Our expertise
We are an industry leader because we provide the best cross-sectoral expertise, garnered over many years of committed learning and service. Our uniqueness lies in our ability to work with diverse clients, from survivalist grass-roots organisations to major corporations, governments and international agencies. We deliver quality results, often creating precedents while ensuring cultural, linguistic and gender sensitivity. Our engagement with our clients offer us opportunities for continuing learning.
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Access to justice
We view the role of community advice offices and community-based paralegals as crucial in achieving equitable access to justice for Africa’s most vulnerable communities. We provide specialist services geared towards enhancing the impact of both advice offices and paralegals. Not surprisingly, our clients call upon us to evaluate the impact of donor funds on these sectors; to research sustainability issues and to develop sustainability plans. Other services we provide include development of rural advice office and paralegal programmes, development of paralegal training curricula, statutory accreditation of institutions as training service providers to paralegals, enhancing access to justice strategies, paralegal capacity-building, on-site training of paralegals, collaboration between advice offices and pro bono attorneys and legal aid, sustainability to the advice office and paralegal sectors, monitoring and evaluation of access to justice projects/programmes, base-line surveys, geographical mapping, training and development needs analysis and legal reform.
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Alternative Dispute Resolution
We provide expertise in all aspects of Alternative Dispute Resoultion. These include problem solving interventions, conflict management, mediation, conciliation, arbitration and relationship building.
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Advocacy, campaigning, lobbying & collaboration
We understand the complexities involved in embarking on advocacy, campaigning, lobbying, collaborations, networking and partnerships. Consesus has to be achieved across individuals and their personalities, across sectors and across mandates. We work closely with our clients in designing, implementing, managing, monitoring, evaluating and reporting on advocacy and lobbying initiatives, campaigns and on collaborations, networks and partnerships. We encourage our clients to plan in a participatory manner and help them to ensure that the greatest possible impact is made using creative strategies.
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Court management
We bring greater efficiency and effectiveness to the daily running of courts through the development of court managers, building the capacity of court staff and officials and through the integration of new systems.
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Corporate sector and social Justice
We have worked with some of the biggest corporations in South Africa around Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Social Investment (CSI). Our clients engage us to assist them in defining and designing their CSR policies. This involves the development, allignment or re-allignment of a corporate value system committed to supporting social justice in one or more streams. We assist our clients in making commensurate jumps or shifts in their value systems, which resonate with particular social justice imperatives. This involves internal consensus building, often based on contextual studies and engagement with communities, the civil society sector, governments and donors. Ultimately, we develop a comprehensive CSR policy that best fits the corporate identity. Often this involves deciding a particular cause over the other.Our clients then engage us to develop a CSI policy for them. We begin by developing a CSI strategic plan. This involves developing internal capabilities, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting systems to bring effect to their CSR policy. We often begin this work with suggesting that relevant corporate officers and staff embark on a short, University of Oxford/Fahamu accredited distance learning course on an “Introduction to Human Rights” which we tutor. We believe that this course brings invaluable insight to corporate officers and staff in keeping alive the CSR policy and enhancing the CSI impact on social justice. We also assist in raising the human rights awarenes and practise of employees.Many of our clients are keen on multisectoral cooperation in grantmaking, which enhances experiential learning and lessens the duplication of services and grants made. We are pleased to annouce that we are currently involved with establishing a multisectoral donor forum for KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.Closely linked to CSR and CSI, we also assess the extent to which corporations adhere to their national and international human rights and labour law obligations generally, but with particular emphasis on their supply chains.
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Grant management and support
We have considerable human rights, good governance and democracy experience. In particular, through our extensive engagement with civil society organisations and National Institutions in Africa, we understand their challenages, needs and aspirations.We assist donors, government departments and agencies and the corporate sector in making a valued impact on social justice. This includes research in a context where little or no information is readily accessible, organisation development, stragic development, grant management, capacity-building and monitoring and evaluation.We develop national strategic plans which resonate with local, national, regional and international plans and policy. The Indiba-Africa Group has commensurate expertise in identifying programmes and projects to support. As such we undertake fiduciary risk assessments and also develop requests for proposals and contextualised guidelines for assessing requests and proposals for funding. On request, we often conduct baseline surveys. We also conduct evaluation services and assess final narrative and financial statements from grantees. In instances where our client requires us to develop terms of reference for independent evaluations, we also provide this service.
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Human rights monitoring
Our experts are available to conduct fact-finding missions and are able to assess state compliance with local, national, regional, African and international legal obligations. We also monitor State reporting to regional, African and international institutions and assist civil society organisations in drafting shadow reports on state compliance on obligations. Our lawyers provide expertise on legal drafting, the development of ratification and implementation kits and also analyse draft and enacted legislation.
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ICTs for development
We recognise the challenges that many civil society organisations have in their ability to access the Internet and related services. Our experts assist in designing affordable and sustainable strategies for Email access and for establishing a presence on the World Wide Web. These include developing websites which vulnerable communities can access through their mobile phones, developing simple and effective newsletters and the use of listservs. We also assist in developing strategies for using SMS technology for development.
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Legal Reform
We analyse, make recommendations and draft local, national, regional and international law. Our interventions have precipitated legal reform and in addition, have had a marked impact on legal advocacy and campaigns.
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Materials development
We develop accredited learning materials, handbooks and resource guides across the sectors we work in. We also specialise in developing pedagogical modalities for learning.
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Monitoring and evaluation
We provide expertise on project, programme and institutional monitoring and evaluation. We develop monitoring and evaluation capacity, frameworks, data collection and reporting systems. Our experts provide numerous evaluation interventions for Official Development Assistance (ODA), Private Foreign and Local Donors, Philanthropists and Corporate Social Investment. We also specialise in monitoring and evaluation around HIV/AIDS, gender and children.We have excellent expertise and experience in the European Commission’s (EC) Aid Delivery Methods. This includes the EC Project Cycle Management Operation Guidelines and in particular the DAC Principles, the Paris Declaration, MDGs and other documents. Our experts are familiar with GBS and SBS. We have expertise in EC’s Technical and Administrative Provisions (TAPs), the guidelines for Sector Policy Support Programmes (SPSP) and with PRAG.
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Organisation diagnosis and development
Our expertise includes providing services on institiutional audits and institutional frameworks. We look at organisations in the wider institutional framework and design appropriate interventions. These include Board governance, developing African leadership, managing change and strategic development. In addition, we provide gender, child and HIV/AIDS expertise in regard to the above organisational diagnosis and development services.
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Project implementation
We provide oversight for project management and also undertake the holistic management of projects.
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Research
We have a dedicated research unit which undertakes research assignments in all areas of the services we provide.
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Sustainability
Our clients are mainly based in the civil society sector and we assist them to develop strategies to become more sustainable. This strategy often involves both short-term and long-term strategies. The short-term strategy includes strategic planning for fundraising, income generation and resource mobilisation. During this phase we undertake the writing of proposals and the solicitation of support. The long-term strategy includes capacity-building and in this regard, we provide a distance learning course, which is accredited by the University of Oxford/Fahamu.We have been contracted by major donors to enhance the sustainability of their partners both in the short and long-term, and in many instances we also provide on-going mentoring services to Boards, Directors and Managers of civil society organisations. Our experience shows that this is a key support area.
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