Work work work... What is in a report....

This period is an administrative nightmare for cooperants. April is the month in which we have to combine two things: 

• the reporting of 2008(financial and narrative) and 
  
• the planning for 2010 (activities and budget).

Two very different frames of mind and hard to combine, but necessary, if we want to receive the funding for 2009. Biggest chunk  is of course the reporting, which we have to do on soooo many levels, it almost becomes funny (notice how I stress the 'almost'). 

• for each cooperant: a report on all his/her activities and how this contributed to the results Volens wanted to achieve (bijlage 5).
• a compilation of all of these reports (bijlage 6)
• for each cooperant: planning for 2009 (bijlage 4)
• a compilation of all of these plannings (bijlage 3)
• For each Partnerorganisation: how they contributed (bijlage 2)
• a compilation of this (bijlage 1)
• an AFAU 4 document, which each cooperant has to fill in to explain what contributions he/she made to the regional dynamics and the south-north dialogue
• an R8 for each cooperant: giving a brief narrative summary of activities.

Then, regarding the orphans and vulnerable children programme I am facilitating:

• a logical framework (P10 AFAU 2 F LK) 
• a planning of the activities for 2010, (P10 AFAU 2 F)
• a specific file for the entire region, Zimbabwe and Zambia, R8P10 AFAU, which gives a general overview of our activities (R8 AFAU);
• a file with pictures that illustrate our activities (R8-AFAU-2-F-fotomateriaal).
• a financial report for all the money spent in 2008, according to whether it was spent in Belgium (modele 7a) or in Zimbabwe (modele 7b)  (and of course taking into consideration the varying exchange rate, which is in...modèle 7c). Thank God mom was here to carry all of the receipts back to Belgium. Just hope they will be approved... And, before I forget, of course, there are also separate accounts and reporting to be done if the activities consisted of:

1.  attachments (look and learn visits between the partner organisations) or 
2. scholarships (bursaries to go abroad and study something).

And of course, all of this has to be coherent, not only with all the cooperants involved in the programme, but also with the other programmes (Caroline's and Kristien's). Needless to say, it means a lot of emails back and forth, small changes, numerous versions of the same documents and all. But the end of the tunnel is in sight, as we would say in Belgium, with most of the documents finalized (or almost). Now let's see what Volens Brussels is going to give for comments....

Beside all this, we also have a monthly overview with planning that we do to keep track of what is happening in the programme, extra funding proposals we introduce with provinces and cities in Belgium, etc... Amazing how much paperwork we have to produce... And how little of it will really be read. Of course, I understand we have to be held accountable for the funds we receive, which is a good thing, and though they might not read all of it, the Belgian government does do checks on randoms files, so all of them have to be in order. It is just frustrating to spend so much time doing paperwork and not focussing on the objectives of your programmes...