Volunteer Executive Service Teams

Situation
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the diminishing power of authoritarian governments, the United States government began establishing aid opportunities through American NGOs. USAID launched the Volunteer Executive Service Teams (VEST) as a way to link American and foreign NGOs together in a global initiative to support the growth of democratic market-based civil societies. Counterpart International won the USAID proposal bid to be a leader for VEST that would travel to multiple nations to identify partners and create recommendations for future programs.

What We Do
The VEST teams were truly cutting edge. They brought together representatives from various divisions of the U.S. Government, top university scholars, Presidents and CEOs of leading American non-governmental organizations and members of well-known U.S. foundations to combat the effects of decades of totalitarian regime.

The first VEST team visited Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia and Odessa and Kiev in Ukraine in the fall of 1992. Their time was spent identifying fledging non-governmental organizations, charities and small businesses. They then began the process of linking them with American counterparts. Team members were able to meet with a variety of people, from top leaders to local farmers, in many locations in order to better assess the situation and offer concrete assistance.

It was quickly realized that access to information, not charity, was the top priority. In response, ad hoc workshops were set-up. Some highlights of these specialized workshops included developing the legal structure of charitable organizations, improving farming techniques, addressing health care needs and facilitating the technical and marketing skills of craftspeople.

Overall, four trips were made through VEST – to Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. Betty Silverstein and Stan Hosie, co-founders of Counterpart were members of VEST. Stan was on the fourth and last team trip in which VEST opened up relations with Vietnam.

Impacts
The VEST initiative was extremely successful. In the first year alone, USD$200,000 was leveraged to implement numerous projects with cross-national partners as a direct result of the trips. Some project examples included:

• Aid to Artisans helped Russian women turn their craft skills into a profitable business.
• The Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) with its Russian partner, the International Women’s Center, trained health care professionals and improved general access to reproductive health care.
• Counterpart and Russian Care (Rossiskaya Zabota) supported families of the demobilized Russian military on various regional bases.
• Counterpart opened Service Centers in Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus that focused on institutional strengthening of indigenous NGOs to encourage the growth of viable civil societies.
• Winrock International began the NIS Women’s NGO Partnership Project and the NIS-US Women’s NGO Consortium to facilitate networking, informational exchange, technical cooperation and training as a way of institution building to address a broad range of critical social needs.