To help partners from Global Programme India learn in-depth administrative and financial knowledge, an orientation workshop was organised by Caritas India in collaboration with Caritas Germany. The virtual orientation was attended by the Directors and program staff of Assam, Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal partners.

Three days of virtual training was conducted between 18-20 May 2021 on Microsoft Team with various interactive learning methodologies. The Global Programme India is a joint initiative by Caritas India and Caritas Germany with funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation & Development (BMZ) Government of Germany, to address food security, disasters and social inclusion issues.

Supported by the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany (BMZ), the programme will adopt a multi-level approach to address concerns at all the administrative levels (local to national) in the country. The activities are implemented simultaneously at the micro (household/villages), meso (blocks/districts) and macro (state/national) levels by different participating agencies.

Fr. Joly Puthenpura, Assistant Executive Director, Caritas India shed light on the strategic importance of the programme alignment with Disaster Risk Reduction, Food Security and Social Inclusion and the development interventions contributing to SDG 2 (Ending Hunger, Achieving Food Security and Better Nutrition and Promoting Sustainable Agriculture), SDG 10 (Reducing Inequality within and between States) and SDG 13 (Sustainable Measures to Combat Climate Change and Its Impacts). Ms. Martina, Networking Facilitator, Caritas Germany shared how each participant plays a significant role in the success of the program.

The key aspects of finance and accounting procedure were covered Ms. Jancy Mathew, Lead Finance, Caritas India and Mr. K.R Sebastine, Finance Advisor, Caritas Germany which broadly included:-

❖ Programme Agreement: Partners will receive the detailed program agreement paper, once they have opened an FCRA bank account at a designated bank branch in New Delhi, wherein program activities and the financial allocation against each activity is provided. This agreement paper largely covers each and every aspect of the program execution and delivery.

❖ Accounting:-

How the accounting procedure will be carried out: funding, expense booking, timing, currency exchange, utilization account, VAT/GST, Audit requirements, remittance certificate, deviation/variance, cash and bank and so on.

❖ Cash flows:- The cash flow cycle is 25-day and therefore partners were requested to adhere to this cycle for any cash credit. The cash flow templates are already available and will be shared with partners.

❖ Reporting:- Partners were requested to adhere to the reporting timeline and procedure as outlined in the agreement. Partners will be reporting both narrative and financial updates in the standard BMZ template.

❖ Head of Expenses: This aspect covered how the expenses incur, the process to follow, purchase and booking of expenses against- Hardware (Laptop & IT support) components, Human Resource expenses, Software (Orientation, trainings, Capacity Buildings of the partner and the staff) expenses and Office & miscellaneous.

❖ Validation of Expenses: – Emphasis on the Audit being an integral part of any financial system and therefore, the process and the requirements from all the partners were outlined.

❖ HR deployment: The standard procedure to be followed while HR deployment is taking palace-contracts, JD, gross salary including allowances and social security if applicable, time-sheet, etc. The idea was to adhere to the legal/regulatory compliances strictly.

❖ Procurement and Inventory: It was stressed that each partner should have their own procurement policy. While undertaking any purchase, they must follow their respective procurement policy and Caritas India will provide any help required.

❖ The role of Caritas India, regional forum, DCV representatives was shared. Partners were advised to route the communication through Caritas India in given conditions.

In order to make the workshop more interactive and participatory, brainstorming sessions and group work were undertaken each day. Each query and concerns raised by the participants were subsequently resolved by the end of the workshop.

Fr. Paul Moonjely, Executive Director, Caritas India also addressed the workshop by sharing his thoughts as to how the community we work in is dynamic in nature, therefore, innovative ways of working with the community as a team should be explored. He conveyed his best wishes and appreciated the Caritas Germany and Caritas India team for all their efforts in organizing this workshop.

Mr. Ghanshyam Jethwa, HOD, Program Support Services, by thanking each participant, facilitators and moderators (Dr. Jaison Varghese, Senior Programme Manager, Mr. Aditya Mohan- Thematic Manager-NFS and Mr. Hansen – Manager Networking & Dialogue) for the active participation and extended his best wishes for the implementation of the program.