VZCZCXYZ0024
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHAM #3985/01 1571100
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 061100Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY AMMAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0938
INFO RUEHTV/AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV 0018
RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM 3938

UNCLAS AMMAN 003985 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT. FOR PRM/ANE AND PRM/C 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF PREL EAID KPAL IS JO
SUBJECT: MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF PRM'S GRANT TO NGO 
SEEDS OF PEACE 
 
REF: A. BARTLETT-KANESHIRO TELCON OF 05/24/06 
 
     ¶B. KIRBY-KANESHIRO EMAIL OF 10/21/05 
     ¶C. 05 AMMAN 5832 
     ¶D. 04 AMMAN 1721 
     ¶E. 03 AMMAN 1477 
 
¶1.  (U) This message contains a monitoring and evaluation 
report on the $90,000 grant PRM awarded to the U.S. 
non-profit organization Seeds of Peace (SPRMCO05GR140) to 
help it extend its conflict resolution programming to 
Palestinian refugee youth residing in the West Bank, 
Jerusalem and Gaza during FY06, keyed to questions provided 
in ref B.  Seeds of Peace (SOP) has implemented three similar 
agreements for PRM since 2002. 
 
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SOURCES 
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¶2. (SBU) Amman-based regional refcoord monitored SOP's 
implementation of its current PRM grant in December 2005, and 
again in May 2006.  On December 8, 2005 she reviewed the 
recruitment strategy SOP planned to use this year to increase 
the number of refugees participating in summer camp sessions 
held at SOP's International Camp facility in Maine with Sami 
Al Jundi, the supervisor of SOP's "Jerusalem Center for 
Co-Existence," who is also the staff member with primary 
responsibility for recruiting Arab youth.  She met Sami Al 
Jundi again on May 18 at SOP's Jerusalem offices, using that 
field visit to also evaluate financial controls and personnel 
management through interviews with Jerusalem Center 
Administrative and Public Relations Manager Reem Mustafa and 
Jerusalem Center Coordinator of Media and Governmental 
Development Eric Kapenga.  As explained in paragraph 13, 
refcoord was unable to meet the Director of SOP's Jerusalem 
Center, who was responsible for supervising day-to-day 
implementation of PRM-funded activities for most of this 
grant's implementation period, as he was out of the region 
for extended periods between September 2005 and April 2006. 
Instead, she conducted remote monitoring by phone on May 23 
with Stephen Flanders, SOP's new New York-based Chief 
Operating Officer, who has been brought in to carry out a 
complete reorganization of SOP starting this summer (see 
paragraph 13 for details).  As reported ref A, Flanders made 
an unexpected request for a no-cost grant extension covering 
100% of its current grant during that call, informing 
refcoord that SOP had not taken any immediate remedial 
actions to met the objectives in its current agreement. 
 
¶3. (U) Refcoord also discussed SOP's efforts to utilize the 
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees 
in the Near East (UNRWA) in its refugee recruitment efforts 
-- a new condition of its grant -- with UNRWA Education 
Department Director Kabir Shaikh May 22. 
 
------------------ 
OVERALL ASSESSMENT 
------------------ 
 
¶4. (SBU) As with its previous three PRM grants, 
SPRMCO05GR140's core objective is to increase the number of 
Palestinian refugee youth attending the summer camp sessions 
that Seeds of Peace has organized for youth from the region 
since 1993 to teach tolerance and conflict resolution 
techniques, through a joint-funding arrangement (currently 
$90,000 from PRM and $15,000 from private donors).  Unlike 
those agreements, this grant calls on SOP to involve UNRWA in 
its recruitment efforts, a new objective designed to help SOP 
overcome the access problems that prompted staff in 2004-2005 
to initiate an unauthorized community service program in two 
UNRWA refugee camps to rehabilitate its image as an "American 
NGO" (ref C).  Also, this agreement no longer supports the 
year-round activities which SOP staff in Jerusalem organize 
to try to sustain former Israeli and Palestinian campers, 
involvement in co-existence activities until they reach age 
24, following SOP's acknowledgment that it had failed to find 
viable methods to increase refugee participation in these 
local programs after three years, and could not apply lessons 
learned from those aborted attempts during an anticipated 
reorganization of its regional offices (refs C-E). 
 
¶5. (SBU) Three years into its efforts to target refugees, the 
number of Palestinian youth from the West Bank and Gaza with 
refugee status participating in SOP's "core" summer camp 
program has fallen to 2003 levels (10 campers) -- well below 
its current grant target of 25.  Hamas' victory in the 
January Palestinian legislative elections contributed to 
SOP's inability to meet the terms of its grant.  Under Hamas' 
 
leadership, the PA Education Ministry re-established its 
boycott of Seeds of Peace.  SOP responded by reaching out to 
private schools and individual (Fatah) politicians to 
identify potential candidates -- a move that inadvertently 
prevented it from recruiting any female youth from Gaza this 
year.  SOP's recruitment in the West Bank was also affected. 
While SOP has not been subject to direct threats, increased 
security concerns compelled its Jerusalem staff to restrict 
their activities to Fatah strongholds (primarily Ramallah), 
reversing inroads SOP had made to UNRWA camps in Jenin in 
¶2005.  At the same time, SOP has been slow in completing a 
planned reorganization of its regional offices (underway 
since late 2004), leaving staff in Jerusalem in limbo, with 
interim and often absent managers who were unable to maintain 
any focus on using PRM funds to develop sustainable targeting 
methods.  Even with the impetus of external funding and 
engagement from PRM, SOP is slowly working to involve 
organizations such as UNRWA that have direct and broad access 
to refugee youth in its recruitment processes.  SOP appears 
committed to carrying out a complete reorganization that 
should remedy its "management gap," but informed refcoord May 
23 that it cannot take remedial actions to raise refugee 
participation before September. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
PERFORMANCE MEASURED AGAINST PLANNED OBJECTIVES 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶6. (U) GRANT OBJECTIVE A -- INCREASE REFUGEES ATTENDING SOP'S 
MAINE CAMP TO 23-25 PERSONS: SOP requested $90,000 to support 
its objective of increasing the number of refugees in its 
summer camp program from 15 in 2005 to 23-25 in 2006 (i.e., 
$12,500 in staff support for the recruitment and selection 
process, and $72,500 to finance refugees' participation in 
pre-departure preparatory classes and their actual travel 
expenses).  On May 23, SOP's New York-based Chief Operating 
Officer informed refcoord that SOP had finished its 2006 camp 
selection and had not met the its target.  Of the 60 
Palestinians SOP recruited to participate in camps this 
summer, only nine appear to hold refugee status: six from 
Gaza, two from Jericho and one from Ramallah.  NOTE: SOP 
maintains no database on its campers, making it difficult to 
confirm whether it is meeting its recruitment objectives. 
However, it is refining its verification methods.  In 
previous years, SOP used residency in an UNRWA camp as its 
working definition of a refugee. This year, SOP started 
asking campers for UNRWA registration cards to verify their 
refugee status.  END NOTE.  As of May 30, SOP was unable to 
verify whether any of the adult "delegation leaders" it also 
recruits to accompany youth to Maine (and who could also be 
supported under the terms of its grant) are refugees. 
Paragraph 9 describes the selection criteria/process SOP used. 
 
¶7. (SBU) As was the case in 2005, Israeli travel restrictions 
could still affect actual camp attendance.  Administrative 
Manager Reem Mustafa reported May 18 that the GOI had agreed 
to facilitate the travel of campers from the West Bank, 
including providing authorization to travel to the U.S. via 
Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.  However, the GOI has refused 
to allow campers from Gaza to use Ben Gurion.  As was the 
case in 2005, SOP plans to send campers from Gaza via Cairo. 
 
¶8. (U) OTHER PERFORMANCE INDICATORS: Apart from raising 
numerical refugee recruitment targets, SOP's current grant 
measures performance based on SOP's ability to involve UNRWA 
in its recruitment, and to ensure refugees participate in 
pre-departure orientation seminars and post-camp attitudinal 
surveys.  Political developments and internal organizational 
issues prevented SOP from establishing a working relationship 
with UNRWA, and are reported in detail at paragraph 10. 
Refcoord verified that SOP is preparing to include refugee 
youth in the two-day, pre-camp orientation classes scheduled 
to take place one week prior to departure for Maine (i.e., 
June 13-14 and July 13-14) during her May 18 monitoring trip. 
 Attitudinal surveys are scheduled to take place post-camp, 
and cannot currently be measured. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
ACCESS TO TARGET BENEFICIARIES AND COORDINATION ISSUES 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) HAMAS VICTORY LIMITS COORDINATION: January's 
Palestinian Legislative Council election results limited 
SOP's ability to work with partners who have direct access to 
refugee youth, particularly in the West Bank.  SOP staff 
responsible for recruitment rely heavily on regional 
governments, limiting their role to screening candidates who 
are nominated by the Israeli and PA Education Ministries. 
 
Prior to the Palestinian Legislative elections, SOP intended 
to work primarily through the PA Education Ministry, as it 
had done in 2005.  According to Al Jundi, mid-level 
Fatah-affiliated contacts at the PA Education Ministry 
informed him in mid-February that the new Hamas-led Education 
Ministry had effectively re-established the boycott the PA 
placed on SOP at the start of the second Intifada.  NOTE: SOP 
staff are aware of USG "no contact rules" and would have 
avoided working with the PA Education Ministry had its 
boycott not been in place. END NOTE.  Despite the fact that 
the PA's Education Ministry has boycotted SOP programs for 
four of the past five years, SOP continues to find it 
difficult to develop substitute partners that have comparable 
geographic scope. 
 
¶10. (SBU) NO UNRWA ROLE IN RECRUITMENT: In Gaza, SOP reverted 
to the network of individual (Fatah-affiliated) politicians 
that it used in 2002-2003, asking long-time political 
contacts Saeb Erekat and the wife of former Minister Dahlan 
to identify potential campers.  With that network, SOP made 
no effort to include UNRWA in its recruitment in Gaza this 
year.  In the West Bank, UNRWA's West Bank Field Education 
Program Director failed to respond positively to an approach 
Al Jundi made in February, inviting him to nominate 23 
campers by the end of that month.  Jundi reported that UNRWA 
informed him that they feared retaliation from Hamas.  Asked 
about UNRWA's decision not to participate in SOP recruitment, 
UNRWA HQ Education Program Director Kabir Shaikh confirmed 
that Hamas' victory had played a role in UNRWA's decision, 
but stressed that the primary reason UNRWA was unable to 
participate was the fact that SOP had given UNRWA less than 
three weeks to identify candidates, at a time when it was 
focused on emergency contingency planning.  Shaikh added that 
UNRWA informed SOP that it would be willing to participate in 
SOP,s next recruitment cycle. 
 
IMPACT: INROADS TO JENIN CAMPS LOST, NO GIRLS IN GAZA 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) Without UNRWA support, SOP reverted to inviting 
private schools to nominate candidates.  Unlike previous 
years, however, SOP staff limited their outreach in the West 
Bank.  SOP did not recruit in Jenin, Hebron and Nablus this 
year.  Initially, Al Jundi attributed this to the lack of 
private schools in those cities, but he later acknowledged 
that SOP staff are only working in "areas where Fatah can 
offer security and there is an NGO presence."  Asked if staff 
were reacting to direct threats -- as was the case in 2003 
when PFLP supporters actively broke up an SOP workshop in 
Ramallah -- Al Jundi said that was not the case; their 
measures were pre-emptive.  NOTE: Israel's permit system is 
not affecting SOP Palestinian staff's travel to the degree it 
did in 2005 (ref C).  SOP staff attribute the improvement to 
SOP's decision to join the State Department's Overseas 
Security Advisory Council's new Jerusalem Country Council, 
which issues membership cards to this network of American 
NGOs and private organizations that they claim help 
facilitate their movement through checkpoints.  END NOTE.  As 
a result, SOP was unable to maintain the inroads it made into 
Jenin Camp last year.  However, its recruitment of three 
refugee youth in the West Bank is not a significant drop from 
2005 (one person). 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Surprisingly, SOP staff maintained some refugee 
recruitment in Gaza this year -- a major achievement reached 
in the last program cycle.  NOTE: In 2001, when PRM first 
started funding SOP's refugee recruitment efforts, SOP was 
only able to identify and secure travel permits for refugees 
who held Jerusalem IDs.  SOP slowly expanded its program to 
refugees from the West Bank in 2002-2003, but was unable to 
recruit refugee in Gaza until 2005, when the PA lifted its 
three-year boycott on SOP.  END NOTE.  However, SOP was 
unable -- for the first time in its history -- to recruit any 
female Palestinian campers from Gaza, a development Al Jundi 
attributed to their contacts inability to resist overwhelming 
social pressures.  COMMENT: In the past, SOP had done a good 
job establishing gender balance in its summer camp caseload; 
51 percent of its past summer camp participants were male and 
49 percent female in 2005.  END COMMENT.) 
 
------------------------------------------- 
ADDITIONAL FACTORS AFFECTING IMPLEMENTATION 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶13. (SBU) LACK OF MANAGERIAL OVERSIGHT: While SOP staff in 
Jerusalem responsible for implementing PRM-funded activities 
are clearly working in a more difficult operating 
environment, their inability to meet their recruitment 
 
targets appears to also be due to SOP's inability to move 
forward with a planned reorganization of its regional 
offices.  Tim Wilson, the Director of SOP's International 
Camp facility in Maine who was brought in to head Jerusalem 
operations on an interim basis in September 2004, remained in 
charge of PRM-funded projects until May 2006.  However, he 
was absent from the field for more than 50% of the time, 
leaving comparatively junior staff to respond to 
implementation problems.  It was clear that Jerusalem staff 
were frustrated with lack of engagement of SOP HQ.  They 
report that SOP HQ made no effort to address the UNRWA 
coordination issue when they reported that UNRWA field staff 
had resisted their overtures.  NOTE: SOP Washington did not 
comment on the UNRWA coordination issue in its interim 
report. END NOTE. SOP managers have made no effort to engage 
officials from UNRWA's HQ nor its West Bank and Gaza Fields. 
In addition, SOP staff in Jerusalem did not have coherent 
responses when asked during monitoring visits/calls how SOP 
planned to meet its refugee recruiting targets, suggesting 
that senior management has not made increasing refugee 
participation a clear program goal.  COMMENT: In refcoord's 
view, SOP might have reached its grant target without UNRWA 
had it revised its vetting procedures to include questions 
designed to identify Palestinian youth with refugee status at 
the interview stage.  SOP staff in Jerusalem rebut this 
argument, saying that adding refugee status as an explicit 
selection criteria would have weakened their standards.  SOP 
continues to use English language skills (measured through 
standardized exams), academic excellence, and demonstrated 
leadership and social skills as selection criteria for its 
summer camp program.  END COMMENT. 
 
------------------------------------------- 
STAFFING, WORKPLACE CONDITIONS AND CONTROLS 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶14. (SBU) STAFF QUALIFICATIONS: SOP currently employs nine 
full-time and 11 part-time staff in the region.  Two 
full-time staff work on PRM-funded activities on a part-time 
basis: Center Supervisor Al Jundi and Administrative and 
Public Relations Manager Reem Mustafa.  Both are based at 
Seeds' Jerusalem Center, and appeared fully and gainfully 
employed during refcoord's May 18 monitoring visit.  Al Jundi 
has been with SOP longer than any other Jerusalem Center 
staffer.  He has recruited Arab youth for SOP for six years, 
but appears to have lost his authority to initiate new 
recruiting methods since SOP fired former Center Director Jen 
Marlowe (ref C) in 2004.  He presents SOP's mission well, 
thinks critically about appropriate use of funds and is 
responsive to refcoord queries, but is concerned that SOP 
senior managers are replacing "co-existence" activities with 
"uni-national" programming.  Mustafa is responsible for 
making travel arrangements for SOP campers.  Also a long-time 
SOP employee, she has demonstrated her ability to carry out 
the extensive coordination with Israeli military authorities 
required to ensure Palestinian campers can travel to Maine. 
Their direct supervisor (and the senior SOP manager 
responsible for PRM grant implementation), Jerusalem Center 
Director Tim Wilson, was not present during refcoord 
monitoring.  Wilson will not return to the region as his 
position has recently phased out as part of a major internal 
re-organization that will reportedly involve shutting SOP's 
Jerusalem Center and replacing it with two offices in Tel 
Aviv and Ramallah.  SOP's new Chief Operations Officer took 
over management of Jerusalem Center on an interim basis in 
May. 
 
¶15. (U) OFFICES AND EQUIPMENT: Refugee camp recruitment is 
run out of the Jerusalem Center for Co-Existence that SOP 
established in 1999 to provide office space and a meeting 
site for the follow-up activities it organizes for 
Palestinian-Israeli camp graduates.  The Center is located in 
the French Hill area of East Jerusalem in a clean and 
spacious private four-floor house that was being used both as 
office space and a workshop/seminar site for former campers 
resident in Jerusalem during refcoord's monitoring visit. 
Office equipment appeared in good working condition, but was 
not purchased with PRM funding.  As noted above, Chief 
Operating Officer Flanders informed refcoord May 23 that SOP 
intends to close its Jerusalem Center this summer. 
 
¶16. (SBU) FINANCIAL AND INVENTORY CONTROLS: SOP's office in 
Maine handles SOP's finances, but SOP's Jerusalem Center 
employs a part-time accountant as well as an external Israeli 
accountant who provides periodic audits.  SOP appears to have 
appropriate inventory controls. 
 
------------------------------------- 
 
SPHERE STANDARDS AND CODES OF CONDUCT 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶17. (U) SOP does not implement "assistance" programs, and 
does not use SPHERE standards to design its programming.  It 
is willing to try to do so if requested.  SOP has a code of 
conduct in its staff handbook that advises them of their 
obligations to report any suspected sexual exploitation and 
abuse of beneficiaries.  No such cases were reported as of 
May 30. 
 
------------------------------------ 
ASSESSMENT OF PROJECT SUSTAINABILITY 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶18. (SBU) After three years of funding, SOP's refugee 
recruitment strategies are still in a "development" phase. 
SOP could "mainstream" refugee recruitment without the 
impetus of external funding if it made refugee status a clear 
selection criteria and developed additional partners, 
particularly with organizations like UNRWA that have a broad 
mandate to education refugee youth in Gaza and the West Bank. 
 
 
---------------------------- 
RECOMMENDATIONS/OBSERVATIONS 
---------------------------- 
 
¶19. (SBU) SOP's programs work directly to advance an 
important USG goal of combating extremism.  To date, there is 
no duplication with PRM-funded tolerance projects being 
implemented by UNRWA.  However, available NGO funding is 
limited and humanitarian conditions in the region are 
deteriorating, and it is crucial that SOP start to view PRM 
support as a platform to "mainstream" refugee recruitment 
into its regular recruitment practices given that the 75-80% 
Palestinian youth in Gaza and 30% in the West Bank have 
refugee status.  Without senior program managers on the 
ground, there has been a breakdown in efforts to develop a 
sustainable refugee targeting approach.  SOP's new Chief 
Operating Officer informally approached refcoord on May 23 
for a 6-9 month no-cost grant extension to try to reach its 
the refugee recruitment targets in its current grant in 2007. 
 Refcoord believes that Flanders is committed to bridging the 
management gap that has existed in Jerusalem for over a year. 
 However, he is planning to close SOP's Jerusalem 
Co-Existence Center and open two new "uni-national" offices 
in Tel Aviv and Ramallah this summer, the largest 
reorganization SOP has undergone in its history and one which 
is likely to affect SOP's implementation capacity.  If this 
grant extension is formally submitted, PRM will need to work 
with SOP and appropriate UNRWA officials to develop 
sustainable access to candidates.  Refcoord also recommends 
that PRM encourage SOP to develop a database that will help 
it track refugee participation in its programs and/or revise 
selection criteria used in its interview process to include 
refugee status. 
 
¶20. (U) ConGen Jerusalem cleared this message. 
 
Visit Amman's Classified Web Site at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/ 
HALE