"The staff stepped up their efforts to create conducive situation where the organization can contribute for alleviating huge developmental problems" The Executive Director of ORDA
By Fasil Wolde Michael
The Executive Director of ORDA, Dr. Ambachew Mekonnen, said “the staff has stepped up their efforts to create conducive situation where the organization can contribute for alleviating huge developmental problems.”
In his message read out at the opening remark of the biannual staff meeting of the organization held in Bahir Dar from 5th to 7th of August, 2013 at the Amhara Regional People Martyrs Memorial Monument, Dr. Ambachew stressed “It is a must for dealing with activities that the staff should play indispensable role in the organization’s effort to involve in economic development, particularly in micro and small agro-industry processes that can create large job opportunities for many youths of the region.”
It is also reported that a lot of improvements have been registered in the overall performances of ongoing projects that have been financed by 27 international donors and the GOs partners of the Amhara National Regional State.
As understood from the biannual trend report presented by Dejene Minliku, Deputy and Programs Director of ORDA, the organization has showed progressive increment in volume of work and budget allocation & utilization compared to the preceding years. Currently, in this biannual, ORDA has run 69 projects which have been intervened in 69 districts in the region. Even after the Board of Directors endorsed its plan, the amount of the annual budget has raised from 509 million to 634 ETB million, since it was possible to secure over 124 million ETB financial resources.
In the biannual of 2013, extensive efforts have been exerted to mobilize resources through developing 10 calls for proposals and five project documents, the Deputy and Programs Director of ORDA noticed.
Dejenie also disclosed in his trend report that encouraging improvements in financial management has been recorded, justifying the organization’s 2012 unqualified audit report endorsed by the General Assembly deliberated in March, 2013.
Dejene indicated Human Resource Development, the organization’s BSC has been functional in the biannual through developing the required manuals and introduced them by providing trainings, Deputy & Programs Director indicated.
In the event, constraints which should be addressed in the times to come and concerns related to enhancing efforts to mainstream cross cutting issues including youth development, gender and HIV and AIDS, ensuring better resource management and utilization, timely request and procurement of goods and services including construction materials, submission of timely and quality performance reports and others were raised by the heads, project coordinators and the staff,
In the concluding remark, the Executive Director, called for participants to strive in maintaining and further enhancing the existing momentum in order to move forward in the times to come. Dr. Ambachew also hoped that lessons learnt from the successes gained and challenges faced during the biannual performance will be enormous input to move forward in the times to come.
He further stressed that the head office will continue providing multidimensional and result-oriented supports to projects in a timely and an integrated fashion to raise their implementation performances.
It is known that all staff from Head Office, Project Managers and concerned Officers drawn from Addis Ababa Resource Mobilization & Communication Office, and the Zonal and districts Project Coordination Offices were taking part in the biannual staff meeting of the organization held