To view the DBSP's activity in various African Countries click on the flag of that country

Background

The DBSP was originally written for and developed around the South African context. Up until mid 2005 there were no plans to run DBSP intervention anywhere else but in South Africa. Then in late 2005, Chris Black was invited to go to Kenya, Zimbabwe and Malawi on a fact-finding mission to see if the DBSP programmes could be run outside South Africa. The invitations resulted from his meeting various representatives from these countries at a conference of the Association Of Vineyard Christian Fellowship Churches in Africa which was held in September of 2005.

In 2006, Chris visited first Zimbabwe, then Kenya and lastly Malawi and met with interested parties in all three countries. It was soon evident that the DBSP training was a desperate need in all three countries and Chris with eager to explore whether the DBSP's training interventions would work as well in these countries as it had done so in South Africa.

It seemed from the initial visits that Kenya was the country where the DBSP would be run first. During his visit in 2006, Chris met, amongst others, Wendy Ludovici and Peter Twycross. These two have been involved in Church Planting over the past few years in Kenya, and were looking at different, new and innovative ways of empowering impoverished communities and people in Kenya. After our initial round of meetings it was decided that Chris would come to Kenya in March of 2007 and run a pilot DBSP programme in Nairobi.

After Wendy & Peter had raised some funds and Chris had properly contextualised the programme and its materials, Chris ran a Micro Business Start-Up Programme (MBS Programme) for 20 participants in Nairobi, during March. The training went off well, and Chris, Wendy and Peter sat down to discuss ways of carrying on with DBSP training in Kenya.

One of the things that became clear during the discussions, was that Chris did not want DBSP South Africa to run operations in Kenya - or, for that matter, in any other country outside of South Africa. Over the next few weeks, Chris, Wendy and Peter set about talking through and developing a semi-franchise model for DBSP, so that the DBSP could be replicated in and 'exported' to other Countries in the future. After a lot of discussion and both formal and informal chats, some parameters for a working agreement were developed. These soon took shape and formed the basis for starting up DBSP in other Countries.

Necessary Elements To Set Up DBSP In Another Country.

In order to set up this semi-franchise operation, a new entity has been formed. This entity is known as DBSP Africa, and will be run out of South Africa.

Every country in which the DBSP will be run in the future, will be semi-autonomously run. In other words, DBSP in the various countries will have its own governance and structure, but must adhere to the standards, values, mission and code of conduct as laid down by DBSP Africa. To embellish this statement a bit further, the DBSP has various training interventions and a standard of service that it delivers these in, and these standards must be upheld in accordance with DBSP Africa's set out policies.

In order for the DBSP to be run in a country, the following needs to be in place:

• A strong driver would need to be found to steer the setting up of DBSP in the new Country. In the case of Kenya, this person is Wendy, assisted by Peter.
• DBSP would need to be registered in the new Country as a legal entity.
• DBSP would need to be run and facilitated by people of that Country - For Kenya, for now, these two people are Wendy and Peter.
• A strong management team would need to be set up to run DBSP properly.
• The training materials and methodology need to fit the context of that Country properly and ongoing evaluations are carried out to ensure the effectiveness of the training.
• DBSP Trainer/Facilitators and Follow Up Agents from that Country need to be identified and trained up.
• Sources of ongoing funding to run the new organisation and DBSP Programmes need to be found and tapped into.
• Relationships with interested parties and stake holders within all the regions in the new Country where the programmes are to be run need to be identified and worked on.
• The 'paper work' and agreements need to be in place between DBSP Africa and DBSP in the new Country.
• Systems need to be put in place so that the administrative side of DBSP can be run well in the new Country.
• A system of monitoring needs to be in place to ensure that all DBSP training interventions are run to the same standard as they are run in South Africa - these include an annual assessment of all DBSP staff, conducted by DBSP Africa.
• A business plan needs to be developed for the ongoing growth and healthy running of DBSP in the new Country