Практика перекладу: Механізм фінансування окремих робіт

MODEL OF BEST PRACTICE:

«ACTIVITY BASED FUNDING»

"...Assistance to creation of the infrastructure to small business development..."

From the National Programme to Support Small Entrepreneurship Development in Ukraine

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

A fundamental issue facing any support mecha¬nism for support of enterprise is how to fund it. In most instances there are typically two main sources of funds that may be available: internally generated revenues (from selling products and services to clients); and external funds (through grants, loans, subsidies etc. of governmental bod¬ies or donor organizations).

An important principle underpinning much gov¬ernmental or donor support is that organizations should evolve and move towards sustainability over time. A consequence of this is that the ratio between the proportion of overall funding con¬tributed by internally- and externally generated funding will typically move towards an increas¬ing reliance on self-generated internal sources of funding on the part of an enterprise support organization. Financing mechanisms therefore need to be designed to explicitly address this requirement. Activity Based Funding is one such method that can be used. It is a financing concept and mechanism that was developed for the Ukrainian Network of Agencies for Development of Enterprise (ADEs).

The development of the Ukrainian Network of Agencies for Development of Enterprise (ADEs) faced the problem of how new agencies could best be set up and financed as it sought to achieve a rapid geographic expansion. Whilst the first of the ADEs were traditional, fully donor funded business support centers, encouragement of small consultancy practices to join the network led to all its members, including the early business centers, becoming subject to a system of payment for activities undertaken - Activity Based Funding.

Instead of fully financing an Agency, ABF was linked directly to mutually agreed types and vol¬umes of activities undertaken by each agency. Payment was made on the basis of the agreed level of activities being met (but not exceeded) given that all agreed activities (e.g. type of course, target group, planned output etc) were met.

The merits of this funding system are that activi¬ties and outputs are clearly linked. Further it is a system that allows for funding of external client delivery, as well as internal organizational devel¬opment. One of the great advantages is that it offered great flexibility in funding activities in ADEs.

As the network matured it has developed a shared portfolio of services, with each individual agency securing its own SME customer base. Over time the ABF concept has been modified, eventually moving to Fixed Price Contracting.

CHOICE OF SOLUTION

In principle there were 3 different types of financ¬ing mechanisms used for ADEs

1.Full funding — by the funding donor — of me

activities of an ADE (usually for two — three

months in the very initial stages of the ADE).

2.Activity Based Funding (ABF), whereby the

funding donor guaranteed that it would fund a

certain amount of the activities proposed by

the ADEs. This being conditional on all agreed

activities (type of course, target group, planned

output and so forth) of project planning, are