National Development Agency has set up Advisory Centres for communities through the provincial offices
The National Development Agency (NDA) has set up Advisory Centres for communities through the provincial offices and two other locations within the provinces. The Advisory Centres are walk-in places where trained personnel provide information, counselling support, guidance, and referral services to members of the public, including women and youth.
Trained personnel at Advisory Centres will also assist stakeholders with ideas on business plan development, access to finance, cooperative support as well as on how to use a computer (technology support).
These centres make computers available for stakeholders to access internet information. They will also serve as resource centres where users can have access to reference materials such books and journals. They are places where networking can also take place.
Providing advisory services enhances the relevance and profile of the NDA. The NDA aims to be seen not only as a grant making organisation but as a resource that caters for the needs of communities and responds to the needs of individuals and organisations that do not have access to resources.
Services to be offered by the Advisory Centres
The Advisory Centres are set up to allow development and advisory services to clients and the communities at large. This will range from small to complicated issues or services classified as follows:
1. Primary Services will include the following, amongst others:
- All NDA related materials such as reports, Strategic Plans, Annual Performance report, etc.
- Funding of CSOs
- NPO registration
- NPO validation
- Capacity building
- Research and development
2. Secondary Services will include the following, amongst others:
- Referrals
- Database creation
- Database of Service Providers
3. ECD Training and Development
- Educational materials
- Practitioner training and accreditation for Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres.
- Norms and standards for ECD centre registrations
4. Food security
- Models of food security that are developed by credible organisations. These kind of models are similar to those of Keep the Dream’s Food for Life, Food Bank, Eco-Circle Vegetable Production.
- Access to equipment and tools.
- Training in agricultural skills?
- Dry land farming.
- Irrigation farming.
- Crop farming.
- Hydroponics.
- Aquaculture.
- Organic farming.
- Permaculture.
- Poultry farming.
- Apiculture (Bee farming).
- Animal production (piggery, beef, sheep, dairy, goat and feedlot.
5. Enterprise Development (Income Generation)
- Business plan development
- Funding and partnerships
- Information on access to markets
6. Capacity building
- Model constitution for Cooperatives and non-profit organisations (NPOs)
- Manuals (Financial management, project management governance, conflict management)
- Technical training
- Incubation and mentorship.
- In- house training of NPOs in report writing
- In- house training of NPOs in proposal writing Guidelines for proposal development
- Guidelines for monitoring and evaluation for NPOs
7. Resource materials
- NPO legislative requirements (SARS requirements for NPO (Section 18) PFMA, King 111 NPO, NPO Acts, ECD Norms and Standards, Children’s Act. The NDA National Grant Manager is responsible for ensuring that the centres have access to these resources.
- Millennium Development Goals (MDG)
Each province has 3 Advisory Centres, allocate your nearest branch.
