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Della McMillan

Dr. McMillan is a Courtesy Scientist in the Department of Anthropology

Institutional And Local Capacity Strengthening

Local Capacity Strengthening Highlights

Numbers after publications link to locations in the Publications and Reports page
For a definition of all acronyms used on this page, click here

Local Firms: Since 2017, I have mentored Mr. Issa Zerbo in his initial conceptualization of his firm–Associated Consultants for Sustainable Development (ACSD). ACSD got its official government registration in 2018 and the other official registrations required by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2020. The firm is located in a secure location near the University of Ouagadougou that includes space for consultant offices and small meetings and training courses. The firm has a growing roster of qualified consultants and research assistants that include many professors and students from and is fully bilingual (English-French). www.acsdbf.com.

Local Governments and Women’s Groups: During the due diligence phase of Burkina Faso’s first MCC Compact, Millennium Challenge Account/Burkina Faso (MCA/BF), Mr. Zerbo and I were tasked with building the capacity of the women’s groups, local mayors and district councils to collaborate on the design and execution of the MCA/BF projects in ways that respected and supported the national gender and resettlement policies of the country, as well as the more specific resettlement and gender guidelines of MCA/BF (Publications: 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8). Once the Compact was signed, Mr. Zerbo became the Director of Administration and Finance of the Tetra Tech Land Project (October 2009-August 2012) and the Admin and Financial Director of a USAID-funded food security program in Chad (January 2013-February 2015).

Local Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Organizations (Food for Peace [FFP] and Feed the Future [FtF] Programs):  In conjunction with Africare’s Institutional Support Assistance (ISA) grant from USAID, I backstopped the agency’s efforts to develop and pilot -test four institutional assessment indicators: (1) the Months of Adequate Household Food Provisioned (MAHFP), (2) Food Security Community Capacity Index (FSCCI), (3) the Food Security Program Capacity Index (FSPCI), and (4) the Food Security Food Distribution Index (FSFDI). Two of these assessment tools; the MAHFP and FSCCI, which were co-developed with Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance (FANTA) and staff from Cornell University’s Division of Nutritional Sciences, were later accepted as core indicators by FFP and FANTA. In 2007, I facilitated the development of an online series of technical papers (the Africare Food Security Review [AFSR] papers) that are posted on the DEC which: (1) describe the basic guidance for these tools (Publications: 3.3.2.1, 3.3.2.2, 3.3.2.3, 3.3.2.17, 3.3.2.24); (2) compare the data gathered by these community-based self-assessment tools with other indicators being developed by FANTA and Cornell (Publications: 3.3.2.5 and 3.3.2.10); and (3) illustrate  how the MAHFP and FSCCI tools were used to build the capacity of local community councils in Uganda (Publications: 3.3.2.6). The same series shows how the same group of indicators were used to (4) monitor the local communities’ capacity to support various regional early warning and response systems (Publications: 3.3.2.15, 3.3.2.16) and (5) better targeting of food aid to households living with HIV-AIDS (Publications: 3.3.2.11, 3.3.2.23).

I later collaborated with several partners (Catholic Relief Services [CRS], Africare, Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture [CNFA]) on using a modified version of the FSCCI self-assessment tool to measure the baseline capacity of the local NGOs and civil society organizations (e.g. producer and market groups, cooperatives and federation) they were working with and what types of technical and management training would be needed to build this capacity; and to monitor the impact of their training programs and mentoring on this local capacity.

Institutional Capacity Strengthening Highlights

  • Catholic Relief Service  (2004-2016): Long-term relationship (multiple contracts) with the NGO Catholic Relief Services that involved M&E staff training, the design and execution of mid-term evaluations for some of their USAID-funded projects, pilot-testing and initial scale up of various tools for tracking local partner capacity, and mentoring staff on publications.
  • CSRL/ISU Program, the national NGO VEDCO, and Makerere University (2012-2015):
    • Co-developed a workshop designed to produce a series of publications and edited volumes that will analyze lessons learned from the CSRL/ISU Program in Uganda
      • Publication: 1.1
    • Co-design and execution of a series of workshops and mini-workshops designed to help the CSRL/ISU staff (in Uganda and the US) develop more appropriate monitoring and evaluation systems that track the CSRL/ISU activities and training programs
  • MCA-Burkina Faso (2009-2012): Collaborate with MCA-Burkina Faso Gender and Social Manager in Assessing general and sector specific needs for gender training and capacity building in the Compact related to gender and resettlement
  • NGO-Africare (1999-2012): Long-term relationship (multiple contracts) with the NGO Africare that focused on building the capacity of Africare to design, execute and monitor their Title II and non-Title II programs in Africa and to improve the quality of their reporting
  • Anthropology and Food Policy Program, Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky (UK) (1986-1988): Co-developed with Billie DeWalt the Anthropology and Food Policy Program which was designed to build the core institutional capacity of the department to train students for applied work in food policy research and employment. A capstone activity was the production of the edited book Anthropology and Food Policy.
    • Publication: 1.5
  • Food in Africa Program, Center for African Studies, University of Florida (UF) (1981-1986): Co-developed with Art Hansen the Food in Africa Program which was designed to build the core capacity of the Center to facilitate cross-disciplinary instruction and research on food issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. A capstone activity was the production of the edited book “Food in Africa”.
    • Publications:
      • Books in Refereed Series: 1.2
      • Other Documents Produced for USAID and USAID-Funded Projects and Programs: 3.8.1, 3.8.4, 3.8.5
      • Other: 10.2
Core Activities MCA-Burkina Faso (for Gender) Africare Food Security Unit U.
Kentucky Anthropology and Food Policy		 U. F – Food in Africa Iowa State University CSRL Catholic Relief Services
2008-2011 1999-2012 1986-1988 1981-1986 2012-2015 2004-2016
Facilitated participatory needs assessments

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Facilitated annual reviews of capacity needs

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Facilitated external and internal speakers series

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Co-facilitated conference organization in host institution

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Facilitated staff preparation of conference presentations

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Facilitated faculty/student/practitioner seminars that led to publications

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Facilitated internal/external evaluations

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Facilitated student/practitioner advisement and career planning/language training

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Developed proposals for external and internal funding of capacity building activities

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Training to build M&E systems and reporting

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