The Norwegian Nurses Organisation (NNO) has just completed a successful finance and risk management seminar in Nairobi with its development partners.
NNO, with financial support from Norad, assists several national nurses organisations in Southern and Southeastern Africa. The main goal for each partner is the same: strong, bold and sustainable nurses’ organisations that can speak openly, addressing members’ interests and lobbying for quality health care.
A critical part of any organisation is written documentation of financial procedures and risk management. To support development of procedures, NNO invited three representatives each from our four collaborating partners in Africa: Zambia, Malawi, Uganda and Rwanda. NNO representatives were: Director of Administration Pål Rønnevik, Special Advisor Jan Torgersen and yours truly. In addition, financial controller Anne-Grethe Guldbakke from Plan Norway, participated.
Participants at the NNO seminar on finance and risk management, held in Nairobi, Kenya.
An organisational review by Norad provided NNO with suggestions for improvement of its development work. Among these were: written internal control procedures, increased financial control and risk management. NNO has initiated several internal activities to address these issues. The Nairobi seminar is part of this work, the main purpose being to develop common procedures for financial management and reporting, and risk management.
NNO has asked Plan Norway for technical support. Plan Norway is an international support organisation with extensive experience that NNO can utilize, especially routines for finance and risk management. NNO appreciates that Plan Norway’s financial controller Anne-Grethe was able to attend the seminar. Three days of presentations, group work and plenary sessions produced a first draft for risk management for NNO partners. Common procedures for financial reporting were also agreed on.
NNO was impressed by the quality of presentations, comments and recommendations provided by its development partners, and also how these same representatives supported and learnt from each other. This seminar was an important step forward. Now remains the work of anchoring results and suggestions in our partners’ governing bodies and organisational cultures. This can help guide our partners forward in a more predictable and reliable manner.
NNO congratulates our colleagues for work well-done!
Special Avisor Michael Vitols
1 September 2013
