Strengthening capacities
An important part of the SUN Movement Pooled Fund’s mission is to build and strengthen the capacity of its grantees, and to address low organizational capacity.
This is an important first step as it triggers a positive catalytic process, which ultimately, has an impact beyond the successful implementation of supported projects. It allows synergies to be created and developed with other actors and networks countrywide, and it strengthens the capacity to respond to other calls for project proposals for more long-lasting results.
Low-capacity grantees commonly experience issues in a range of areas, including a lack of or poor nutrition knowledge, coordination, engagement, leadership, communication, advocacy, social media, project management, reporting and fundraising.
As part of their monthly project progress updates, grantees highlight any areas that they need technical assistance with.
These requests, covering a wide range of issues, are shared with the SUN Movement Global Support System and processed according to the various areas of expertise.
Specific group training or peer-to-peer tutoring is also organized, on request, by UNOPs and individual networks.
Technical Assistance
SUN Networks are essential implementing partners for the success of the SUN Movement Pooled Fund in SUN countries. Technical assistance requests from grantees to providers are addressed by leveraging the expertise from across the SUN Movement Global Support System.
Networks and the SUN Secretariat provide technical assistance according to their mandates, encourage cross-network synergies, organize regional and peer-to-peer exchanges between countries, and support the sustainability of the activities, for instance, by supporting grantees to develop sustainability strategies, and by organizing capacity-strengthening workshops on specific topics.
Beneficiaries of the Pooled Fund can request technical assistance directly from the SUN Business Network and the Civil Society Network on nutrition and network-specific measures.
The Pooled Fund Team offers tailored support to grantees in monitoring and evaluation and in grant management through webinars and one-to-one tutoring sessions.
In addition, monitoring and evaluation missions also represent an opportunity for the team to provide face-to-face training in a number of important project-related topics, such as budget management, reporting, procurement, advocacy and communication.