Carefully consider whether to use a grant facility as opposed to other implementation modalities in order to achieve project objectives. Given the limited time and resources available during the five-year period of the compact, both the up-front and recurring costs of implementing a grant facility diverted vital staff time and attention away from other priorities of the ENRM Project, including the effort to establish a permanent environmental trust. In addition, the time required for establishing a grant facility, operations manual, and selection of grant awardees cut into the amount of time available for implementation, leaving only 3 years to support interventions intended to promote long-term behavior changes among beneficiaries. Moreover, implementation was constrained by a reliance on relatively smaller grants awarded to multiple organizations over a wide geographic area, which led to a higher resource burden on MCC and MCA-Malawi in terms of conducting programmatic oversight and capacity building. As MCA-managed grant facilities must cease operations at the close of a compact, the time investments and resources put into building up capacity are unable to be preserved beyond the life of the compact, leaving local partners with an uncertain source of continued support. MCC is addressing this lesson by convening discussions across the agency to undertake a holistic review of experiences with administering grant facilities within its compacts, as described for lessons noted above.
Lesson Learned