About SuDCA

SuDCA Development Consultants (SuDCA) is a development-consulting firm registered with the Ethiopian Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Industry under the Ethiopian Commercial Code of 1960. SuDCA is a young agency with vast years of experience in its areas of expertise and built on the expertise of individuals with long-years of experience in all key development sectors. SuDCA is a pioneering agency active in meeting the multi-faceted needs of the evolving institutional partnership between government, its traditional partners in international co-operation formed of the duo of donors and NGOs as well as the emerging enhanced interface with the private sector.
The practical experience our staff, careful screening of our freelance consultants coupled with our thorough in house product review helps us to ensure all our consultancy assignments are done up to the highest professional standards and to the satisfaction of the client.
At SuDCA, client satisfaction through concerted teamwork is a primary product. A focus on product quality and timely delivery is ensured by rigorous staff recruitment and systemic in-house product review.
Participatory engagement by all parties of direct and in-direct interest in development interventions (government, donor, NGOs and private sector) and facilitation of ease of access between key stakeholders is a core part of our corporate philosophy.
A commitment to social responsibility in the harmonious human utilization of the physical environment by agriculturists and industry lie at the heart of SuDCA's corporate values. Keeping the confidentiality of our clients’ organizational secret and respecting the values and cultures of the communities we serve is our overarching principle. Whereas contributing to the mitigation and eventual eradication of widespread hunger in Ethiopia is a key corporate Goal.

Training and Management support form the bridge over which knowledge transfers to client organizations are executed. We strongly encourage the participation of all key stakeholders in our consultancy activities so that the products reflect the needs of our clients and the community as well as appropriate skills are shared with our clients and other stakeholders.
SuDCA works in Eastern and Southern Africa in association with international consulting companies. SuDCA’s focus on the transfer of knowledge cuts across a number of classical fields of sector development, ranging from NRM, socio-economic assessments, project management, agriculture, spanning such critical areas as institutional strengthening.
For SuDCA long-term survival in the business has precedence over short-term financial gains. Therefore, it provides uncompromised quality service for its clients and respects clients’ deadlines without violating the ToR.

SuDCA’s Core Principles

SuDCA is committed to the adaptation and implementation of indigenous and introduced knowledge by which the farming culture and environmental protection efforts of rural and urban communities can be enhanced, implemented, monitored, evaluated and their strategies become further refined.
SuDCA Development Consultants is a company established to contribute towards promoting self-reliance and social progress of our target groups via competent consulting services, employing rights based, participatory and gender sensitive development approaches.
It is committed to the alleviation of poverty that is rampant among rural communities and the urban poor by assisting in the identification of the way-out through the provision of professional consulting services in project management, socioeconomic studies, and environmental protection.
Since our philosophy is delivering uncompromised quality services to our clients we intend to set the standard for high quality project/program management, socioeconomic studies, agricultural, and natural resources management consulting services without violating client deadlines and the terms of reference (ToR).

SuDCA’s Values

SuDCA’s philosophy stems from a group of core values, which we have applied to the problems of service delivering institutions and communities in various parts of Ethiopia. These values are: integrity, confidentiality, quality service, regard for organizational culture, leading change and persistent learning and sharing.
The consulting divisions of SuDCA, informed by SuDCA’s values, have helped many development projects/programs to reduce poverty and improve the living standards of their people.
Our focus is on the provision of cutting edge of management and governance thinking underpinned by follow-up support for our clients and their target groups at all levels.

SuDCA’s Areas of Core Competence

• Project Implementation
• Social Surveys
• Action Research
• Scoping, Mapping and Designing of Programs
• Policy Analysis and Strategic Planning

Our experts bring authoritative technical expertise in helping to devise and to bring to life practical development programs and market based reforms. They have a reputation for being pragmatic and committed in getting things done, even in the most difficult circumstances. Improving the performance of service delivering, institutions, economic actors, and community at large so that the quality of people’s lives changes, requires sustainable development, and we know that this is impossible without the participation of the communities’ we are trying to support and the flexibility on our part to adapt to different cultures, environments and circumstances. Our experts apply rights based approach to almost all our consultancy assignments considering the need for real participation from the target groups in their own development.
SuDCA believes that the success of any development endeavor in general and service delivery in particular depends crucially on the extent to which obstacles and practical problems are anticipated, and the extent to which programs are designed to ensure target groups participation at all stage of the project/program. We assist with such organizational policy design processes and with the practical implementation required. In so doing, SuDCA pays particular attention and respects the communities’ culture, values and religion and the realities of that which can be achieved within the time constraints that every project faces. Gender sensitivity, as part of our rights based approach is key to the success of almost any project and any development plan that ignore this fact have significantly less chance of success.

Legal Status

The staff of the company has secured a letter of competence from the Ministry of Agriculture and Ethiopian Management Institute for provision of consultancy services in the areas of Development Management and Rural Development. The company is registered with the ministry of Finance and Economic Development as a consultancy service provider for government organizations. It is also a VAT (value added tax) registered company; i.e. 69831 (the photocopy of the registration is attached with this document).

Organizational Structure

Staffing and Logistics Capacity
SuDCA is a well organized firm with adequate staff and office facilities:
• Highly qualified regular staff and access to highly qualified freelance consultants
• Support staff (Accountant, Cashier, Secretaries, Drivers and Messenger)
• Computers, laptops, and printers
• Fully furnished office
• Field and Office Vehicles

Geographic Focus

The greater part of SuDCA's portfolio is focused in Ethiopia. However, the agency has a Regional focus in the Horn of Africa in particular as these countries bear similar development constraints. Part of SuDCA’s objectives is to nurture the development and sharing of successful innovative approaches to economic, social, political and technological development appropriate for the citizens of these

Regions.

Ethiopia with a population of over 75 million and being a country with frequent manmade and natural calamities is attracting large amounts of international development funds. Key elements of the New Nile Initiative, new economic partnership for Africa’s development (NEPAD) have been conceived, conferred or embraced at forums in Addis Ababa. The city therefore holds the promise of reaching markets not only of the significant funds flowing to the country itself but also to many trans-boundary initiatives.
Ethiopia is one of the leaders of the new Nile and NEPAD initiatives. Addis Ababa is the seat for the Africa Union, Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA), Desert Locust Control Organization, many other regional and international organizations and host to close to a hundred foreign Missions and Legations. All of the aforementioned facts will make Ethiopia an ideal place for reaching Africa’s market.

The Consulting Team

SuDCA can deploy a pool of experts having rich background in the various disciplines it is involved in. SuDCA’s core team members are well versed in their area of specialization and were working in various governmental, non-governmental development and research organizations and with various bilateral and multilateral donors in Ethiopia as well as neighboring countries. This will give us a special opportunity to mobilize quality staff from within Ethiopia and its neighbors.
SuDCA executes its consultancies in close collaboration of all relevant units, including the recruitment of consulting staff. We go very far to ensure all our consultancy contracts are done up to clients expectations and within the agreed time frame. In order to meet this high quality expectation we select our staff with utmost care. We carefully analyze our consultants’ qualifications and experience as well as their personality for teamwork. Our consultants are assigned in areas where they have prior experience and where they have demonstrated competence in the past. The team composition is also closely analyzed to ascertain the team possesses the required technical competence and team spirit.

Programs

The team is organized in four broad programs:
• Natural Resources Management (NRM)
• Project/Program Cycle Management (PCM)
• Socioeconomic Survey and Analysis (SESA)
• Policy Analysis and Capacity Building (PACB)

Natural Resources Management (NRM)
Economic growth particularly that of agriculture is constrained by deteriorating regional natural resource base and environment. Ethiopia’s loss of fertile top soil due to runoff erosion is estimated to reach two billion metric tons per annum.
This huge soil loss is mainly attributed to abuse and misuse of arable and non-arable land over centuries as a result of overpopulation, fragmentation of farm lands, lack of land management knowledge and lack of clear land use policy. Likewise, Ethiopia’s forest resources shrunk to less than 2% from its 40% land coverage at the beginning of last century due to the deforestation for ever-expanding farmlands and for expanding grazing areas as well as fill demands for fuel, construction etc. This trend is common in most other countries of the region in varying degrees.
Generating 85% of employment, the overwhelming proportion of GDP and nearly the whole foreign exchange earnings agriculture is the mainstay of Ethiopia’s economy. The agricultural potential of Ethiopia is considered significant. The availability of ample cultivable land, huge water resources for irrigation, and the current backward and unproductive crop and livestock management practices are some of the elements evidencing the huge potential of the region in general to increase agricultural and food production.

The region in general and Ethiopia in particular is far from food secured; as a result, governments in the region are struggling to increase their food production capacity and feed their population. Ethiopia is striving to achieve better food supply and accelerated agricultural development through intensive application of organic and chemical fertilizers, improved seeds and pest control mechanisms. In order to take part in this very crucial and immediate need of the country/region SuDCA provides quality consultancy services in Agronomy, Crop Protection, Post Harvest Technology, Animal Health, and Animal Production.
If Ethiopia is to feed and improve the livelihoods of its population the need for conservation of its natural resources cannot be overemphasized. Cognizant of this need SuDCA organized a very strong Natural Resources Management Consulting Program. The program has a number of units including Soil and Water Conservation, Forestry, Soil Fertility, Resource Survey, and Environmental Impact Monitoring and Evaluation. This is the strongest wing of our firm with highly qualified staff making the team.

Project/ProgramCycle Management (PCM)

Increasingly development practitioners are getting aware/conscious on the importance of participating communities throughout the project cycle and the need to closely follow the project implementation process in the interest of learning from their strengths and weaknesses so that future projects are tailored to the needs and capacities of stakeholders.
Thus SuDCA under this program supports its clients in program design, planning, monitoring and evaluation. Our staff’s experience and competence in strategic planning and management helped a number of clients to get better prepared for the future as well as better situated to tap existing opportunities and reduce the impact of future threats.

Socioeconomic Study and Analysis (SESA)

Most previous development interventions failed not due to lack of technical expertise but more often due to poor understanding of the socioeconomic circumstances of communities. Systematically targeted projects that involve communities right from the inception to the end are much more likely to achieve their purpose most effectively.

All development interventions should pay serious attention to the socioeconomic circumstances of the communities they intend to serve before launching any development program. In order to assist with this objective SuDCA in its SESA program covers Baseline and Feasibility Studies, Marketing, Income Generation Schemes, and other Social Research.
Policy Analysis and Capacity Building (PACB)
Lack of implementation capacities at various levels hindered service delivery of governmental and nongovernmental organization on one hand and consumption and facilitation of services at community level on the other. If Ethiopia and neighbors in the Horn are to use their enormous potential for development, building the required human resources capacities for effective program implementation cannot be overemphasized.

SuDCA's capacity building interventions target enhancement of planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation capacities at client development organizations. Deriving and disseminating lessons learned from program experiences is an essential loop in conducting the TCB program. Subject matter focus of our trainings includes both the physical sciences, especially NRM, crop and livestock husbandry, and socio-economic specializations – project cycle management, strategic management.