News & Notes

General Information about the Upcoming Impact Ethiopia Conference to be Held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in Early 2008.

Impact Ethiopia
Addis Ababa

Purpose
To increase the efficiency and effectiveness of aid and development work in Ethiopia by building a network of indigenous and international organizations to strategically focus on the development needs of the country and leverage the delivery of available resources.

Conference
The conference will be held in Addis Ababa in early 2008.  The conference will bring together Christian and non-Christian, Government and non-governmental aid and development organizations from Ethiopia and first world nations for 4 days to network and discuss resources, projects, and needs around the country.  During the last two days of the conference, Christian leaders who are not specifically engaged in aid and development work will join the meeting to discuss the specific needs in their region and to become acquainted with the resources that are available to their communities.

Speakers
Conference speakers will include representatives from several different development sectors that are currently engaged in Ethiopia.  There will be speakers from the Ethiopian government and from the First World governments to address the country’s overall needs, funding and other resources that are available to the NGO sector.  Christian coalition leaders will be on hand to address the magnitude of the Christian networks in Ethiopia and their unique position to assist in identifying needs and to serve as a neutral delivery system for aid and development work. 

Who should attend?
To harness the capacity of the existing Christian network to meet the humanitarian and development needs of Ethiopia, it is important that a broad cross section of groups participate in this event.  These include:

1. Ethiopian government officials charged with economic development, infrastructure, agriculture, and health. 
2. First world Government organizations who provide grant funding to Non Governmental Organizations to deliver aid and provide development resources in Ethiopia. 
3. Christian NGO’s engaged in providing resources, funding, and project support in Ethiopia. 
4. Christian church networks and sending agencies that have a network and presence in Ethiopia. 
5. Secular or unaffiliated NGO’s engaged in providing resources, funding, and project support in Ethiopia.
6. Any other organization that provides products, funding, knowledge, or other support to the ongoing aid and development work in Ethiopia.

Conference Program
The conference program is structured to allow plenty of time for networking and discussion.  We have broken down development work into 12 sectors where there are currently organizations engaged in some coalition building.  The goal of the program is to engage more organizations in discussion with others in their sector to encourage the broadening of coalitions, and furthermore, to engage regional discussion among different sectors.  The sector programs are as follows:

1. Agriculture and Forestry: The speakers will discuss reforestation and farming practices in the context of desertification, erosion, drought, exports, improving production and distribution capacity.
2. Water: The speakers will discuss pumping technologies, well drilling, maintenance, repair of existing systems, surface water use and purification, ground and surface water contamination.
3. Power and Sanitation: Speakers will discuss appropriate and sustainable technologies with a focus on long term viability of power and sanitation systems. Renewable energy and micro power productions systems will be addressed with simple gray and black water treatment and usage techniques to create a complete “utility” program.
4. Healthcare and Aids: Speakers will discuss healthcare in terms of health maintenance and education, disease eradication and prevention, availability of healthcare facilities and trained medical staff and mobile clinic programs.
5. Orphan and Elder care:  Speakers will discuss adoption, orphanage programs, elder care programs, and the availability of facilities and resources.
6. Education: Speakers will address educational needs including pre-school, availability of public and private education programs, high school, trade school, university programs, and libraries. There will be specific focus on the need for curriculum materials and teachers in educational programs.
7. Housing: Speakers will discuss technology for housing including building techniques, materials, power, funding, housing programs and other topics for single family and multi family housing.
8. Micro-enterprise and Economic development: Speakers will address micro financing, entrepreneurial education, enterprise as a part of development, exports, and economic development by sectors.
9. Funding and Resources:  Speakers in this broad category will discuss government and private funding, needs assessment, project management and verification, grant writing, shipping resources, procurement resources, and other relevant topics.
10. Local Development: Speakers will address overall development practices including needs identification, resource identification, local labor, local management, and engaging the local community in sustainable efforts to improve the local quality of life.
11.  Emergency and Food Aid: Speakers will address preparedness, needs assessment, access to resources, distribution processes, and appropriate points to engage and disengage in emergency and food aid.  There will be a heavy focus on the impact of aid on the economy and appropriate versus inappropriate aid product and practices.
12. Church planting and Evangelism:  Speakers will discuss the challenges of Church planting, how to address the humanitarian needs of their congregations and communities, their potential to assist in the development process beyond evangelism,  and the relationship between meeting the humanitarian needs and spiritual needs of their congregations and communities. (Note: this part of the conference is directed toward pastors and church networks and will be a 2 day track toward the end of the NGO conference.  The interface with the main conference will center around their unique position to assist in identifying the local needs in their communities and understanding the broader resources available to their communities.)

Exhibits
Throughout the conference, exhibit space will be available in common areas.  Exhibitors will include NGO’s working throughout the country, products and technology available to NGO’s, Governmental agency resources, shipping and procurement resources, and others related to the work being done in Ethiopia.  Exhibit space is available for a small additional fee, information table space for Ethiopian NGO’s and ministries is free of charge for conference attendees.  The purpose of the exhibit space is for everyone to be able to see what everyone else is doing, and to look at products and processes that may be useful in development efforts. 

Conference Cost
The cost of the conference is $300 per attendee.  This cost will cover the conference only.  Travel and lodging will be the responsibility of those attending.  Meals provided during the conference are listed in the conference schedule. Attendees will be responsible for other meals during their stay.  An additional fee of $200 for full exhibit space will be charged, or $100 for a table exhibit space. 

Sponsorship
The conference will be sponsored by groups engaged in Ethiopia.  Sponsorships are used to help defray the cost of the conference, to keep the cost for indigenous participants as low as possible.  There are three levels of sponsorship as follows:
Lead Sponsor: Billed with Global Assist Network as a conference host there are only 2 of these available.  The money raised from these sponsorships will be used to fund the initial expense related to hosting the event including venue deposits, travel, US and Ethiopian employee salary, etc. Cost: $10,000 (2 Available)
Gold Sponsor:  Provide for a dinner sponsorship, and general conference sponsorship. Cost: $6,000 (4 available)
Silver Sponsor:  Silver level sponsors provide for breakfast or lunch meal sponsor. Cost: $3000 (8 available)
Bronze Sponsor: Provide for break tables between sessions. Cost: $1,500 (16 available)

Donations
First world NGO’s and Funding agencies are asked to provide their indigenous organizations with funds needed for travel, lodging, and conference fees.  Additionally, there are groups who are not associated with outside funding organizations who may need financial assistance to attend.  If your organizations would be willing to provide funding for unaffiliated NGO’s, please contact us and we will put you on a resource list to match with inquiries.

Lodging
Accommodations have been set aside at the hotels listed in the brochure.  In addition, we have arranged to accommodate travelers in Christian homes in Addis Ababa.  These host families have agreed to provide a place to sleep and meals not provided during the events.  We are compensating these host families for their hospitality as we would a hotel.  This is a great way to keep costs in line and help to directly support a local family.

Benefits to attendees
It is the vision of Global Assist Network that this conference will be the beginning of a concerted effort on the part of the Christian community to work with other Christian, Government and Non-Governmental Organizations to develop coalitions to strategically manage the development process within Ethiopia.  The Christian community has a very large capacity to identify need, channel and distribute development resources, and serve their local communities.  It is our hope that conference attendees will begin to organize and harness this capacity to take care of the humanitarian and development needs throughout Ethiopia.  If this capacity can be organized it will provide a critical infrastructure that organizations can use to place First world resources behind indigenous and grass roots development efforts to more effectively meet the needs of the people of Ethiopia.
Attendees will meet other like minded organizations, find ways to leverage their resources with the resources of others, and gain better access to government and non governmental resources and agencies. Governmental attendees and non-Christian organizations will benefit from an understanding of the capacity of the Christian network, and by helping to align development goals.

For information on registering for this conference, contact us now.