Civil Society Involvement in Rapid Assessment, Analysis and Action Planning (RAAAP) for Orphans and Vulnerable Children

Excerpts from the Executive Summary follow:(footnote numbers have been omitted from this excerpt)

"The Rapid Assessment, Analysis, and Action Planning (RAAAP) Initiative for orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) was launched by UNICEF [United Nations Children's Fund], USAID [United States Agency for International Development], UNAIDS [Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS], and WFP [United Nations World Food Programme] in November 2003. The first round of RAAAPs were carried out in 16 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2004.

The purpose of the RAAAP is to undertake an analysis of the situation of OVC and the response in each country, and then, based on this analysis, to produce a national plan of action to scale up and improve the quality of the response to OVC. This plan is then ratified by the government and provides a unifying framework that brings together the activities of all the different stakeholders under a set of common objectives and strategies. This includes all interventions for OVC, including activities of national and local government, donors and civil society organisations (CSOs).

The first round of the RAAAP process consisted of a desk study, additional data collection and analysis in country, and a stakeholder workshop to validate the findings and draw up the OVC National Plan of Action....The involvement of different stakeholders in the analysis and planning process is critical for ensuring their ownership of the resulting action plan.

CSO Involvement in the RAAAP

Civil society organisations include local faith-based organisations, community-based organisations and NGOs [non-governmental organisations]. They face many constraints to scaling up their response including: limited funding, a dearth of mechanisms to supply and coordinate available funds, weak capacity to implement and monitor activities, and poor coordination and information flow between different agencies and partners. These constraints all need to be addressed in the national plans of action.

CSOs need to be involved in the RAAAP process for several reasons, including ensuring the plan is relevant to local realities, developing ownership of the plan, and building capacity of and relationships between different stakeholders to scale up and coordinate the response. Furthermore the relative independence of CSOs puts them in a good position to monitor implementation of the plans. In spite of these factors, there was only limited CSO involvement in the development of the first round of the RAAAPs...

The review methodology consisted of:

• a review of RAAAP reports and action plans,
• an email questionnaire distributed to CSOs through members of the OVC working group of the UK Consortium on AIDS and International Development,
• follow-up interviews with international and national NGOs, community and faith-based organisations.

Findings

CSO involvement

CSOs were involved in the RAAAPs in all countries. The type, quality and number of CSOs involved varied from country to country...Overall all respondents agreed that CSO involvement could have been significantly improved.

Different country contexts

The RAAAP was undertaken in countries with different levels of awareness of OVC. The same basic approach was used in all of them but it would be more appropriate to tailor the RAAAP to the different context....The stage of awareness of OVC influenced RAAAP and CSO involvement. It may have been a better use of time and resources to tailor RAAAP more closely to filling gaps in existing knowledge and building on existing structures.

Factors affecting involvement

According to the informants, the main factors affecting the involvement of CSOs were:
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Recommendations on how to improve CSO involvement

1. Ownership
   
   
   • Build on existing structures and processes
   • Ensure that all-important ministries are involved in the steering committee, including the finance ministry
2. Involvement
   
   
   • Ensure that key organisations are involved at each stage - use a systematic stakeholder analysis to consider who should be involved, and use national organisations to identify key stakeholders
   • Involve those outside of the capital - government and non-government
   • Consult children during the process
3. Involve those with grassroots experience
   
   
   • Ensure that groups with grassroots experience and contacts are on the steering committee, recognising that community based organisations are key to responses to OVC
   • Involving CBOs, including faith-based organisations, may take time. These groups may need support and capacity building to participate
   • District level forums can be useful for coordinating the work of CBOs
   • CBOs and FBOs can be represented by networks, but recognise that these vary enormously and have limitations

   
   

4. Communication




• Produce a clear, well-publicised statement of intent as to how organisations can benefit by being involved in the RAAAP.
• Produce information in accessible formats and languages
• Identify relevant organisations in advance
• Use existing networks and information channels, where possible
• Communicate with head office staff of CSOs
• Use RAAAP to publicise OVC issues and raise profile in country with donors, parliamentarians and government




5. Flexibility of tools




• Provide scope for the steering committee to influence what information is gathered and how
• Include tools that promote greater interaction and involvement of stakeholders at community level to explore the issues and context at that level according to local perspectives
• Design workshops to ensure regional participation in collecting and analyzing findings.
• Include tools that promote child participation.




6. Capacity development at different levels




• See RAAAP as an opportunity to develop capacity
• Increase resources to allow for greater CSO involvement
• Use CSOs to help carry out research
• Use RAAAP to identify CSO networks and to strengthen them
• Use RAAAP to strengthen all coordinating bodies, including those at district level
• Organise orientation/training sessions with CSOs to familiarise them with OVC issues, national strategies and action plans as part of RAAAP process.




7. Ensure the National Plan of Action is a living document




• National Plans of Action are good frameworks but they need to be living documents with ongoing interactions to develop realistic implementation strategies
• Working groups should be developed at national and district levels to develop viable implementation plans
• Establish regular opportunities to discuss and amend plan, and learn from what works...




...Conclusions


The RAAAP has been a very useful process but CSO involvement was limited. It is now possible to learn from its weaknesses and build on its strengths:

1. RAAAP has successfully raised the profile of OVC issues with governments and donors.
2. RAAAP has helped to establish and/or strengthen OVC steering committees or task forces.
3. RAAAP provided a good opportunity for groups to work together and to strengthen relationships with government and between a broad range of CSOs.
4. Most CSOs interviewed consider analysis and resulting national action plans as a useful and a good framework for responses.
5. The RAAAP process needs continue and must be supported to increase involvement of civil society. Some CSOs were involved in the RAAAP, but a wider range of organisations need to be more closely involved to build up their capacity and increase their ownership of the National Plans of Action."




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