Excerpt of Medair’s response to email from Emily Troutman dated June 6, 2015:
“Medair learned early on in the response that INGOs are required to work through local
partners. In order to conduct relief activities quickly, we partnered with Mission East, who were
already on ground (a benefit in so many ways) working through their local partners (like CDECF
and the National Network of Dalit Social Welfare Organisations etc.). Medair is able to provide
relief--more effectively and rapidly--through these local partners in conjunction with Mission
East, allowing both organisations to focus on their strengths: Medair in shelter, and Mission East
in WASH. The local partners bring necessary capacities in such things as understanding
community dynamics, assessing needs, co-leading distributions, and monitoring and evaluation.
So, what we end up with is a strong consortium of agencies benefiting from Medair’s expertise
in relief aid, Misson East’s expertise in inclusion, working with local partners and relations with
local civil societies, and the expertise of local partners engaging affected communities. Of
course, the generous contributions of our donors makes the whole endeavor possible.
“Regarding the funding structure, no, it’s not a case of re-granting. The activities involved in
delivering assistance (from assessment to evaluation) is lead by individual agencies we are
partnered with, but it is a combined effort under a single project and undertaken jointly, with
different staffs represented as is necessary. For example, Medair provides the technical
leadership on conducting distributions, given our experience conducting them across many
other responses. The partners on ground facilitate aspects of the distribution, such as
engagement of stakeholders at the community level. Mission East plays a role in local
procurement, since they have established relationships with vendors in Kathmandu and they
play a role in their relations with local civil societies. In this way, the success of our response todate, measured in many ways including the excellent reputation we have within the affected
communities, would not be possible without each agency focusing on the role they do best.
Funding applications have been made jointly, submitted to donors on behalf of both Medair and
Mission East, while making it clear to donors that certain funding will be allocated to local
partners for the activities they are involved in. In this way, funding is allocated on the basis of
the activities proposed: WASH funding goes to Mission East and Shelter funding goes to
Medair. Activities undertaken (on behalf of both sectors) by the local partners is included in the
budget and allocated to them as is explicit in the partnerships MoUs.”

MEDAIR
Wendy van Amerongen
Communications Officer
Kathmandu, Nepal
Tel +997 980 345 6985
Email comms-npl@medair.org
Skype wendyvanamerongen
medair.org   Emergency Relief and Recovery