There is demand across governments and civil society in North Africa for specialist technical assistance, across many thematic areas – and the UK has rich expertise that can be drawn on for this.
The North Africa Technical Assistance Facility (NATAF) provided specialised, timely, demand-driven support, responding to the needs of governments and other national and regional institutions for technical assistance.
We have designed the facility and delivered and monitored it in a conflict sensitive way. We responded flexibly and adapted to changing contexts and opportunities. Delivering this assistance through a flexible facility like this allowed the UK to adapt and respond to North African countries’ and societies changing needs, while maintaining a clear strategic framework and deriving cross-cutting lessons.
We worked with the UK Embassies in the five countries across North Africa, with their national governments and with beneficiaries across the region to provide technical assistance that supports reform. Since 2017, we have designed 96 projects in collaboration with in-country counterparts. We worked across a range of technical areas, including open societies, conflict resolution and economic development. Climate change adaptation and mitigation cut across many of our projects.
Technical assistance delivered
- Assisting with the scoping, design and review of projects.
- Facilitating support to partners in the design and implementation of reforms.
- Carrying out assessments, political economy analyses and evidence reviews.
- Knowledge exchange through international visits, twinning arrangements and/or attachments into UK partner organisations.
- Operational management, including contracting and deployment of experts, the management of small grants and coordinating and hosting workshops.
- Providing monitoring and evaluation expertise and support, including capacity building, quality assuring results frameworks or Theories of Change and designing, managing and/or delivering independent evaluations.
Supporting climate change adaptation and mitigation
NATAF has facilitated significant advancements in the climate and environment sphere across the region.
The Assessment of Stimulus Packages in North Africa project assessed the economic stimulus packages that have emerged across North Africa following the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as support packages announced by IFIs and MDBs. This aided understanding of the UK government’s potential to support green economic recovery in the region and feed into FCDO’s climate change strategy for the MENA region, as well as COP26.
NATAF has also supported the British Embassy Algeria to better understand the climate context, through analyses of Algeria’s NDC and the Impacts, Risks and Vulnerabilities of Climate Change in Algeria: Water Scarcity, Deforestation and Desertification scoping study. This study and its follow-up work also supported the UK to meet its own objectives in respect of its presidency of COP26.
NATAF has also executed a training on climate change mainstreaming for the Moroccan National Agriculture Research Institute. This project identified a package of technical assistance to support climate mainstreaming within Morocco’s National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA). The objective was to strengthen the quality of INRA’s research around supporting the resilience of the agriculture sector in Morocco against the effects of climate change by drawing on the experience and knowledge of the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), a specialist research, development and education organisation of the University of Greenwich.
At a glance
Location
Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia
Implementation period
2017–2022
Client
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, UK