it around to potential donors, hoping for funding, will not work either. In fact, the resource mobilization process typically takes years. Successful resource mobilization requires specific targets, careful planning, coordination with others, extensive preparation, and successful implementation. All of these steps take many hours of hard work and negotiations.

Resource mobilization can be focused on the local, national, regional, or international levels. Currently, the most successful focus for developing countries has been at the regional level, such as the PUMA project. The key to success is getting cooperation with regional groupings that are typically structured along the lines of economic benefits, common heritage, or geographical proximity. (See Appendix A for a listing of some groupings having meteorological, oceanographic, or environmental sub-groups). Most International Development Banks are organized along these lines, and other international and regional funders show a preference to working with these types of regional groupings rather than individual countries.

Within the World Meteorological Organization, securing yearly contributions to its Voluntary Cooperation Program is a resource mobilization activity. The VCP adds about US$7-8M annually to the money available to the Organization to assist with WMO programs in developing countries, especially in support of the World Weather Watch. Other types of routine resource mobilization activities within the Organization include Trust Funds established for specific purposes to which donors contribute on a regular or ad hoc basis. WMO Trust Funds over the past 10 years have accounted for about an additional US$8M per year.

It is an extremely rare event when adequate resources are available to accomplish all the things one wishes to do. Either funding is less than needed or the appropriate equipment is not available or suitable individuals cannot be found to carry out the tasks at hand. This is what can be termed, the normal state. It is therefore important before embarking on attempts to mobilize resources for any activity there is a well-thought-out and documented purpose for them.

It is virtually impossible to obtain outside support for an activity unless it can be shown to fit into a larger plan with specific purposes and outcomes (sometimes called “deliverables”) that for NMHSs usually refers to products and services. In general, funders will not support isolated, single-focused activities or activities which are to the exclusive benefit of the recipient. Having multiple partners and clearly stated benefits to others is a critical part of any proposal.

It is interesting to approach funding institutions and find there are usually large amounts of money available for projects that fit the priorities of these institutions. The most frequent comment heard at these institutions is, “There are never enough good proposals to support.” The apparent dichotomy between needs of NMHSs and the availability of resources lies in expectations and priorities.

One of the first lessons in trying to mobilize resources is to match your priorities with the priorities of those controlling the resources you wish to obtain. They want to fund activities that support their priorities. At the same time, they want to know their support also goes to identifiable priorities within regions or within approved national plans. Engagement in setting national and regional priorities should be a primary goal for NMHS Directors.

Approaching international funding institutions to learn of their particular priorities must precede the writing of any proposals. In fact, long-term involvement with, or attachments to, international funding institutions are a proven way to learn of their priorities and develop the personal contacts vital to successful research mobilization.

There are several internationally recognized priority areas that can serve as a basis for developing proposals to mobilize resources. Appendix B provides a current sampling of priorities of the U.N., multi-national groupings, and individual countries,

Specific Targets

When asked, most National Meteorological and Hydrological Services identify observations as the specific area where they would like additional funding. The resources usually sought include equipment, training, and long-term financing. Often, no specific output, except increased data, is identified. Unfortunately, there has been little proven success with obtaining additional funding, outside the WMO VCP and some Trust Funds, for these types of activities. During a recent meeting (September 2002) with a GEF official, he indicated specifically the Fund would not support proposals dealing solely with improving observational networks. He said they worry that any funding provided would be required on a continuing basis and no clear product would be forthcoming after the money was spent.

In the early 1990s, the Global Environment Fund (GEF) did provide funding for enhancing the global network of atmospheric constituent measurements through the WMO Global Atmospheric Watch. This support was at the beginning of GEF’s operations and was later recognized by them as a one-time-only event. However, it is noteworthy that the success of the implementation of the first phase of GEF’s support for the GAW produced additional related funding for a second phase.

How then can support for observations be obtained? From experience, the answer lies with meeting users’ needs. This means developing products and services, based on observations, so that particular needs are met, such as long-range forecasts, advise on economic activities (such as plant/don’t plant), climate outlooks, and warnings on severe weather, water and climate events. If users needs are met, experience has shown that funding will be forthcoming at the local, national, regional, and international levels. NMHSs with commercial arms are well aware of how to meet users’ needs. There are lessons to be learned from these NMHSs.

How does one find out what needs various users have? At the local and national levels, it requires interaction with the various users. The best way to accomplish such interaction is through meetings and workshops. For example, meeting the needs of farmers in Mali, and meeting the needs of remote villages in Niger, has produced additional resources for expanding capabilities for increased observations and better telecommunications. At the regional and international levels, it requires being involved with major environmental issues and being prepared to offer active participation, such as the problem with low-level haze and smoke in the Southeast Asian region, which resulted in the PARTS project, or the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which have recognized that their success depends on supporting the Global Climate Observing System’s (GCOS) Upper-air and Surface Networks (GUAN and GSN), as well as the GAW.

The first question to be asked when seeking additional resources is, “What can I do for you?” We should be thinking, “What product or service can meet others needs?” This is the product or service that can get external or additional support. And, we know that in order to produce a new or improved product or service, there will usually also have to be new or improved high-quality observations. Often, the production of new or improved products and services can be done through cooperation with other advance NMHSs, either short-term attachments or expert visits, without the need for extensive proposal development or identification of additional resources.

Based on the existing criteria of various international funding institutions, including national agencies for international development, the percentage of equipment in most proposals is usually less than 20%. There are instances, particularly recent ones with the European Union (PUMA and the CARICOM radar project), where the equipment percentages are larger, but these projects also contain goals for providing specific outputs of products and services, considered priorities by users and funders, which depend on increased or improved observations which in these particular cases are quite expensive.

Careful Planning

A single NMHS or a group of NMHSs must write plans for future development and contingencies. The importance of NMHSs and related groupings, including WMO, is increased when they meet users’ needs, whether in the protection of life and property, the improvement in the national economy, or simply providing useful data and products to others. Strategic planning to meet users’ needs requires interaction with users, development of means to provide the necessary data and products, and feedback on the timeliness and usefulness of what is provided. Individual strategic plans are more easily developed when regional ones already exist.

Much of the value of NMHSs is related to particular weather, water and climate events, such as natural disasters, heat waves, El Niños, etc. It is important to have plans in place for improving services that can be proposed when an event occurs. Successes in establishing national and regional radar networks have been related to an actual flooding or significant tropical cyclone events.

The available resources for producing strategic plans for a particular NMHS or region are not always available. In order to have the appropriate plans in place, the assistance of others, organized and supported through regional groupings or the Organization, may be needed and has been done successfully in the past (see Appendix E).

Coordination with Others

Almost every example of success with securing resources or support in-kind for capacity building has the element of strong personal contacts. Whether the contact is made from past associations (such as family or school) or through current relationships (such as profession or introductions), the one-to-one element of respect and trust cannot be underestimated. Except for WMO senior management, the elements of respect and trust do not automatically happen. In this respect also, substitution of one person for another or multiple introductions and assignments of various individuals to accomplish resource mobilization is unwise. Frequent contact and consistency are important. Sometimes this requires contracting individuals with particular personal contacts to carry out the resource mobilization activity, such as was done for the PUMA project.

Attempting to secure major additional resources and support in isolation is normally unproductive. On the national level, NMHSs must work with other related parts of the government, especially the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance, and Environment (if one exists). These Ministries are the ones that deal with national strategies, with international environmental conventions, and with regional and international funding institutions. It is important to develop links in these Ministries so that they are aware of the value that can be obtained from support for improved weather, water and climate observations and services.

Also, on the national level, NMHSs need to interact with other parts of the environmental community (the private sector, media, and non-governmental organizations) and with other users of its services. There have been cases, in Mali (meteorological and hydrological information related to agricultural production) and the USA (quality-checked observations for weather risk management), for instance, where additional resources were secured for more observations, improved products, and better communications facilities because of direct intervention of users with the national government.

On the regional level, NMHSs need to strengthen their ties to regional groupings, like ECOWAS, IGAD and SADC in Africa. These types of groupings are usually based on geographic and economic considerations. In fact, they frequently have no extra resources that can be made available for distribution to members. Nevertheless, association with these groupings increases the ability of NMHSs to reach other major regional and international donors. The PUMA project was largely funded because the European Union was amenable to working with economic groupings in Africa that endorsed the proposal. The EU would not have done the same project if proposed solely on a country-by-country basis.

On an international level, the Organization must be actively engaged with other international groups, whether within the U.N. system or not, to make them aware of the capabilities of the Secretariat, the Members, and the sciences of meteorology and hydrology. Casual contacts can often begin associations which, in the future, produce projects of benefit to meteorological and hydrological activities.

The WMO Regional and Sub-regional Offices (see Appendix C) should be one of the primary means to generate additional funding in a region. The Sub-regional Offices were established with this goal in mind. However, either through unclear management or through misunderstandings, the role of Sub-regional Offices has not tended to focus on resource mobilization. It should be noted the Sub-regional Offices are basically no different than the Regional Offices and therefore, both types of Offices should have similar mandates. If resource mobilization is a priority for all WMO regional offices, then their funding, activities, and locations should be conducive for these activities. This situation does not currently exist for all WMO regional offices.

Extensive Preparation

Once the priorities of external funding institutions and donors have been identified, it is necessary to produce proposals that meet everyone’s needs. The writing of such proposals, in itself, often requires substantial resources and expertise whether voluntary, contracted, or provided by WMO. And, the proposals must be structured in a way to be implemented, often under significant uncertainties, to meet the goals of the proposals (produce “deliverable”) within the given time and financial limits.

During the proposal development period, regular contacts and presentations must be made between the interested parties. Likewise, the participants and suppliers that are included in the proposal must be consulted. Often, adjustments are necessary with the goals and proposed implementation plan of the proposal to accommodate the financial rules and priorities of one or another party. Trying to be too exact on every detail, or trying to include too many additional links for proposals is normally not successful.

If there is a regional component to the proposal, the preparation process automatically becomes more complicated. On the regional level, small coordinating groups are useful to resolve issues, at the proposal stage, before they become impediments to future implementation. Again, for implementation of regional projects, a dedicated staff is needed and should be included in the proposal budget.

Successful Implementation

After resources have been secured, issues related to resource mobilization have not ended. The reputation of the implementing agencies within the donor community depends on successful implementation of externally funded projects. It is one’s reputation for success that will determine future ability to secure outside resources from the entire donor community. The initial success of the GEF-funded GAW enhancement and the success of the PUMA project are just two widely recognized examples. While not always evident, the success in implementing VCP or bilateral partnering projects, even though they involve small expenditures of time and money, are also evaluated by donors as to the probability of future success.

Whether securing funds or implementing projects undertaken with outside resources, the quality of the individual(s) involved is vital to success. No matter the organizational structure, office location, individual flexibility, or availability of other support, if the talent and motivation of the individual(s) is not present, success is not assured. Recent relevant experience is the chief criteria for selecting the correct individual(s). Therefore, it is important to consider these issues when staffing or hiring full-time or part-time contractors for activities, such as resource mobilization and project management.

Experience has demonstrated that where projects have been funded from external sources and have been successfully implemented, additional funds are possible. The World Bank and associated regional development banks, as well as most national foreign aid agencies, have this approach as part of their standard operating procedures. They often offer only partial funding at first to see how successful the initial implementation is. They also often support feasibility studies or pilot projects with the idea of determining what organizational capabilities and motivation exist in recipient countries. If the studies and projects are well conducted, future additional funding is highly likely.

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