Funding and expenditure of a sample of community-based organizations in Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe

Abstract

Over the last decade, international donors, technical specialists, and governments have come to recognize the potential of community-based organizations (CBOs) in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Recent empirical studies suggest that community engagement, including the involvement of CBOs, adds value to the national response to HIV/AIDS. With the emerging evidence of the effectiveness of engaging communities in the fight against AIDS, it is crucial to understand the economic dimension of community engagement. This article provides an analysis of funding and expenditure data collected from CBOs in three African countries: Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. It presents descriptive information regarding CBO funding and expenditure and examines the factors associated with the total amount of funds received and with the proportions of the funds allocated to programmatic activities and program management and administration. An average CBO in the sample received US$29,800 annually or about US$2480 per month. The highest percentage of CBO funding (37%) came from multilateral organizations. CBOs in the sample spent most of their funds (71%) on programmatic activities including provision of treatment, support, care, impact mitigation, and treatment services.

Keywords:

• HIV
• AIDS
• community-based organizations
• funding
• expenditure
• Africa

Acknowledgements

This article was prepared as part of the Evaluation of the Community Response to HIV and AIDS led by the World Bank.

Notes

1. As mentioned above, the distribution of the total funding in the sample was skewed. As robustness checks, we re-estimated the model using the square root and the natural log of the total amount of funding as dependent variables to make the distribution of the dependent variable in the model better approximate the normal distribution. The results of the model with the square root of total funding were virtually identical with the results of the model with untransformed funding levels with the same covariates significant at the same significance levels. In the model where the natural log of the total amount of funding was used as the dependent variable, the p value of the multilateral sources of funding indicator was slightly higher (0.053 compared to 0.019), but the remaining independent variables significant in the model with the untransformed total funding were significant at the same significance level in the natural logarithm model. Also, in that model, the difference in funding between CBOs in Kenya and Nigeria was statistically significant.