Post-pandemic: rewarding follow-up visits with cooperating partners

Due to the Covid pandemic, SMC have not had the opportunity for some years to travel with member organisations to visit cooperating partners and interventions. Therefore, trips during 2023 have been important but also rewarding to be able to see what is going on in the interventions. 

– Visiting cooperating partners allows us to discuss strategic questions. During our visit to the Children’s Missions partners in Uganda, we discussed sexual and reproductive health and rights as well as core support. One valuable insight in the discussion on Core Support with ADRA Uganda was that if the partner organisation is efficient and flexible, the results will come automatically, says Erik Bäckelid, advisor at SMC.

During 2023 SMC has made six follow-up visits meeting several cooperating partners in Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Nigeria, Honduras and Guatemala. Visiting cooperating partners to LM International, Children’s Mission, LPI, ADRA, the Leprosy Mission and PMU.

– I visited Nigeria together with the Leprosy Mission Sweden in November. Most importantly we gained an increased understanding of The Leprosy Mission Nigeria’s work about creating and maintaining cooperation with duty bearers. It was also valuable to hear the right holders themselves talk about the results of the project, that they now vote in political elections, which has not previously been possible, says Victoria Pfeiffer, desk officer at SMC visiting the Leprosy Missions cooperating partner in Nigeria.

It is, however, important that we continue to use the digital methods learnt during the pandemic to decrease travelling due to environmental concerns.