Project Cycle

We usually receive more than 200 projects responding to our call. Considering the resources available we have to select carefully those that can be funded. To enter the preselection process each project has to comply with the following preconditions:

• It should be in line with our focus, that is, housing for the poorest of poor;
• Conditions mentioned in our Call cost of units and others should be met
• All information to understand the proposal is available.
• Projects that do not meet these initial requirements are excluded from the preselection process.

After this first screening we carefully evaluate the content of each proposal to then preselect prepare a list of projects that will be presented to the Board.

Each year in November some members of our operational unit travel to Belgium to present the pre-selected projects to our Board of Directors in Brussels. The Directors are informed about the background and characteristics of each project so they can decide the first list of those that will be funded during the next year.

Because of the limited resources available it is not possible to approve all the projects. Many very good proposals, or those presented by groups who are doing a very important job to help the poor will not have access to funds that they need to keep on working. As each year more and more groups and communities are presenting initiatives that respond to different housing needs and priorities of the urban poor in cities of the developing world, it gets harder to select the best among so many good projects. That makes our task of selecting some of them even more difficult. We suggest that those who do not obtain funding should not be too disappointed and hopefully adjust or present their renewed proposal again in the future. This is also why the funds assigned for the selected projects can either cover the total amount requested in the proposal or a part of the original budget.

The organizations whose project has been selected for funding are notified through the system, they are informed about the granted amount and the quantity of solutions to be financed. The organizations then confirm their acceptance or rejects the proposal (in that specific case, the project is automatically cancelled into the system).

Some information must be submitted through the system before writing down the draft of the agreement. This information is divided into 8 categories :

1. General Background
2. Partner
3. Families and NGO Participation
4. Families
5. Gantt
6. Bank
7. Cost per item
8. Total cost of the project

Once the ADDITIONAL INFORMATION are submitted, SELAVIP may either approve them or ask some corrections. In case it approves them, SELAVIP prepares an agreement’s draft stating aspects that will determine the relation between SELAVIP and the executing agency, such as:

• Project’s description
• Approval of funds
• Use of SELAVIP funds.
• Community and NGO’s commitment
• Use of SELAVIP name
• Transfers
• Technical and financial report
• Communication and references
• Use of photos, video and other files
• Entry into force of the agreement and duration of the project
• Adjustments /Termination of the agreement
• Governing law and dispute settlement.

The agreement’s draft is being sent through the system to the organization, who, in turn, sent it back with (or without) corrections. SELAVIP signs the agreement and sends it through the system The NGO, in turn, signs it and sends it back the same way. The project’s status then becomes “IN EXECUTION”.

Prior to the transfer of funds, the local NGO must ask the families to sign a document (1 document = 1 family) where they commit to actively participate in the project and acknowledging the fact that the SELAVIP’s contribution is FREE for them (no refund may be asked). Upon receipt of that document, SELAVIP will release the first instalment. The NGO, once the funds are available in their corporate’s account, must confirm their receipt into the system

To have a clear and constant idea of how the project is progressing and what outcomes are being obtained, we ask the executing agency to report in a regular manner about the activities that are being developed. For SELAVIP the entities responsible of the implementation of projects are our local partners. Our relation is based on trust but we also have follow up procedures by internet to try to help them to move on according to the strategies that were agreed upon, and to solve problems that can come up and ask for eventual adjustments. So, we work on three different levels to verify how the project is progressing and to know more on how the partners are dealing with new challenges:

1. Progress reports (for information only): A template is available into the projects’ management system. Those reports explain what the outcomes of the project are and how the project is going. Pictures that illustrate the outcome of the project are extremely useful to assess the development of each project and understand the progress of each project.
2. Progress reports (for getting the second or third instalment) : The subsequent transfers are requested when the NGO confirms the implementation of the activities involved in the Agreement and sends us the respective seatbacks of the progress through the progress report whose template is available into the system. Pictures that illustrate the outcome of the project are extremely useful to assess the development of each project and understand its progress. Upon receipt of the progress report, SELAVIP may approve it (and request the release of the second or third instalment) or ask some corrections.

At the end of each project, a final report (whose template is available into the system) should be sent to SELAVIP. This document includes the following sections:

1. Persons in charge of implementation.
2. Focus, Approach and strategy.
3. Results.
4. Problems that emerged
5. Impacts
6. Sustainability
7. Closing
8. List of families : pictures showing the solution (together with the families) as it has been built are requested.
9. Financial and Expense report.

Once the final report is approved, the project is considered as CLOSED and the local organization may download a CLOSING CERTIFICATE from the system.

Reports of all projects that were implemented and the follow up activities provide inputs for a general report that SELAVIP prepares to be presented to the Directors during the Board meeting in November. This report makes possible to assess if our work was effective and what adjustments could be made to improve our impact and to use resources in a more efficient manner. This report about results achieved by all people working with SELAVIP - mainly the professional staff and our collaborators on the field - becomes the keystone for decisions about the new projects that should be funded next year.

An agenda is organized each year to visit selected projects in Latin America, Asia and Africa. These visits are mostly done by SELAVIP members. Sometimes collaborating agencies and persons help us on the field. Experience shows that meeting our partners and communities on site is by far the best way to learn from each other and share ideas on how to fight homelessness of the poor. It is important to note that, in terms of transportation, we expect the NGO’s to arrange, on one hand, the transport from the airport to the hotel (and hotel to airport) and, on the other hand, the transportation from the hotel to the place of execution of the project (and transport back to the hotel).