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BOTA Foundation 2012 Annual Report

Dear Friends,

The BOTA Foundation has gone from an idea on paper, from when it started in February 2009, to the largest child and youth welfare foundation in Kazakhstan and indeed, in all of Central Asia. Since emerging four years ago, BOTA has developed and modeled a wide vari-ety of innovative approaches to reduce pover-ty and increase access to services for its target population.

• The Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) pro-gram uses a case management and com-munity mobilization approach that has been recognized by the Government of Ka-zakhstan as a model that could be used to improve its own social assistance program-ming. CCT has almost 2,000 volunteers in the six oblasts it operates to identify poten-tial beneficiaries, deliver training and pro-vide other assistance to the more 80,000 beneficiaries who cumulatively have been helped by the program.

• The Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) in-troduced a new variation into its scholarship options in 2012 – payment for third or fourth year students to finish their studies, if they have high academic achievements and are at risk of dropping out for lack of funds. This innovation starts to address a major problem of student drop outs recognized by the Ministry of Education and Science.

• The Social Service Program (SSP) has an innovative grant structure with a range of fund-ing options – from giving opportunities for new organizations to do needs assessments and mobilize communities to solve problems, to grants for experienced organizations to conduct research and improve the system of social service delivery.

BOTA’s innovations have assisted more than 100,000 unique beneficiaries since the Foun-dation started its work. The Foundation’s activities and finances have been evaluated posi-tively by its independent evaluation firm, Oxford Policy Management, the World Bank and an external auditing firm, BDO Kazakhstan. Of course, BOTA’s Board of Trustees are very involved in the Foundation’s oversight and guiding its work. On behalf of the Board, I would like to extend my congratulations to BOTA and its staff for its achievements in 2012. These are highlighted in this annual report, and detailed more thoroughly on the www.bota.kz website.

Sincerely,

Yevgeniy Zhovtis, Chair of the Board of Trustees

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* SSP beneficiaries are end beneficiaries of SSP grantees and generally do not receive the same level of support as TAP and CCT beneficiaries.

Key Statistics from 2012

BOTA’s mission is to “improve the lives of vulnerable children and youth suffering from poverty in Kazakhstan through investments in their health, education and social welfare”. Its strategic objective related to this mission is: “management of available assets to im-prove the poverty and welfare status of over 100,000 poor children and youth nationwide through the core programs of CCT, SSP, and TAP by mid-2014. ” By September 2012, BOTA’s programs had already reached this numerical goal.

Cumulative

Total Funds Disbursed as Grants in Three Program Areas $31,411,694

Total Disbursed for All Costs $54,352,200

Ever enrolled CCT Beneficiaries 85,060

SSP Grants Signed 480

End Beneficiaries of SSP Grants* 33,520

TAP Educational Grants Awarded 841

Total Beneficiaries of All BOTA Programs 119,421

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BOTA’s Sectors of Work

Maternal and Child Health

BOTA’s CCT program is making a difference in the MCH area. In 2012, a total of 16,490 pregnant and lactating women received cash supplements of $4.4 million. To receive these payments, these women visited health clinics for pre- and postnatal checks, and participated in trainings covering proper nutrition, reproductive health and parenting skills. SSP’s grants in the MCH area grow from round to round, with 10 grants given out this year. In 2012 $18,000 were transferred to grantees. These grants supported over 400 beneficiaries.

Early Childhood Development

In 2012, BOTA’s CCT program provided households more than $6.4 million to send 23,017 chil-dren, aged 4 – 6, to early childhood development programs. These included kindergartens, aged-zero classes and mini-centers. Parents and guardians who are CCT beneficiaries received 110,000 hours of training in ECD topics during the year.

BOTA’s SSP has made a total of 52 grants in the ECD area. These grants, valued at $320,000, included 21 in 2012 that benefited 649 children. Grantees have piloted new approaches to in-creasing the availability of pre-school programs, especially in rural areas, through mobile centers, family-teacher training programs and other means.

Child and Youth Protection

BOTA’s activities in the area of child and youth protection have two main directions. The first is assisting children and youth living in poor households (or are orphans) at social risk because of their low income status. BOTA promotes their positive development and funds efforts to reduce risky behavior.

SSP’s largest grant funding category is Child and Youth Protection (CP). More than 50% of all grants made in 2012, which were more than one hundred, were in the CP area. These grants were valued at over $1.7 million. 57 grants were made for Youth in Difficult Life Situations, serving 5,152 end beneficiaries.

BOTA’s second main direction in the Child and Youth Protection area is assisting youth and chil-dren with disabilities. In 2012, BOTA’s CCT program provided 2,717 households more than $1.2 million to create and maintain healthy home environments for their 2,928 children with disabili-ties. These families received training in best practices in home based care and poverty alleviation support. SSP gave 50 grants which served 1,520 end beneficiaries in the Children and Youth with Disabilities category.

Positive Youth Development and Livelihoods

In 2012, 189 educational grants were made supporting 135 students to attend university and 54 to attend college. A total of 841 educational grants were given since the inception of the pro-gram, which include funding of tuition, monthly stipends, accommodation, employment-orient-ed workshops. Students also receive monitoring and support from TAP staff. In 2012, BOTA spent almost $1.3 million for tuition payments and about $1.2 million for student stipends and other costs, for a total of over $2.5 million.

In 2012, SSP funded 58 innovative youth livelihood projects, valued at $834,000, serving 4,860

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Islam Toktybayev lives with his parents and two siblings in Baiseit village of Almaty oblast. He prepared for starting school by attending a mini-center established by the ef-forts of BOTA and local CCT volunteers. Islam liked learning at the mini-center. Now he is an A-grade school student, while his younger brother, Imran, became a CCT beneficiary and attends the same mini-center. Islam loves sports, especially boxing and karate, and is fond of dancing and drawing. The boy also helps his father take care of the family’s vegetable garden.

beneficiaries. These grants funded projects designed to give young people training, counseling and support to engage in income-producing activities, including business creation and finding employ-ment.

7,062 youth, aged 16 to 19, from poor Kazakhstani families received cash transfers from CCT in 2012 totaling approximately $1.6 million. In order to receive the cash transfer, beneficiaries had to attend a vocation training course and gain experience that would be beneficial to find employment.

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Focus on BOTA Programs

Conditional Cash TransferOverviewConditional Cash Transfer is the largest part of BOTA’s social safety net program and it rapidly expanded in 2012, both in terms of beneficiaries and regions it operates. The number of ever-enrolled beneficiaries grew by 50% to more than 80,000 and CCT now provides a monthly mini-mum cash transfer to poor household families in six oblasts: Akmola, Kyzylorda, Almaty, Zhambyl, Mangystau, and Atyrau. To help enroll, monitor and train beneficiaries, CCT recruited and trained close to 2,000 volunteers, double the numbers that were active in 2011. Almost all beneficiaries,

Korkembai Saparymbekov, aged 15, from Akzharma village in Kyzylorda oblast, is a beneficiary under CCT’s Home Based Care category. A BOTA vol-unteer works with the family and shares the basics of home-based care for children with special needs with the teenager’s mother. Korkembai is also taught drawing and singing by our volunteer.

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Akmola oblast is one of six regions where CCT oper-ates. A young resident of Krasniy Yar village, Raushan Sadvakassova became a beneficiary in the Pregnant and Lactating Women cat-egory in April of 2011. Her beautiful daughter, Tomiris is one and a half years old. The young mother spends her transfer funds on cloth-ing and other important needs. Raushan is also a beneficiary in the Livelihood category. Now she is a full-time student at Kokshetau higher technical school, Raushan told BOTA “I want to graduate from college with honors and to maintain my family properly”.

From 2009 – 2012, CCT provided cash transfers, training and volunteer support to improve the lives of more than 85,000 beneficiaries. In Ushtobe of Almaty oblast, Yevgeniy Ber-estenev, a CCT Youth Livelihoods beneficiary worked after school at a service station repairing as a lathe operator. Using savings from BOTA’s cash transfers, Yevgeniy pur-chased tools, received vocational training to become a welder, and works at a construction organization providing for his pensioner grand-mother and himself.

which are grouped into the following four categories, met the conditions required to get cash pay-ments from CCT:

1. Pregnant and Lactating Women: received around $40 a month for a maximum of 14 months to attend health check-ups and attend CCT trainings oriented towards preventing anemia.

2. Early Childhood Development: to promote early childhood development, parents/guardians of children aged 4 – 6 received around $28 a month for a maximum of two years to send their chil-dren to pre-school programs and attend CCT trainings.

3. Home Based Care: to promote effective home-based care for disabled children, aged 0 – 16, their parents or guardians received around $28 a month for a maximum of two years to care for their children at home and attend CCT trainings.

4. Youth Livelihoods: Youth, aged 16 – 19, received around $40 a month for a maximum of seven months to attend state provided livelihood trainings and gain experience that could help them earn income.

The most significant accomplishments of the CCT:

Enrollment Increase: By the end of 2012 BOTA CCT teams enrolled 49,497 beneficiaries. The total number of ever-enrolled beneficiaries to the end of the year was 85,060. 1,888 volunteers were trained and recruited to assist in enrollment process.

New Oblasts and Partners: CCT started enrolling in three new oblasts in 2012 and recruited three new NCO partners: “Zhastar Zhetistikteri” for Mangystau, which started in May and enrolled 2,729 beneficiaries by December; “Globus” in Atyrau started in June and enrolled 2,359 beneficiaries, and “Miracle” in Zhambyl started in February and enrolled 4,027 beneficiaries by the end of the year. These three new partners joined the existing four other CCT teams.

OPM Assessment on CCT: the evaluation team confirmed that enrolment in ECD centers was mark-edly higher where CCT operates. Positive outcomes were noted in the area of income security, use of government pre-natal services; ECD enrolment and parental ECD knowledge, and promotion of social integration of home base care beneficiaries.

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One of the projects on early childhood development supported by BOTA is implemented in SOS Children Village in Almaty. Among project participants there are children from low-income families and children who have been abandoned by their parents. Children regularly study with teachers, and are assisted by a psychologist and speech therapist. Step by step, the lives of the 22 children taking part in the project are changing for the better. In the photo: project psychologist Inna Vassiltsova working with project benefi-ciary Amina Nurlybek, 5.

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The Kuat Association of Invalids operates in Kaskelen town in Almaty oblast. Thanks to BOTA’s grant, 64 young people with special needs took courses on design, graphics, pho-

tography and video tech-nology. Three participants later were employed at advert is ing companies. Another par-ticipant set up a busi-ness and em-ployed his course mates. The smil-ing girl on the photo is Umida As-sanova, aged 15, a project part ic ipant who attended the design course.

Social Service ProgramOverviewSSP gave 196 grants in 2012. The department had two new grant rounds and introduced a new type of grant to promote the social integration of CCT’s Home Based Care beneficiaries. SSP also held a successful annual conference, offered six capacity building workshops, and closely monitored the work of all grantees.

The most significant accomplishments of the SSP:

Awarding 196 Grants: A total of 196 grants, valued at $ 2.9 million, were made in 2012. Almost 80% of all grants were made to NCOs to provide social services to beneficiaries.

Reaching 30,000 Beneficiaries: The number of unique end beneficiaries assisted by SSP since its inception, until the end of December 2012, was 33,520. Beneficiary satisfaction with services received by SSP grantees was more than 95%.

Building Grantee Capacity: SSP organized 6 workshops in 2012, including 5 workshops for grantees of 4 program areas (Early Childhood Development, Disability, Youth in Difficult Life Situations and Youth Livelihoods) and one workshop on documenting of best practices and project models for grantees of all program areas.

OPM Assessment on SSP: In 2012 OPM assessed SSP very positively in the areas of efficiently working with grantees and noted that due to BOTA’s support, grantees are offering more services to beneficiaries in a more sustainable way.

72 children and young people living in orphanages and foster families in Shulbinsk, Eastern Kazakhstan were assisted through the project of Tairlandia organiza-tion supported by the BOTA Foundation. The project aims to promote deinstitutionalization by facilitating

family reunification, adoption and foster care arrangements for orphanage resi-dents. Trainings and vocational guidance were provided to the orphans so they would more easily adapt to life outside of the institution, and to local resi-dents of Shulbinsk on how to adopt or be a foster parent. As a result, 4 orphans returned to their biological families, 18 children restored connections with the relatives, and one or-phan was placed in a foster family.

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Tuition Assistance ProgramOverviewThe Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) is aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty for youth who come from poor households, or are orphans, by giving them the opportunity to study at the university or college of their choice. In 2012 TAP held a successful recruitment campaign, in-troduced a new recruitment strategy, continued to have a very high student retention rate, and introduced a new employment support strategy.

The most significant accomplishments of the TAP:

Successful Recruitment Campaign: In 2012, 189 university students and college students were given educational grants. 15 of the 2012 students are orphans and 2 have special needs, adding to the 86 and 15 students, respectively, who are already TAP Recipients in these categories.

New Recruitment Strategy: TAP engaged in a completely new approach for its university student recruitment due to the limited duration of the BOTA Program: giving grants to third and fourth year university students suffering from poverty that had excellent grades but were in danger of dropping out due to inability to pay for their education.

Community Service: Many students volunteered for double, triple or even ten or more times the minimum number of hours required by TAP for community service, working in orphanag-

Bolat Aralov is a 2nd year student at S. Demirel University, studying Computer sciences, who became a TAP recipient in 2011. Besides maintaining excellent grades, Bolat devoted 420 hours of volunteer time to improving the lives of orphans at the Nussipbayev Boarding school, which is an hour bus ride from his campus. Bolat teaches pupils modern dance and continually brings smiles to their faces.

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es, non-commercial organizations, elderly care and other facilities. In 2011 – 2012 academic year, a total of 26,853 hours of community service were undertaken by TAP students, averaging 50 hours a student.

High Retention Rate: At the end of 2012, about 90% of the students that were given educational grants were still in the program (factoring in exits due to graduation or receipt of state grants).

OPM Assessment of TAP: The evaluation validated the need and relevance of TAP’s strategy of of-fering needs-based, instead of mer-it-based, educational grants and that TAP operates efficiently, from its selection process to monitoring of Recipients.

TAP supports stu-dents in many ways, including helping to arrange internships. Yekaterina Tsoi, a 3rd year Business Ad-ministration student studying at KIMEP University, was as-sisted by TAP find an internship at the Centras Securities In-vestment Company in Almaty. Yekaterina is from the small town of Kentau lo-cated in Southern Ka-zakhstan oblast. Her mother is a school teacher and three sisters are school stu-dents.

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Summary Details from BDO Kazakhstan’s Audit of BOTA’s Special Purpose Financial Statements for 2012 (US dollars)

31 December 2012 31 December 2011

AssetsCurrent assetsCash 728 808 894 243

Short-term deposits 2 702 177 2 008 314

Program Manager advance 79 593 -

Grants advances and prepayments 595 430 336 804

Prepaid expenses and other assets 125 747 133 625

Total assets 4 231 755 3 372 985

Liabilities and net assetsCurrent liabilities

Program Manager accrued expenses - 271 318

Grants accruals 1 570 866 1 085 955

Accounts payable and accrued expenses 390 177 498 327

Total current liabilities 1 961 043 1 855 600

Net assets

Transfers from Pictet and Cie account 56 622 912 28 841 961

Accumulated net expenses (54 352 200) (27 324 576)

Total net assets 2 270 712 1 517 385

Total liabilities and net assets 4 231 755 3 372 985

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Summary Details from BDO Kazakhstan’s Audit of BOTA’s Special Purpose Financial Statements for 2012 (US dollars)

Year ended 31 December 2012 CCT SSP TAP Other operating expenditures Total

Grants 13 608 109 2 932 275 2 594 077 - 19 134 462 Payroll 600 309 458 544 344 987 418 326 1 822 166 Travel and meetings 389 117 121 163 65 223 43 057 618 560 Office equipment and rental 152 821 104 425 82 815 124 710 464 770 Current operational expenses 276 486 31 420 46 497 98 500 452 903 Contract services 2 203 499 99 863 79 674 54 626 2 437 662 Promotional expenses 26 057 22 090 15 268 165 63 580 Other expenses 38 942 24 880 11 594 42 928 118 344

Sub-total by program area 17 295 341 3 794 660 3 240 136 782 313 25 112 449

Program Manager contract 1 745 019 Impact evaluation contract 234 052 Interest income from deposits (94 428)Exchange loss 30 532

Total net expenses 27 027 624

Year ended 31 December 2011 CCT SSP TAP Other operating expenditures Total

Grants 5 128 469 2 294 901 1 681 636 - 9 105 006 Payroll 520 453 350 942 222 960 299 035 1 393 390 Travel and meetings 312 321 158 713 47 383 49 431 567 848 Office equipment and rental 124 827 112 399 71 689 102 942 411 857 Current operational expenses 100 195 30 660 45 846 80 901 257 602 Contract services 889 878 59 997 82 311 51 179 1 083 365 Promotional expenses 33 532 9 394 15 682 7 981 66 589 Other expenses 26 746 19 308 12 002 32 567 90 623

Sub-total by program area 7 136 421 3 036 314 2 179 509 624 036 12 976 280

Program Manager contract 2 259 037 Impact evaluation contract 664 144 Interest income from deposits (66 554)Exchange loss 23 363

Total net expenses 15 856 270

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2012 Annual Report

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BOTA beneficiaries

BOTA FOUNDATION160, Dostyk ave., Almaty,

Republic of Kazakhstan, 050051, Tel.: + 7 (727) 264 12 69/70

e-mail: mail@bota.kzhttp://www.bota.kz

Cover photo: Shakhnissa Doszhanova, BOTA beneficiary (Social Service Program, SOS Children Village Almaty)