Importance of the Not-for-Profit Sector in OIC Member Countries

The not-for-profit sector in OIC Member Countries (MCs) is diverse in terms of size, structure, and services to the communities. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) play a crucial role in supporting the vulnerable in their respective countries and societies. Their contribution is needed now more than ever to respond, contain and recover from humanitarian crises such as the wrack havoc caused in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic. CSOs have been some of the real heroes to the response to the pandemic due their proximity and close understanding of challenges faced in their communities.    

COVID-19 Pandemic

When COVID-19 Pandemic hit the world in 2020, we have seen people come together to support one another, and their communities at large, on a tremendous scale. It is against this backdrop, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) launched the Strategic Preparedness and response Program (SPRP), to support the efforts of the OIC Member countries to contain, respond, mitigate and recover from the negative impacts of the Pandemic, this was underpinned by the TADAMON CSOs Pandemic Response Accelerator Program to contribute to the immediate and medium-term efforts of the MCs to prevent, contain and respond to the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the fragile and conflict affected MCs. The program prioritizes the local organizations that are directly assisting the health, emergencies, education and social care services on the frontline of tackling the crisis.  

TADAMON CSOs Accelerator Program

The program was designed to closely work with CSOs including International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) as implementing agencies and partners for the Bank’s interventions. Furthermore, the program is based on an innovative partnership approach bringing together national and international CSOs, philanthropies, foundations, Governments and crowdfunding platforms to share knowledge, mobilize support and communicate more effectively.  

Geographical Scope: 

The main targeted countries are Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Guinea, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Niger, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen affected by fragility/conflict; and refugees and IDPs in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. These countries were selected based on the level of fragility, conflict, presence of significant number of refugees and IDPs, poverty, limited availability of basic health services and institutional capacity to prevent, mitigate and contain the COVID-19 pandemic 

Program Initial Value

The total cost of the program is estimated at US$ 55 million, with a seed contribution of ISFD of $8 million, and IsDB Emergency grant of US$500K. 

Development Objectives of the Program: 

• Contribute to the health emergency response through medical supply to health facilities, essential community social services (such as hygiene kits, fortified food for household consumption) and communication & awareness 
• Provide education in emergency activities that will directly benefit people (children and adult) suffering from the incidences of the pandemic 
• Build community resilience through the provision of suitable business and income generating activities as well as ensure continued skills development for both youth and adults. 

List of Projects Approved and under Implementation  

• Burkina Faso 
• Somalia 
• Jordan (Refugees) 
• Iraq (Refugees, IDPs) 
• Lebanon (Refugees, IDPs) 
• Mali 
• Niger 
• Sudan 
• Yemen 
• Comoros 
• Guinea 
• Djibouti 
• Libya 
• TADAMON Open Call for CSOs targeting 32 MCs 
• Afghanistan  

Implementing Partners   

• SPARK 
• UNDP 
• IFRC  
• Plan International  
• Light for the World 
• ICRC

List of Countries’ projects in the Pipeline:

• Chad
• Palestine
• Turkey (refugees and host communities)
• Yemen

With SPARK

The IsDB, ISFD, and SPARK have announced to contribute towards the COVID-19 response initiatives in Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. The overall objective is to contribute to the immediate and medium-term efforts of the MCs to prevent, contain and respond to negative impacts of COVID-19 on the youth in Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. The specific objectives of the project are as follows: 

Provision of short vocational training for 80-90 medical staff; support to production and delivery of 20,000 protective supply to health facilities; Development of 3 psycho-social counselling program; Development of communication and awareness raising campaign on COVID-19 pandemic emergency response (linked to Tadamon Component 1: Emergency in Health) 

• To deliver higher/vocational education for 1,695 women and youth refugees and prepare graduates for the labor market tailored to COVID-19 realities and market demands (linked to Tadamon Component 2: Emergencies in Education); 
• To place 843 refugee women and youth into jobs through a higher education to jobs trajectory (wage and self-employment) (linked to Tadamon Component 3: Building resilience: income generation); 
• 85 start-ups supported in freelance and home-based business sector (linked to Tadamon Component 3: Building resilience: income generation).

This project builds on the existing partnership between SPARK and the Bank (IsDB, ISFD) to support economic empowerment and provide access to higher and vocational education in the IsDB member countries. It is intended to expand the current cooperation in direct response to address the impact of the COVID-19 on the delivery of short courses, higher education programs and support for jobs placement of graduates in IsDB member countries.

With Light For The World

The IsDB, ISFD, and Light for the World have announced to contribute towards mitigating the heightened risks the COVID-19 pandemic poses on vulnerable people notably community and health Workers, teachers, girls, boys, women and men with disabilities and their families in Burkina Faso. This project is implemented in 11 (out of Burkina Faso’s 13 administrative regions). 

This project seeks to reduce and mitigate the heightened risks the COVID-19 pandemic poses on vulnerable people notably community and health workers, teachers, girls, boys, women and men with disabilities and their families in Burkina Faso. To reach this objective, this project combines direct support targeted at ensuring persons with disabilities’ resilience and access to essential services and goods – whilst at the same time tackling the multiple barriers that will otherwise exclude them from the mainstream COVID-19 response. The specific objectives are: 

Emergency medical response: To strengthen the health system to protect vulnerable people who are not able to access current COVID-19 response initiatives. 

Education in emergency : To provide education in emergency to children with disabilities who have been disproportionately affected because education and home-based health assistance services stopped or severely decreased. 

Build household community resilience: To build household and community resilience by giving vulnerable families targeted livelihood support services. 

Contribute Learnings to the Tadamon platform: To foster learning and exchange with other CSOs on disability inclusion in humanitarian action.

With Plan International

The IsDB, ISFD, and Plan International have announced to contribute towards the COVID-19 response initiatives in Guinea. This project target 54 health centers in 7 prefectures in Labe and Mamou in Guinea. Plan Guinea contribution consists of leveraging its activities from three other regions (N’Zérékoré, Kankan, Kindia). A total of 1,054,566 beneficiaries in the three regions are targeted through HH visits, community awareness sessions, religious sermon awareness sessions, HF educational talk (HIV) + HH visits (TB), HTS services and TB case referrals. 

The objective of the project, at the immediate level, aims to (i) improve the capacity of community members to prevent and mitigate the effects of COVID–19, including its related health, social, and gender inequalities; (ii) improve technical and management capacity of health systems to respond to COVID-19; and (iii) strengthen the links between front-line health care workers and communities, through training on their roles in prevention and control of the outbreak.

With International Federation for Red Cross and Red Crescent.

The IsDB, ISFD, and IFRC have announced to contribute towards the COVID-19 response initiatives in the Republic Union of the Comoros, Djibouti, Mali, Niger, Sudan. 

These projects aim to support the Government authorities in the fight against Covid-19 through the promotion of emergency medical responses and/or building communities resilience.

With United Nations Development Program (UNDP) 

The IsDB, ISFD in collaboration with UNDP have announced to contribute towards the COVID-19 and support CSOs through establishing the TADAMON Accelerator focusing on the least developed in OIC member countries and poor communities. This innovative project is titled “ IsDB & ISFD - TADAMON PANDEMIC RESPONSE ACCELERATOR FOR CSOs IN OIC MEMBER COUNTRIES “TADAMON ACCELERATOR”. 

The objective of the TADAMON Accelerator is to enhance capacity and access to funding for CSOs addressing the issues related to the pandemic, and its effects. The program ensures small and local organization who usually serve to channel charitable endeavor don’t collapse due to lack of adequate support. Our goal is to mobilize more resources for CSOs; support their digital transformation and transition to more sustainable business models. This will be achieved through access to funds, capacity building and accelerating transition to new business models for CSOs. 

The TADAMON platform launched in 2019 under the “ISFD-IsDB NGOs Empowerment for Poverty Reduction Program” serves as the digital infrastructure and the existing partnerships within the platform will be utilized. 

The TADAMON Accelerator will make an Open Call through TADAMON Platform for COVID-19 resources mobilization (donation, co-financing). The platform will foster partnerships to bring more institutions that can financially and technically contribute to the program. The TADAMON Accelerator will support various projects with necessary resources. Internal planned target for the TADAMON platform (through the additional partners and stakeholders from Tadamon platform) is set to mobilize an additional resource. Crowdfunding will also be bringing financing directly to involved and trained CSOs and partners. 

The TADAMON Accelerator offers three key services namely (i) Access to finance through partnership and direct support to local CSOs; (ii) Crowdfunding academy (capacity building) to 50 small CSOs; Impact accelerator (capacity building to prepare 50 small CSOs/social innovators to roll out their solutions & transform.

With International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 

The IsDB, ISFD, and ICRC have announced to contribute towards the COVID-19 response initiatives in Afghanistan.  

The overall health program coordinated by ICRC in Afghanistan, in 2022, provides comprehensive support to 47 ARCS-run clinics, including one district hospital treating COVID-19 patients, and medical logistical support to 46 public health facilities that are working to ensure the continuum of care and improve access to quality curative and preventative health care in line with national standards to some 1,725,082 beneficiaries.  

The objective of the project is to support Afghanistan’s health system and ensure that health care remains available and accessible to people. The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan remains critical as the consequences of decades of armed conflict and political instability on the lives of the Afghan people are now further compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The project complements the IsDB-led Afghanistan Humanitarian Trust Fund which charter was established in March 2022 on the sidelines of the 48th session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.