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4. Supporting CBOs and NGOs involved in community responses
   Last updated: 29.06.02
 
Community level responses, though promising, are limited in relation to the scale of the problem. Not all communities have developed OVC activities. Those that have are scattered. Even where communities are responding, efforts typically do not match the level of need; they are only able to marginally improve the material and psychosocial well-being of OVC. With more resources, made available appropriately and committed for the long term, communities could do much more.

4.1 CBO/NGO support
Although CBO/NGO support can be provided by a range of others - such as government, private sector organisations, UN bodies and so on - the focus here is on support provided to community OVC responses by NGOs, whether local or international.

Intermediary organisations can play a key role in facilitating the development and expansion of community OVC responses. An intermediary organisation has skills to mediate between grassroots groups or organisations and funding or resource organisations. Intermediary functions include training, capacity building, resource channelling, advocacy, information sharing, facilitating of networks, and linkages between communities and sub-grant making.

Across East and Southern Africa, there is need to increase the number of intermediary organisations that are able to support community OVC initiatives. There is also a need to scale up the activities of existing CBO/NGO support providers.

CBO/NGO support relationships often involve both technical and financial support. Partners in the relationship should have agreed, shared goals. The final goal should be more and better support for OVC. Intermediate goals should include increased capacity of the communities and community groups doing OVC work, and increased capacity and quality of work of the organisation providing the support.

"A lot of us fail to listen to what our partners are saying, or hear what assistance they want from us...Only when we really listen are we in a position to provide them with effective support."

Choice Makufa, Deputy Director, FACT, Zimbabwe

Participants shared experiences and lessons about support to CBO/NGO OVC programmes. Support activities include training, exchange visits, support visits, grant allocation/management, networking, identifying and sharing good practice, and monitoring and evaluation:

  • Training should be in programmatic areas as well as organisational development and financial management issues. Scale-up of training to support community initiatives was the specific focus of a meeting co-hosted by Regional AIDS Training Network and the Alliance (for further details see the Alliance or RATN websites) [www.aidsalliance.org and www.ratn.org/index.html ]


  • Exchange visits can be powerful means of encouraging new OVC initiatives and re-invigorating or strengthening existing initiatives. Visits between CBOs do not have to be formal, but benefit from being well planned. Ideally, visits should have clear, relevant and agreed objectives, and ample notice should be given to host communities so as to minimise interference with ongoing activities.


"A child who always eats at home thinks the mother is the best cook."

Zambian proverb quoted by Daphetone Siame, Programme Director, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Zambia, to illustrate the importance of exchange visits

  • Support visits provide an opportunity for CBO/NGO support organisations to offer advice, practical assistance, mentoring, monitoring, encouragement and constructive criticism. Listening to each other is crucial.


  • Networking can take a variety of forms, including e-mail, face-to-face, meetings, and sharing documentation.


  • Monitoring and evaluation is also a vital element of CBO/NGO support work. Successful scale-up relies on the ability to know what works and what does not. More research is needed to identify clear and simple means of measuring the progress of support providers and community groups as they seek to strengthen and improve their practice.


  • While many informal community OVC initiatives will draw exclusively on local resources, CBO and NGO activities often rely on external funding to some degree. Combining packages of technical support and funding is a particularly powerful approach by CBO/NGO support organisations. Combining assistance with grant management will also improve 'quality of spend'.


  • Identifying, documenting and sharing lessons about good practice is a crucial part of all the techniques above.


"Grant allocation is integral to the support we should provide to our partners. Support with grant management is an important activity in the expansion of community OVC initiatives."

Sthembile Mawoneke, Programme Officer, Southern Africa AIDS Training, Zimbabwe.

More CBO/NGO support providers are needed to meet the needs of an expanded OVC response at community level. Although some organisations focus exclusively on providing such support (and do not undertake direct implementation of programmes), it is more common for implementing organisations to gradually develop a capacity building role. Participants shared experiences of this transition process (see below).

"A bookkeeper or orphan support worker may be excellent at their job, but this does not mean they are automatically able to support others to learn those skills. The transition into a capacity building role therefore often challenges people in new ways and creates an extra need for staff support, skills training and plenty of encouragement."

Dr. Tim Lee, Deputy Executive Director, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, UK

4.2 Case studies: CBO/NGO support for OVC initiatives
Families, Orphans and Children Under Stress (FOCUS) Programme, Family AIDS Caring Trust (FACT), Mutare, Zimbabwe

FACT is a Christian-based NGO, based in Mutare, Zimbabwe, established in 1987. Starting from a focus on information sharing, care and prevention, FACT now operates a wide range of direct implementation and capacity building programmes.

In 1991, FACT found out what proportion of children in Manicaland were orphaned, and how extended families and communities were coping with increasing numbers of orphans. The studies suggested that extended families need support to enable them to continue caring for orphans and to prevent children slipping through the extended family safety net. Sharing these observations with community leaders and other stakeholders led to the first FOCUS programme being established in 1993 (see Chirovakamwe, page 14). The main objective of the programme was to build the capacity of community groups to support OVC in their communities.

FOCUS staff offered training to CBOs who had already expressed interest in supporting OVC. CBOs established a committee and selected volunteers to visit affected families. Training was offered in mapping, enumeration, prioritisation, reporting, referral and holding meetings. Support was given in the form of monthly meetings with volunteers, supervisors and community leaders, as well as by providing school fees, essential material assistance, and help with volunteer incentives.

The FOCUS programme has assisted seven CBOs working with more than 270 volunteers to support over 9,000 orphans. As the programme grew, FOCUS had to cope with increasing demands for human and financial resources, the problem of supporting groups in remote areas, and problems with pilot programmes receiving too many visitors, which disrupted their work.

Providing support to CBOs was a shift in emphasis for FACT, which had previously been involved only in service provision. To cope with this shift, FACT made a number of administrative, organisational and programmatic changes. In its new role FACT still faces the challenge of 'thinking as a capacity builder, but acting as an implementer'.

Lessons learned

  • Communities are already concerned about OVC and are responding in their own ways.


  • Most communities are willing to do more, but lack financial resources.


  • A little technical assistance and training motivates communities to do more.


  • Volunteers know how best to respond to OVC and it is important to listen to them.


  • It is important not to undermine community coping mechanisms by introducing foreign concepts such as paying volunteers to attend meetings.


"There is pressure for NGO service providers to develop a capacity-building role. It is important to note that most NGOs will not become CBO/NGO support organisations. Those that do become support organisations must move gradually and the change should be planned."

Dr. Geoff Foster, Child Welfare Consultant, FACT, Zimbabwe

Family Health Trust, Children in Distress Programme, Zambia

Family Health Trust (FHT) is the umbrella organisation of three specialised AIDS-related projects: Anti-AIDS Project, Lusaka Home Based Care Project and Children in Distress (CINDI) Project. The CINDI project works in partnership with communities to facilitate the improvement of the quality of life for OVC, to enable them to realise their full potential.

The CINDI project is based on the premise that institutional care is unsustainable. Orphans should remain in their communities, as they have a crucial role to play in children's socialisation and enable them to maintain a community connection in adult life.

CINDI project objectives are:

  • To strengthen the capacity of households and communities to engage in community-led social and economic activities that enable them to meet basic needs on a sustainable basis.


  • To sensitise communities to the need for child protection against all forms of child abuse and gender discrimination.


  • To advocate for the rights and welfare of the children in distress in order to raise awareness and mobilise support of the Zambian Government and other organisations.


  • To collaborate and network with relevant organisations to alleviate the distress of orphans.


CINDI trains communities in areas such as record keeping, financial accountability, report and project proposal writing and simple business management skills. This training and transfer of skills is also useful to individuals in their role as income generators for their own families, and provides a high degree of motivation for people.

After an initial pilot phase working with nine CBOs to support OVC within their communities, the project scaled up its activities. It now supports 34 CBOs in four provinces, thus assisting over 23,000 families that are supporting orphans and vulnerable children in Zambia.

Key factors that encouraged the growth of the CINDI programme included the availability of resources from donors, community support and involvement, motivated staff, and an enabling environment. Factors that have hindered the growth of the programme included a lack of capacity within FHT since high staff turnover and burnout made it difficult to continue to scale up activities.

Lessons learned

  • Involving the community/family in care and support to OVC enables them to own the problem and ensures sustainability, as they are involved at all levels of the response.


  • Initiatives which are already being implemented in the community should be strengthened.


"The challenge is often not 'capacity building' but 'capacity utilisation'. Our role is to offer a match to light up the capacity that already exists in the community."

Alick Nyirenda, Executive Director, CHEP, Zambia

Initiative Privée et Communautaire de Lutte Contre le SIDA au Burkina Faso (IPC)

IPC is a Burkinabé NGO that was created as an HIV/AIDS CBO/NGO support organisation by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in 1994. IPC is the Alliance linking organisation in Burkina Faso. IPC's mission is to contribute to the reduction of the transmission of HIV/AIDS in Burkina Faso.

It works by supporting NGOs, CBOs and associations to develop the capacity of communities to mobilise against HIV/AIDS. IPC has been at the forefront of the response to HIV/AIDS in Burkina Faso, mobilising communities and introducing new approaches in response to the evolving epidemic.

IPC received a grant to carry out an OVC needs assessment in 1999. A programme of support to OVC began in 2000 with the aim of building the capacity of selected IPC-supported associations, which led to the development of community-based responses.

Initially, two IPC staff visited successful OVC and micro-credit programmes in Southern Africa to learn from their experience. The second step involved mobilising and building the capacity of five CBOs to develop OVC activities.

Lessons learned

  • It was difficult to support partner organisations to build their own capacity, while at the same time ensuring that CBOs implemented their programmes.


  • The programme is implemented in a difficult environment - there is need for the government to develop policies on OVC and awareness of OVC issues in Burkinabé local government structures.


  • At the community level, constraints included: lack of technical resources for OVC programme implementation, a culture of dependency on external resources, lack of prioritisation of OVC issues by communities, low organisational capacity within partner organisations, and the absence of voluntarism within the community.


4.3 Scale-up of CBO/NGO support
Scale-up should not be imposed upon any capacity building organisation, nor should implementing organisations be pressured to develop a capacity building role, if that is not in line with their vision and mission. However, there is increasing demand for more and better technical and financial support to community OVC initiatives. How can CBO/NGO support be increased and improved?

As with community level responses, successful scale-up of CBO/NGO support for community OVC responses requires that stakeholders act in appropriate and mutually supportive ways. Participants identified key issues or principles (and see Table below):

  • Community OVC groups should not be passive recipients of support from NGOs. Their feedback on their emerging technical and financial needs, and also the quality and quantity of the capacity building support that they receive is a vital ingredient in successful scale-up of CBO/NGO support.


  • Some community-oriented NGOs may be able to strengthen their capacity building role to provide technical support and grants management to other OVC initiatives in their local area. This can be a challenging process of transition, placing new and additional demands on individual staff members and teams and changing relationships with local peers and with other stakeholders. However, existing CBO/NGO support providers and INGOs can facilitate, support or 'mentor' the transition process by working with NGOs on strategic planning, staff development and organisational structure. It is vital that existing support providers - at local, national, regional or international level - do not compete with or dominate these emerging CBO/NGO support activities.


  • Existing CBO/NGO support providers have a second, important role - to scale up their own activities. Strategic planning can help to decide which combination of focus, coverage, quality and sustainability issues to focus on in the scaling-up process. It is important to plan carefully for scale-up and, in particular, ensure that the organisation's managerial and administrative systems are not over-stretched.


  • Government and donors have relatively few but specific and important roles with regard to scale-up of CBO/NGO support. They should provide explicit support for intermediary support organisations and channel funds to finance CBO/NGO support to OVC initiatives, without seeking to impose scale-up on unwilling organisations. Government and donors need to acknowledge that capacity building work involves a long-term investment that does not produce instant results - realistic expectations and targets are important.


  • A critical role for international NGOs, governments, donors and existing CBO/NGO support providers, is to collaborate in the identification, documentation, active dissemination of good practice information. This includes training materials, checklists, toolkits, practical guidelines, policy papers and a wide range of other materials.


"Knowledge and information about good practice can provide a solid foundation for all community OVC initiatives and CBO/NGO support providers."

Kate Harrison, Programme Officer: Children, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, UK

In analysing the ways of expanding support provided to CBOs and NGOs involved in community responses, participants at the workshop analysed the responsibilities of the five groups. A summary of their analysis can be found in the table overleaf.

Table: Expanding support to CBOs and NGOs involved in community responses
Community groups and NGOs should...

  • Identify and prioritise their own needs.


  • Be willing to share their experience and also take on new ideas - for example, through exchange visits.


  • Provide honest feedback to CBO/ NGO support providers.


  • Be willing to host mentoring and exchange visits.


  • Only accept a level of funds that they can manage.


  • Avoid entering into partnerships with CBO/ NGO support organisations solely for financial gain.


CBO/NGO support organisations should...

  • Develop a long-term vision based on realistic targets or expectations.


  • Strengthen their own technical and managerial/administrative capacity.


  • Network and collaborate with peer organisations, nationally, regionally and internationally.


  • Advocate for funds to build community capacity to care for OVC, and ensure they do not keep too much funding for themselves.


  • Provide mentoring and training to CBOs - covering programmatic and organisational development issues - in a long-term partnership.


  • Assist organisations wishing to make the transition from implementing organisation into developing a CBO/NGO support role.


  • Avoid imposing their own agenda on community initiatives.


  • Make an effort to communicate and collaborate with government, especially other government sectors.


  • Avoid being manipulated by international NGOs and donors.


Government should...

  • Promote civil society organisations and community initiatives to meet OVC needs.


  • Develop a long- term vision for the OVC response, based on realistic targets, and including recognition of the role of intermediary and implementing organisations.


  • Create channelling mechanisms for CBO/ NGO support.


  • Consult NGO support providers on national policy development and include them on National AIDS Committees.


  • Make funding available for civil society as well as public sector initiatives.


International NGOs should...

  • Collaborate with other organisations.


  • Develop a long- term vision based on realistic targets or expectations.


  • Strengthen their own technical and managerial/ administrative capacity.


  • Facilitate and create linkages, networking and lesson sharing between peer organisations, nationally, regionally and internationally.


  • Provide appropriate technical and financial support to local/ national CBO/ NGO support providers in long- term partnerships.


  • Develop joint proposals with local/ national CBO/ NGO support providers.


  • Assist organisations wishing to make the transition from implementing organisation and develop a CBO/ NGO support role.


  • Help support provider organisations with strategic planning to determine whether they should scale up, and if so, how.


  • Avoid attempting to control the scale- up process.


Donors should...

  • Adopt a long- term perspective and long- term funding cycle.


  • Support both implementing and capacity building activities.


  • Create an environment that is not competitive for funding.


  • Consider providing CBO/ NGO support organisations with core support and adequate overhead payments.


  • Encourage/ support documentation of good practice.


  • Avoid imposing scale- up or specific programmatic responses on CBO/ NGO support providers.


Source: Expanding Community-Based Support for Orphans and Vulnerable Children
This is an extract from Expanding Community-Based Support for Orphans and Vulnerable Children , published by the International HIV/AIDS
Alliance with the Family AIDS Caring Trust, Zimbabwe, in 2002.

To view the whole report follow this link.

To download, complete with graphics, in pdf format (which requires Adobe Acrobat software to read it) follow this link (file size: 523 Kbytes).