New 2007-2011 IRC funding

IRC has welcomed a decision by the Dutch government to back its new Business Plan 2007-2011 with about EUR 12.5 million of funding. The Business Plan sets a new direction for the next five years, structuring IRC activities into two core programmes, global and regional. The global programme focuses on accessibility of information, global learning and the development of knowledge. The regional programme aims to improve decentralised local governance in WASH and IWRM, integrating capacity building, knowledge development and sharing, and information services.

Strategy

IRC will sustain its contribution to reaching the Millennium Development Goals for water supply, sanitation and hygiene, strengthening its role as a unique information broker, innovator and capacity builder for the WASH sector. By increasing the leverage of programmes and activities, IRC aims to raise outcomes and impact.

The IRC strategy to reach these goals has the following main components:

• A stronger focus on integrating activities by adopting a country and regional focus to programmatic and capacity-development in core programmes;
• Reinforcing and strengthening IRC core competences by making a clear separation between its roles as a global information broker and as a development partner in a reduced number of carefully chosen countries and regions;
• The flexible application of a variety of programmatic and organisational modalities adapted to the roles and different countries or regions in which IRC works;
• Active exploration of different types of partnerships at global, regional and national level to create maximum leverage and impact for different target audiences.

By shaping and managing programmes as integrated activities, IRC will generate a greater synthesis of core strengths and competences. The inception phase during the first half of 2007 will be dedicated to finalising and fine-tuning the planning set out in the Business Plan.

Organisational challenges

The Business Plan is particularly important, coming as it does at a time of transition for IRC, which has a new legal structure and is moving towards greater financial autonomy from the Dutch government. As funding from DGIS (Dutch Directorate General of International Co-operation) and VROM (Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment) is set to reduce in future, so the Business Plan allows for the flexible and effective use of core funding over the next five years, in order to optimise leverage and to support new business acquisition. The Director will continue to take responsibility for securing new sources of external funding but the drive for new business will increasingly come from opportunities and contacts at regional and country levels. The long-term aim of IRC by the end of the Business Plan period is to secure approximately 50% of funding from non-core sources (i.e. other than Dutch governmental ministries).

The new Business Plan reflects changes in the governance of IRC and in its programmatic organisation with an emphasis on the two main programmes (global and regional). The plan provides for a period of transition to a more integrated matrix of work, in which teams will be drawn from existing sections to work on programme-related projects and tasks. While the current sections will remain, a new management structure will be introduced during the inception period to delegate more responsibility to senior staff who will manage the different programmes. Management Team operations and regulations will also be adjusted to reflect these changes and to provide greater transparency and accountability.