1. Improve the Church’s ability to compete for resources;

2. Set priorities based on real and perceived needs; and 

3. Deliver comprehensive and coordinated development programs

The project developed a strategy of working with CRS to acquire a broad range of institutional and technical capacities required to provide direct ongoing mentoring and capacity building interventions to Church provinces and dioceses. By enhancing the Church’s essential management skills and providing clear strategic direction, Caritas Nigeria worked to break the vicious cycle in which resources are perceived not to be available to retain staff, leading to a situation where staff capacity is not available to attract resources.

In the face of changing donor perspectives and priorities favoring indigenous partners, these capacities would enhance the Church’s local, national and international competitiveness in securing resources and taking advantage of funding opportunities, and lead ultimately to a scale up of the Church’s existing development efforts

• As part of its strategy, the project focused on the Justice, Development and Peace Commissions (JDPC) as well as some of the Health departments of the Dioceses reached, the respective Dioceses had their organizational systems and capacities strengthened through the organizational capacity self-assessments using the Holistic Organizational Capacity Strengthening Instrument (HOCAI). Following which they were led to develop capacity strengthening plan that will address the gaps uncovered during the assessments.
• Prior to the implementation of this project, almost all the JDPCs existed without formal registration with the relevant government agencies. However, the story has now changed today, as 95% of the JDPCs have completed their corporate registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). The JDPCs have also been able to put in place standard, functional administrative, human resources, financial and program quality structures and are able to retain qualified staff. The Dioceses reached, were also supported to develop organizational constitutions, operating manuals and organizational charts.
• The project has so far trained around 479 people (staff) and volunteers from 8 Provinces on various technical areas including: Assessment to Action Planning, Proposal Development and Resource Mobilization, Integrated training on Project Management, Finance, Admin/HR and Proposal development, as well as Project Management for Development Professionals (PMD Pro).
• Through the Business Development Unit within Caritas Nigeria, the project has been responding to requests from the Provinces and Dioceses. In this regard, the project ascertains from the JDPCs their thematic areas of focus and, from time to time, disseminate calls for proposals to JDPCs that are well-placed (for instance, on account of thematic area or location) to respond to the particular calls.
• Caritas Nigeria has helped some JDPCs to develop or improve their project proposals before the proposals are submitted to donors. Probably the earliest example of this, under the ICS project, is the technical assistance given to JDPC Auchi, JDPC Lafia and JDPC Abuja to develop its successful proposal to the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) as sub-recipients of the USAID funded SMILE program in 2014. Staff of these JDPCs were invited to Abuja where they sat down with the Caritas Nigeria staff to revise and improve on their proposals before submission. The proposal to the CRS led USAID-SMILE was for the continuation of the project that was developed in the “Write-Shop” and which won a small grant under ICS.
• In several cases, Caritas Nigeria has gone ahead to partner with those JDPCs to develop joint project proposals. Thus, in respect of the good governance programme funded by CAFOD, diocesan JDPCs of Lokoja, Awka, Jos and Calabar have benefited from this kind of business development partnership. Also, Yola and Maiduguri JDPCs have partnered with Caritas Nigeria on the humanitarian livelihood projects. Currently, Caritas Nigeria is partnering with Ogoja and Calabar JDPCs on a refugee project funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and with Benin Province on a human trafficking project.
• The ICS Project also instituted a small grants scheme, which the sum of one million Naira each has been disbursed to JDPCs Calabar and Bauchi to implement a small project within the communities of the Dioceses. JDPC Bauchi through this project has been able to reach close to 100 widows and women, by given them a micro-credit to carryout small businesses or solve pressing family issues.