FCG Sweden - Our work | FCG Finnish Consulting Group Oy

Palaa HUBiin

Since 1973, FCG Sweden has built a global reputation as a leader in strengthening the capacity of organisations as a means of developing democracy and fostering inclusive, equitable and sustainable societies.

Our core competences lie in civil society development, good governance and public administration, water and natural resources management, market development, monitoring and evaluation, training programmes, and fund management.

We work in close collaboration with our clients (bilateral and multilateral donors, civil society organisations and foundations), partners and development specialists to:

Plan and design development projects and interventions that are effective and innovative
Implement and manage large-scale, multi-year and multi-site programmes and framework contracts
Manage and administer large-scale grant programmes for civil society, small and medium sized enterprises, and other organisations
Conduct strategic and thematic evaluations as well as organisational reviews.

View our latest project references here.

Strengthening Community Policing in Albania, 2nd Phase, 2017-2020

The second phase of the Community Policing program is a follow-up of the first successful phase implemented by SIPU International. The goal is to build mutual trust and partnership between police and communities in order to create safe neighborhoods.

The project provides assistance in three inter-related pillars:

Pillar I. Support to Target Regional Police Directorates (TRPD), Kukes and Elbasan

Analyse needs in the TRPDs in order to develop a targeted approach for support;
Provide focused training interventions and expert mentoring support to develop procedures and soft and operational skills, management and administration skills, and relevant cross-cutting themes;
Provide material support to the TPRDs by reinforcing MoI/ASP efforts to improve infrastructure;
Enhance the police accountability through establishment/enhancement of community groups who can engage with the police at TRPD or/and Commissariat level to feed into priorities and hold police accountable for their performance;
Provide funds for disseminating and replicating successful approaches to other RPDs;
Mentor and advise the local police to partner with local communities in a responsive and immediate fashion; to support the strengthening of the vertical linkage between ASP HQ and TRPDs; and to replicate community policing concepts and models elaborated in the TRPDs.

Pillar II. Strategic Management support

Monitoring& Evaluation. To develop capacity at central, regional and local level to collect, analyse and use data to inform management, strategic and local decisions, identify results, learn lessons and communicate achievements.
Communication. To improve TRPDs internal and external communication and enhance the information flow between the TRPDs and central HQ to enable a more decentralised approach.
Coordination. To support coordination with community actors at local level, while at the HQ support coordination of strategies and action plans.

Pillar III. Domestic Violence

Responding to the variety of needs regarding domestic violence and develop activities addressing preventative and responsive needs. This will be achieved by a combination of grants (see below) and specific support within the TRPDs aiming at workable approaches and processes which will be replicated to other parts of Albania.

The programme includes a Grant Scheme for CSOs of 4.95 million SEK (approx. 500 000 €). The grants are used to finance projects of CSOs promoting the cooperation of civil society and the police with respect to community policing and underpins the three program pillars. The scheme involves multi-stakeholder selection committees with fair and transparent selection processes and focus on minority groups and gender issues. FCG manages the call for proposal, the follow up of projects as well as the fund itself. '

Framework Agreement for Technical Assistance to the Kosovo Environmental Programme

The Kosovo Environmental Programme supports the capacity development of the Ministry, the Inter-Ministerial Water Council, Municipalities, and other stakeholders concerned with environmental monitoring and management. More specifically, the Program aims to develop capacity when it comes to the implementation of environmental legislation, in compliance with EU directives. The components of the Program have been developed based on the national priorities deriving from the Kosovar Government’s policy and strategy documents, including Kosovo Environmental Strategy and the National Environmental Action Plan.

The development objective of the Programme is to contribute to improving the environmental conditions in Kosovo. The specific objectives of the Programme are:

To develop the capacity of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, the Inter-Ministerial Water Council, municipalities, civil society and other stakeholders in environmental monitoring and management.
To develop the capacity for implementation of environmental legislation, in compliance with EU directives.
To enhance the knowledge of Kosovo’s water resources and develop capacity for their improved management and enhance resilience to environmental and climate change.
To enhance knowledge and protection of biodiversity and develop capacity for improved management of transboundary protected areas.

The Programme has had a duration of 48 months. The Embassy of Sweden in Pristina contracted FCG Sweden to provide technical support in order to strengthen the capacity of the Ministry and other stakeholders in environmental monitoring and management. Special focus lies with strengthening the Ministry’s capacity for implementation of environmental legislation, in compliance with EU directives.

FCG Sweden provided support aimed at enhancing the knowledge of Kosovo’s water resources and develop capacity for their improved management as well as enhance resilience to environmental and climate change. The assignment also includes protection of biodiversity and develop capacity for improved management of transboundary protected areas. The Programme consists of eight technical components for which the consultant provides its services:

Component 1: Strengthening KEPA’s capacity for environmental monitoring, assessment and reporting.

Component 2: Conservation of biodiversity through Red Book of animal species in Kosovo.

Component 3: Strengthening the management of transboundary natural areas.

Component 4: Establishment of groundwater monitoring network in Kosovo.

Component 5: Strengthening capacity for implementation of environmental legislation at central and local level.

Component 6: Groundwater investigation in Drini River Basin.

Component 7: River basin management plan for Drini River Basin.

Component 8: Support to Inter-Ministerial Water Council through short-term assignments.

Sida Framework Agreement for Evaluation Services

FCG Sweden, together with Tana Copenhagen (Tana) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), is the 1st ranked supplier to the Sida Framework Agreement for Evaluation Services 2019-2021. The purpose of the framework agreement is to facilitate the process of procuring a range of consultancy evaluation services for staff at Sida and Swedish Embassies. It is used for most programme and project evaluations commissioned by Sida.

Each evaluation is led by one of the 15 pre-qualified Core Team Members, who are all world-leading evaluation experts, with extensive experience in a wide range of evaluation approaches and methods. The Core Team leads teams hand-picked from the Consortium’s large pool of experts from all over the world. The evaluations conducted are of varying size and complexity, using a variety of qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods.

To ensure that the Consortium support the improvement of evaluation quality, there is a dedicated Quality Assurance Panel with six highly qualified Evaluation Quality Experts. The Panel is responsible for ensuring that agreed QA procedures are adhered to across all services provided, with all evaluations conducted in accordance with the OECD/DAC Quality Standards for Development Evaluation.

The Consortium has a strong focus on learning, with a dedicated Evaluation Community of Practice, which is a space for collaborating on and learning from evaluation assignments, drawing on members from the Core Team, Quality Assurance Panel and network of experts.

In addition, there is a Methods Lab for the Framework Agreement. This is aimed at ensuring that the Consortium draws on and contributes to improved practice in evaluation. For specific assignments, action learning is used to introduce and learn from new and innovative evaluation methods.

FCG Sweden provides management of the overall framework agreement, including coordination of partners, reporting, invoicing and communications. FCG Sweden also takes the lead on building evaluation teams, developing evaluation methods, and supporting and participating in the implementation of evaluation assignments. So far, 21 evaluation assignments have been contracted through the Framework Agreement.