Supporting the KEY programme: new observatory in Mali since May 2018

24/05/2018

In spring 2018, Groupe URD will be setting up a new observatory in Mali via its mission to provide strategic and organisational support to the KEY programme funded by the European Union. KEY is being implemented by five consortiums of international and national NGOs in six regions: Gao, Kidal, Ménaka, Mopti, Taoudéni and Timbuktu. Through the daily monitoring of these NGOs’ programmes, and by engaging in our full range of activities, the observatory will be a source of learning for the sector.

The general objective of the KEY programme is to reinforce vulnerable people’s resilience to food and nutritional insecurity. This objective is in line with the European Union’s commitment to support the implementation of the National Resilience Priorities (NRP), established in connection with the Global Alliance for Resilience (AGIR) in the Sahel and West Africa. The KEY programme is based on two specific operational areas: one is reinforcing the capacities of local communities to absorb shocks affecting their food and nutritional security; the other is reinforcing the leadership of the local authorities in the coordination, monitoring and evaluation of all operations.

The support mechanism for the KEY programme that the European Union has decided to set up is therefore an innovative system that aims to improve the quality of the implementation of humanitarian action in crisis and post-crisis contexts in northern Mali. It will be coordinated by Groupe URD who will be providing organisational and strategic support for the implementation of the programme and for the “agile” management of the operational changes that are made necessary by changes in the context. We will also produce knowledge about the context, programme implementation and the quality of the programme’s accountability processes, and we will contribute to reinforcing the capacity of actors (NGO partners, civil society, and institutional actors) and facilitate knowledge management. Another of our missions will be to steer the communication strategy and facilitate the network of actors involved in the programme.

These are all the functions of a Groupe URD observatory. By engaging in our full range of activities for this new field project, we will able to analyse how the Malian context evolves over the next three years and provide strategic guidance to the actors in this unstable context.