VZCZCXRO2968
PP RUEHDE
DE RUEHTU #1280/01 2630905
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 200905Z SEP 07
FM AMEMBASSY TUNIS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3889
INFO RUEHMEP/THE MIDDLE EAST PARTNERSHIP INITIATIVE PRIORITY
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 1365
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS PRIORITY 1836

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 TUNIS 001280 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KMPI KDEM XF PREL PGOV EAID
SUBJECT: MEPI LESSONS LEARNED 4: SMALL GRANTS - THE SECRET 
WEAPON 
 
REF: A. TUNIS 1259 
     ¶B. TUNIS 1263 
     ¶C. TUNIS 1273 
 
Sensitive But Unclassified.  Handle Accordingly. 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1. (SBU) The MEPI Small Grants program is a highly effective 
tool for promoting democratic reform from the ground up in 
the Arab world.  Small Grants allow us to respond quickly to 
opportunities as they emerge, have an immediate impact at the 
grassroots level, and link up with groups the USG often 
hasn't worked with in the past, thereby building 
relationships among the local reform community.  Small Grants 
have effectively been used as pilot projects, testing both 
the capacity of organizations and the viability of certain 
activities.  While this endeavor demands a fair amount of 
care and feeding from posts and the Regional Office, Small 
Grants consistently deliver a large bang for the buck.  End 
summary. 
¶2. (U) This is the final cable in a series of four by the 
MEPI Regional Office in Tunis, based on three years of 
supporting MEPI activities from Morocco to Lebanon.  The 
other cables are: 
-- Overview (ref a) 
-- Addressing the Challenges (ref b) 
-- Diplomacy (ref c) 
 
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CLEAR BENEFITS 
-------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) Launched shortly after MEPI's creation in 2002, The 
Small Grants program was designed specifically to work with 
the "little guys" - local groups that wish to instigate 
change in their societies, but are often overlooked or unable 
to compete with larger organizations for funding 
opportunities.  With local organizations identifying reform 
opportunities and proposing activities to address them, Small 
Grants are a true example of the USG responding to 
grass-roots demand for reform.  At their best, Small Grants 
are extremely cost-effective, quick to start-up and flexible 
in implementation, as the grantee is operating on his/her 
home turf. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Adapted to local conditions, many of grant 
recipients have employed innovative approaches to produce 
significant results.  In Morocco, a theater group staged a 
series of plays designed to teach illiterate women and men 
about their rights under the country's new family code.  In 
Egypt, a dynamic new NGO frustrated by corporate corruption 
created a project in which they reviewed major corporations' 
public records and became minimum shareholders in the 
companies - allowing them to attended assembly meetings. 
They questioned financial irregularities at those meetings 
and in the media, raising overall public awareness about 
corruption.  A youth center in southern Lebanon ran 
"democracy in action" programs, including volunteerism, 
advocacy campaigns, and media training as alternative 
activities for teenagers living in Hizbollah-dominated areas. 
 
 
¶5. (SBU) We have been able to use Small Grants as pilot 
projects in a number of cases to judge either the capacity of 
a specific NGO or the potential for making progress in a 
specific area of reform.  As a result, a number of Small 
Grantees have received larger follow-on grants, either from 
MEPI or USAID to expand the scope and reach of their 
activities.  Small Grants have also been an effective 
outreach tool, expanding posts' and MEPI's contact base. In 
2006, MEPI held a conference in Alexandria, Egypt, bringing 
together many of the NGOs that had received Small Grants so 
they could learn from each other, exchange ideas, and further 
develop their civic engagement skills.  Earlier this year, 
MEPI launched its Alumni Network, which formally links Small 
Grants recipients and other participants in MEPI programs 
across the region. 
 
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EVOLVING PROCESS 
---------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) For all their benefits, Small Grants can be labor 
intensive.  Early on, it became clear that the program would 
require both considerable outreach efforts to attract 
proposals from a broad range of reform-oriented groups, as 
 
TUNIS 00001280  002 OF 003 
 
 
well as hand-holding and oversight during the project 
development and implementation stages, given the generally 
weak capacity of NGOs across the region.  To address these 
factors, management of the Small Grants program was moved in 
2004 from NEA/PI to the MEPI Regional Offices (ROs) in Tunis 
and Abu Dhabi.  Since then, the RO in Tunis alone has 
provided more than 75 Small Grants for over $2.5 million to 
individuals and organizations in its eight-post area of 
coverage.  The RO in Abu Dhabi has had similar results during 
this same period. 
 
¶7. (SBU) The success of the Small Grants program depends 
first and foremost on posts, who are most familiar with local 
civil society and the feasibility of proposed projects in 
their host country.  Country Democracy Strategies have been 
extremely useful as a means of prioritizing which Small Grant 
proposals to pursue.  Once post MEPI Committees approve an 
application, they submit them to the RO, which reviews them 
programatically - to ensure that they meet MEPI's reform 
criteria - and financially - to ensure expenses are 
appropriate and allowable.  Small Grants funds are expended 
on a rolling "first-come, first-served" basis.  Thus, posts 
can submit their approved proposals to the RO throughout the 
year. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Collaboration between the RO and MEPI Committees at 
each post has led to a much more streamlined process.  A key 
reason for the improvement in overall quality of small grants 
in the last two years has been the involvement of the RO and 
posts in refining projects, once they have agreed in 
principle to fund them.  By reaching out directly to an 
organization to adjust activities and clarify budget and 
other management issues, we often are able to broaden the 
reach and increase the reform impact of the overall project. 
In Algeria, for example, a local group proposed a program to 
advance the issue of women's representation in parliament. 
Working with this group, the RO and post were able to expand 
the idea, with the NGO getting Algeria's key political 
parties to take positions not only on parliamentary quotas 
but on a much wider range of women's issues.  The NGO then 
broadcast the parties' positions ahead of Algeria's elections 
this summer, so that voters would have concrete reasons to 
back a given candidate.  When a Tunisian organization 
proposed a program for journalism professors to visit the 
United States to learn about running a campus newspaper, we 
bolstered this project considerably by including professors, 
as well as students, from both countries in an exchange 
arrangement. 
 
¶9. (U) Brief descriptions of these and all other Small Grants 
can be found on the RO Tunis website 
(www.medregion.mepi.state.gov) under "Small Grants 
Abstracts."  The RO encourages potential grantees and posts 
to review these abstracts for project ideas.  The RO is also 
in the process of publishing a guidebook designed to help 
NGOs determine if the mission of their organization is 
appropriate for MEPI funding and, if so, how to apply for a 
Small Grant.  A second guidebook will assist those NGOs that 
have already received Small Grants to properly run their 
programs. 
 
-------------------- 
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT 
-------------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) While the MEPI Small Grants program has been 
successful in enlarging our contact base of reformers, the 
majority of grantees are still located in capitals.  Posts 
and the RO need to find ways to reach new organizations, 
especially in the outlying regions of the country, if this 
network of reformers is to continue expanding.  Secondly, an 
effort needs to be made at better monitoring projects.  With 
so much effort going into finding groups and helping them 
shape their activities, these groups are sometimes neglected 
during the most crucial stage - after they receive USG funds 
and are implementing the project.  RO staff make an effort 
when traveling to meet all Small Grant recipients, but we 
must depend on posts to make periodic site visits to ensure 
that organizations are adhering to the terms of their grants 
and to judge whether the project is having the desired 
impact.  In most cases, the NGOs are extremely receptive to 
these visits, as they want t show off what they have 
achieved. 
 
¶11. (SBU) A third area for improvement concerns our local 
partners.  Working at the ground level has demonstrated just 
how weak civil organizations are in many of the countries of 
the Middle East and North Africa.  Individuals and groups 
need instruction in such basic elements as how to organize 
 
TUNIS 00001280  003 OF 003 
 
 
and run their operations, how to handle finances, and how to 
develop projects that will have maximum impact.  Even in 
those countries where civil society is relatively more 
developed, most NGOs we have worked with could benefit from 
training in leadership, advocacy, and communication skills. 
Recognizing that a full-blown effort to address these issues 
exceeds MEPI's capacity, we may wish to consider developing a 
program that would provide these skills to targeted local 
partners who have proven their commitment to reform and their 
potential for making significant contributions in their 
country. 
 
-------- 
So What? 
-------- 
 
¶12. (SBU) In our overview cable (ref a), we listed as 
significant MEPI achievements: 
 
-- Establishing a relationship of trust with a network of 
reformers in the region. 
-- Instilling an understanding of the policy/program nexus 
within the Department, and motivating posts to work both the 
diplomatic and civil society angles of it. 
-- Creating an effective and rapid mechanism for identifying 
reform opportunities and responding with programs, sometimes 
within a matter of weeks. 
 
Small Grants have been vital to each of those 
accomplishments.  Posts are now able to reach out to and 
support in concrete ways groups committed to building a more 
democratic society in their country.  The 
actions of those reformers advance our policy objectives and 
our growing relationship with them is an 
investment in our long-term interests in the region. 
GODEC