Under the USAID-funded Strengthening Integrity and Accountability Program 1, MSI will conduct a Human Resources Audit for the Commission and provide training on manual development assistance in mediation and adjudication, as well as roll the latter out to the its central and regional offices.

The Commission on Information (Komisi Informasi) is an independent government agency tasked with the implementation of Indonesia’s access to information law.

Read the press release on Commission on Information’s website for more details.

Panelists at the two-day conference

The Iraqi Ministry of Health (MoH) and the USAID-funded Primary Health Care Project in Iraq (PHCPI) held a two-day workshop in Baghdad in March to discuss the newly-developed Patients’ Rights Charter. MSI is implementing the project to support the Ministry in creating functional health services at community and facility levels by improving the quality of clinical services, as well as increasing community involvement and understanding of healthcare.

Senior Deputy Minister of Health Dr. Essam Namiq praised the workshop, describing it as a serious initiative and step forward towards building a sustainable health system.

More than 250 participants from USAID, PHCPI, the Ministries of Health and Human Rights, Parliament, Department of Health, Iraqi Medical Syndicate, WHO and civil society organizations attended. Participation by these various groups gave visible momentum to the development and implementation of the charter, as well as affirmed the need for cooperation between the organizations. An agreement was made to develop cohesive implementation mechanisms as well as a clear timetable.

The project drafted the charter to guarantee that human rights protection is provided in the delivery of national health services. The charter enforces patients’ rights to information, treatment and privacy, as well as the right to freely make decisions. Quality health care has surfaced as a critical need in Iraq, and the government has been engaging various players in the development of the charter as well as implementation in order to provide equitable services in the most effective and efficient way possible.

Dr. Bushra Abbasi, who is leading the project for MSI, stated that the project will proceed with scaling up and circulating the charter to all provinces in Iraq. The project will assist the Ministry of Health in rolling out the charter to these clinics, as well as other communities and health facilities throughout the country.

MSI’s Iraq health project has been working with 360 clinics, providing training programs in order to improve the quality of health care services.

Read more about the National Workshop on Patient’s Rights at USAID/IRAQ.

COMET's approach to community policing for crime is highlighted

The Community Empowerment and Transformation Project (COMET), funded by USAID-Jamaica and implemented by MSI, was featured in USAID’s March/April publication of Frontlines.

COMET combines the expertise of representatives from the Jamaican government and local and international NGOs to reduce crime and violence and strengthen economic competitiveness in the country’s inner cities. The project has been working with the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), or police, to implement community policing in all of its coverage areas.

The methodology developed can serve as the basis for strengthening the capacity to conduct law enforcement in similar settings, such as Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and it has been recognized as a best practice in community-based policing by The World Bank.

To read more about the COMET project in Jamaica, click here.

Click on the image to open the paper.

With the recent drought in the Horn of Africa, there is a new urgency for sustainable food security programs that build local capacity, turning critical relief into long-term development. In a new paper, Building Institutional Capacity to Increase Food Security in Africa, the Food Security Collaborative examines the organizational dimensions of food security, with an emphasis on the oft-overlooked needs of internal management and organizational capacity building.

Comprised of Management Systems International (MSI), ACDI/VOCA, the University of California at Davis and Crown Agents, the Collaborative is united around a commitment to improve the analysis and implementation of global efforts to enhance the food security of the world’s most vulnerable people.

The Collaborative reviews the current challenges facing capacity building for food security programming and presents tools to assess institutional capacity. The paper recommends that the Feed the Future community and agriculture organizations adopt tools and processes that assess and enhance the capacity of organizations.

Specific assessment tools are offered, and contextual factors like a country’s governance capacity are taken into consideration. The paper describes how institutions responsible for system-level coordination, food production, and knowledge generation, dissemination and innovation can more effectively be assessed, developed and maintained.

The paper includes a conceptual framework and is written from a practitioner’s perspective that provides a ground-level view of the organizational landscape and the way forward.

To read the paper, click on the interactive .pdf below:

Warren accepts the Peace Corps award

MSI’s Director of Business Services, B.J. Warren, recently received an award in the Dominican Republic from Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams, former Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. The award, which was a closely-held secret, took place in conjunction with celebration of 50th anniversary of Peace Corps in the country and included an endowed scholarship in her name. Letters were also read by Williams from a variety of friends and dignitaries.

Warren started in Peru as a volunteer in 1961, where she worked as an urban community development worker. In 1964, she became the first female Peace Corps volunteer to work on the overseas staff in the Dominican Republic, where she was in charge of health programs. During the revolution of the mid 1960s, she was a prominent figure in keeping the program and volunteers in country, while maintaining their safety.

During the 25th anniversary celebration of Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic, Warren and other former volunteers and staff formed Fondo Quisqueya, a non-profit organization which offers scholarships and grants to low-income Dominicans to allow them to obtain training and skills that they need to get jobs.

The endowment will go towards Fondo Quisqueya so that it can eventually become self-sustaining. The organization gives out 48 scholarships each year based on contributions that usually come in to cover the cost of this program. These scholarships average about $300.00 each.

Warren said she was “completely overwhelmed” when Williams began reading letters written about her by Frank Mankiewicz (the first Peace Corps Director in Peru and the second Director of Peace Corps Latin America Programs) and Jack Vaughn (the first Director Peace Corps of Latin American Programs and Warren’s former director in the Dominican Republic).

“High on the list of those high-achieving volunteers who later became Peace Corps staff, helping critically to make the Peace Corps a living legend, is the name B.J. Warren,” Vaughn wrote. “You were the first among us and set a high standard for those who follow.”

When asked what her most memorable Peace Corps experience was, she responded that it was “working with the people, the Peruvians and Dominicans.” She said that her experiences set the path for her continued interest in international and domestic development.

Warren joined MSI full-time in 1989. She has been actively involved with projects in Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and El Salvador, to name a few.