Backstopping Mandate (BSM) to the Inter-Ministerial Water Council (IMWC) of Kosovo

Since 2009, Skat has been acting as backstopping consultant assisting the Swiss Coordination Office in Kosovo and SECO headquarters in the steering and monitoring of the “Support to the WTF” project, whilst providing technical support (advice and coaching) to the permanent advisors in relevant global and regional water sector issues as well as deploying the short-term experts on specific thematic issues. Skat has also conducted the project’s mid-term review and designed its 2^nd Phase now known as “Support to the IMWC”.

In the current backstopping mandate, the Skat expert team with large experience on international water sector reforms and policies, primarily supports the permanent local advisors to the IMWC, whilst deploying the intermittent advisors and the (inter)national short-term experts. The backstopper also provides support to the Swiss Coordination Office and SECO in project steering and monitoring. Finally, the backstopper ensures the quality of the operational plans and reports of the IMWC Secretariat and the intermittent advisors/short-term experts, and was tasked to conduct the project internal review end 2015. The backstopping mandate includes, but is not limited to, the following tasks:

• Provide thematic and methodological advise to the two permanent advisors upon demand and felt needs, whilst bringing in relevant regional and global best practices;
• Support the IMWC Secretariat in developing their Yearly Plans of Operations and in getting them approved by the client;
• Assist the client in monitoring and steering of the project by providing in a timely manner the information, analysis and learning required for effective project performance assessment and decision-talking;
• Monitor on a periodic basis (i.e. during field missions) project progress, performance and synergies with other sector endeavours of the Swiss Coordination Office in Kosovo;
• Comment on the inception report and the semi-annual progress reports of the IMWC secretariat, whilst assisting the finalisation of the documents up to approval by the client;
• Deploy the intermittent advisors to the IMWC based on terms of references and profiles proposed by the secretariat and approved by the client;
• Deploy the national and international short-term experts to the IMWC based on the justifications, terms of reference and profiles proposed by the secretariat/backstopper and approved by the client;
• Participate in / contribute to, upon demand of the client, conferences, workshops, IMWC meetings and other events organized within the framework of the project;
• Conduct, in consultation with the relevant project stakeholders, an internal review of the project in 2015 providing the basis for SECO’s decision taking on project extension beyond the initial two years.