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Best Practice in Grants Management

A capacity crowd of over 230 participants attended a free Grants Management Framework Seminar held in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.  This seminar was sponsored by HAI, organised through the HAI Development Impact Group and presented by Fiona Dempster and Barry Smith.   Banda Aceh was an ideal location for the seminar as many of the core components and elements of the framework are highly applicable to the donor and government funded programs in the province.

The Framework was developed by Barry and Fiona, and represents current best-practice management of grants.

“With four times as many people as initially thought, the seminar created a great deal of interest and clearly touched on a need within the community” said Fiona.    

A grant is a non-reciprocal transfer of resources from an agency to another entity for a specified purpose, aimed at achieving a certain goal or objective.  In some development program settings, agencies may be required to administer funds as either grants or sub-contracts or a mix of both. These agreements for services or activities are the focus of grants management.

The Framework guides the best-practice design, development and implementation for managing and delivering aid grants, based on the following concepts:

• Grants management is basically a simple, systematic and logical process made up of inter-related elements
• When these elements are understood and a systematic process is adopted by grant managers,  seekers, and recipients, the outcomes are higher quality products and less risk
• Quality is improved through understanding and integrating assurance within each element of the process.

 “Feedback from the attendees reflected the presentation of the practical side of Grants Management, and there was a call for more seminars like this one” said Barry Smith. 

The seminar demonstrated the application of these concepts and how they provide a sound platform for the effective design and delivery of grant-seeking programs and developing grant-seeking skills.

“HAI as a project manager stepped well beyond its project and provided a major resource to fill a gap in the existing development projects in Aceh” said Jeff Herbert, Team Leader, Local Governance and Infrastructure for Communities in Aceh, an AusAID funded project.

In recognition of the demand and anticipated increase in grant programs, HAI is undertaking a review of and is compiling lessons learned from current grant management programs to ensure this best practice framework is put into practice and delivers value to its clients.

Deborah Johnson

Development Coordinator