Kenya Partnership Provides New Funding Model
Episcopal News Service. July 6, 1989 [89122]
George Lewis
NEW YORK (DPS, July 6) -- "Many funders like to support a jazzy community-based health care project, or a water project they can say provides 400,000 people with 44 wells. Our problem with that is that it creates a dependency relationship.... Without strengthening the indigenous institutions, they aren't supporting the true development needs of that country," said Carolyn Rose-Avila, Coordinator of the Overseas Development Office of the World Mission Unit at the Episcopal Church Center. Rose-Avila, recently returned from a meeting of the Kenya Development Partnership Group, explained, "The idea of the partnership is to get the funders out from behind closed doors."
The partnership, which meets twice a year in Kenya, is a unique model in the Anglican Communion. Its three members, the Church of the Province of Kenya, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Episcopal Church of the United States, have joined together to share development training and resources in an equal partnership. "The partnership's point is to go beyond the traditional funder-recipient relationship," said Rose-Avila, who was joined in Kenya by the Ven. Ben Helmer, a representative of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
The partnership grew out of a long-standing relationship between the 11 dioceses of the Church in Kenya and the Episcopal Church, through its Overseas Development Office. The African partnership's roots lie in the Kenyan Church's desire to help dioceses and congregations work with the poor and powerless so they can improve the quality of their lives and the well-being of their communities.
In 1981, the Overseas Development Office, with support from the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief, began assisting the dioceses of the Kenyan Church in gaining the skills necessary to carry out development work. Diocesan development officers were trained and out development work. Diocesan development officers were trained and then, in turn, provided training on a local level, helping congregations and groups design and manage a variety of projects that met their needs for food, water, health care, and education.
As the individual dioceses of the Kenyan Church honed their skills at development, the desire grew to shift responsibility for diocesan training, technical assistance, and funding from the Overseas Development Office to a shared responsibility. This resulted in the 1987 meeting of the Development Partnership Group, which was later expanded to include the Canadian Church.
One important element of the partnership is the Grants Review Committee, where all the members submit proposals for critical review, feedback, and support. Out of this process, it was decided that a Kenyan would sit on the board of the Church of Canada's Primate's Fund for World Relief and Development. This is an attempt on the part of the Canadian Church to involve overseas partners in funding decisions. At the last meeting of the partnership, the Episcopal Church's proposal to have a Kenyan participate in their World Mission Consultation in the summer of 1989 was endorsed, and John Kago, the Provincial Secretary, was elected.
At this meeting the partnership was also tested by crises. The Episcopal Church's Overseas Development Office was forced to announce that it was no longer able to fund the partnership as it once had.
"The exciting thing was that all I got was support. The partnership will go on. The partnership transcends funding," Rose-Avila explained. She has discovered the partnership is truly able to live up to its founding principle as a "Partnership of equals where we are all recipients and givers."