Red Kite International

Since 2002, Neil Shenton and Gail Hart have been working as a consortium partner in countries of the former Soviet Union on behalf of the UK Government (DfID) - Russia, Ukraine and the Kyrgyz Republic. In general terms, our work has been in developing an under-resourced and, to an extent, misunderstood voluntary sector in countries struggling to evolve effective welfare services and more open governance in the post-perestroika period.

Specifically, we have experience in:

		Management of small scale projects up to $1.2M.
		Production and delivery of training programmes for NGOs and officials.
		Development of Social Partnerships.
		Organisation and evaluation of grant schemes for NGOs.
		Creation of NGO Forums as representative bodies.
		Consultation tool kits for officials.

We are involved with two projects at this time (April 2005).

In the city of Ekaterinburg, Russia, we are part of an EU TACIS project in partnership with INclude Neighbourhood Regeneration Ltd (Liverpool) ,one of the UK's leading practitioner agencies. This project will seek to apply lessons learned from UK inner city experience in Russia's third city. It will pilot the work in a city neighbourhood, in partnership with the city business and local NGOs.

In the Kyrgyz Republic, we are in a consortium of 5 UK agencies, funded by DfID as a part of the World Bank's credit arrangements with the Kyrgyz Government. Our role is to develop open and transparent structures, whereby information from the Ministry of Finance can be accessed by civil society in order to generate regular dialogue and strengthen democratic processes.

We find that our broad UK experience transfers well to these societies in transition and we are always keen to talk to development agencies about future work prospects.

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