Dear Michael,
Over the weekend our team met with Beth to review her findings and recommendations for the Millennium Village Project in Micheweni District, and we are all confident that we have identified the best possible path forward to fully launch the MVP in Micheweni District.
First though, I want to stress that Beth did an extraordinary job on this project, bringing a depth of insight, cultural sensitivity and pragmatism to the task and earning universal praise from the government of Zanzibar, the United Nations and several of the world’s leading development experts. In fact she far exceeded our own very high expectations.
Based on Beth’s report and our experience launching projects involving multiple high-level stakeholders, we propose to move forward to establish the Ivo di Carneri Foundation’s Public Health Laboratory as the operating NGO on the ground. They will handle all the project administration and provide technical backstopping in the health sector.
The PHL’s longstanding relationship in Pemba, its experience in managing large, globally funded projects, its strong administrative organization and, most importantly, its strong reputation with both the Zanzibar government and the people of Pemba will allow us to move much more quickly to achieve our shared objectives: to help the people in the village of Kiuyu Mbuyuni begin to climb out of extreme poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Technical backstopping and guidance will be provided by the MDG Centre in Nairobi, with operational oversight from Millennium Promise. The MDG Centre, headed by Belay Ejigu Begashaw, one of the world’s leading agronomists, is home to a team of scientists and policy experts, all of whom are Earth Institute employees.
Project governance would be handled by a high-level steering committee, comprising you; Belay Begashaw, Director of the MDG Centre; Lorenzo Savioli (founder of the PHL and the head of neglected tropical diseases at the WHO), John McArthur, CEO of Millennium Promise; and me.
The advantage to this arrangement for KPMG is that you avoid the burden and expense of managing a new NGO from New York or London; you can accomplish much more by leveraging an experienced team of administrators who know how to get things accomplished in Pemba; and you will have an infrastructure on the ground to support your people if you decide to send volunteers to help with some of the project work, such as small enterprise development.
Therefore I suggest the following next steps:
- We immediately develop an MoU between MP, EI and the MDG Centre, PHL/IdC and KPMG spelling out the roles and responsibilities of each party
- We revise the newly hired Team Leader’s contract to have him report to Belay Begashaw and Steve Wisman (director of operations for Millennium Promise) through the PHL (He should begin work on October 19th with a week-long orientation with Belay and his team in Nairobi)
I have asked Beth to continue work as a consultant on this project for at least one more month to ensure that we are able to fully capitalize on the great work she has done so far and the strong relationships she has built within Tanzania and Zanzibar.
I look forward to seeing you later this month in Barcelona and hope that by then we are able to celebrate the signing of an agreement enabling us to achieve our shared vision: working side-by-side with the people of Micheweni District to escape from extreme poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Warm regards,
Jeff
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