Organisational Performance Review of Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sports

The terms of reference state that the purpose of this review is to examine NIF's ability to provide effective aid, meaning cost efficient use of funds, results in accordance with approved plans, relevance to final recipients and Norwegian aid principles, and ability to achieve its own goals. (...). In
sum we found:

1. The relevance of what NIF is doing is well in line with Norwegian policies for development cooperation with its strong focus on sport activities, strengthening of local organisations and promotion of life skills (in relation to HIV/AIDS, gender, disabled, democracy and peace, etc.) By combining the three elements NIF has a unique role to play in the area of development cooperation compared to other Norwegian NGOs. The relevance to final recipients (local organisations and national authorities) is also high. NIF's support is well in line with national plans and priorities and meets the need of local organisations.
2. NIF's policy and strategy for development cooperation needs a more coherent and clear articulation - focusing not only on objectives and outcomes, but also on what role NIF should play, the selection of partners and future plans. NIF should acknowledge its role as a confederation of sports associations, identify its own comparative advantages and promote the involvement of member organizations.
3. NIF is strongly involved with and plays an important role in strengthening the
   capacity of partner organizations, but has no systematic approach to and plan for such work. NIF has limited capacity for providing stabile and long-term organisational support, but partners recognize and appreciate NIF's flexible financial, technical and not least moral support over many years. The most targeted and tangible capacity building support (training courses, materials, etc.) is provided through the Kicking AIDS network and programme.
4. NIF is a cost efficient organisation. The total number of staff involved in development cooperation is low compared to budget and administrative costs are prudent. Both NIF and NFF are using a large number of volunteers. It should also be noted that NIF provides a form of aid that is labor intensive in administration, dialogue and follow up with partners and that the total allocation is small.
5. NIF has few and weak systems for project management (planning, reporting, M&E etc.). There are sufficient systems in place for financial management. Planning and reporting systems are weak and the quality of documents (plans and reports to Norad) are of varied quality. There is no system in place for effective monitoring of progress and assessment of results and achievements.
6. Results in accordance with approved plans. Partner activities are to a large extent implemented according to plans and accounted for, but results not well specified in project agreements (with targets and indicators). The reports from the partners do not focus on results (and results are not measured and documented), and there is not much aggregation from activities and outputs to outcomes and impact. NIF, as well as partners themselves know about results, but there is little systematic evidence to support their assessments. The information filtering up to Norad through the current reporting system is correct, but of limited value - often because of constraints in the system and lack of clear guidelines of what type of information is required. An overall
   assessment of performance and achievements from NIF is also missing.
7. Future sustainability is mixed. NIF's financial support is small and limited and most partners have also other donors. Most of the support is also provided to training and organisational development. Most of the partners are independent national organisations with a strong leadership, but highly dependent on external funding. A major challenge is that the several of the "edu-sport" partners are not well integrated in national sport structures and exposed to changing donor priorities. The KAO network has been a major achievement for NIF, but its future financial sustainability is bleak.