Executive summary

The focus of this 4-year report is on the results from NCA’s international programmes, as it relates to the organisation’s Global Strategy (2011-2015).

The report covers all NCA’s activities, regardless of funding source, and aims to give a comprehensive picture of what we have achieved with the total resources we have mobilised during the period 2011-2014. Norad remains NCA’s single largest donor with a total grant of NOK 1.04 billion and this report also constitutes NCA’s final Results Report to Norad under the agreement QZA-10/0953.

The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been NCA’s second largest donor with a total grant of NOK 829 million. NOK 615 million came from fundraising from private individuals, congregations and businesses in Norway. The remainder came from the ACT Alliance and other donors such as the UN. We extend our sincere thanks to all those who contributed financially to NCA’s work in the course of these four years.

In 2014, NCA spent a net sum of NOK 782 million (2013: 690 million) on international cooperation (including work in Norway). The total amount spent on international cooperation during the four years was NOK 2.87 billion. Please see Chapter 2 for an overview of incoming resources and expenditure, including a donor overview.

In 2014, NCA was engaged in 37 countries. 20 of these are focus countries, where we have country offices and full country or regional programmes. In these countries, we work according to an integrated approach, combining long-term development, advocacy and emergency preparedness and response. In other countries, we have limited but strategic support, both long-term development work and humanitarian assistance.

From 2011-2014, NCA phased out programmes in Iraq, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Eritrea, Nicaragua, Serbia, Macedonia, Mauritania and Thailand, which was in line with our strategy of reducing the number of country programmes for increased quality and concentrated growth. 2016 will mark the first year of NCA’s new Global Strategy (Faith in Action). As part of our aim to strengthen further our capacity to ensure quality programming and increase cost effectiveness, NCA has decided to focus on a smaller number of thematic programmes and to phase out our country programmes in Vietnam, Laos, Kenya and Brazil and to significantly downscale the regional programme in Southern Africa during 2015-2017. Some limited regional activities will also remain in East-Africa. In this report, we assess our results from different perspectives. Chapter 1 gives an introduction to who we are, where we work and some highlights from NCA’s work with faith actors. Chapter 3 takes a geographic perspective, presenting a glimpse of what NCA and partners have achieved because of NCA’s presence in the programme countries. Chapter 4 focuses on results from NCA’s work to strengthen civil society. Chapter 5 summarises results related to NCA’s global programmes, and comprises the bulk of the report. Chapter 6 and chapter 7 present some achievements in NCA’s humanitarian assistance and work with advocacy for global justice. Chapter 8 focuses on lessons learned.

Key results 2011-2014

• NCA’s faith-based partners are taking up new roles in civil society, moving from service provision, increasingly engaging their respective governments and the private sector as agents of change in civil society.
• NCA and partners have made significant contributions to increased transparency and improved governance of public resources in 8 countries. This strengthened community rights in extractive industry operations, and ensured the implementation of public projects securing people’s rights to basic social services such as water, health care and education.
• NCA sees a marked reduction in vulnerability to climate change in the majority of the communities we have worked with.
• NCA’s climate change mitigation programme has contributed to mitigating greenhouse gases. The energy provided has also allowed rights-holders to increase their own capabilities through household lighting for reading, access to clean cooking fuels and development of local business initiatives.
• Peace committees and interfaith peacebuilding structures supported by NCA have played a crucial role in preventing and resolving conflicts. NCA has also contributed to prevent youth at risk from being (re)recruited into armed groups.
• NCA and partners contributed to reducing stigma and changing social norms by empowering and engaging women and men, faith actors and communities to address gender-based violence (GBV).
• Availability of maternal and neonatal health services has increased as a result of NCA and partners’ interventions. This resulted in a decrease in maternal and child mortality rates in some of NCA’s target areas.
• NCA has through innovative campaigning, mobilisation and research championed “country-by-country reporting” (CBCR) legislation in Norway and raised it to the attention of decision-makers. Norway introduced CBCR from January 2014.
• NCA and partners responded to five L3 emergencies - the UN classification for the most severe, large-scale humanitarian crises.

Next chapter: 1. This is Norwegian Church Aid

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