Capacity Development of key partners

Purpose

Implementing partners of health programmes require support and oversight to execute, manage and monitor their assigned roles effectively. Capacity development in managing, monitoring and verifying the activities of implementing partners is crucial, particularly to ensure the sustainability of the health programme, as the majority of implementing partners tend to be national entities. National implementing partners often provide crucial knowledge and access to hard-to-reach beneficiaries and key populations. However, they may have capacity gaps or may have limited experience in working at scale, and therefore may require significant support to implement their assigned role effectively.

UNDP’s Approach

UNDP focuses on building capacity to select, assess and provide oversight for implementing partners to minimize risk and ensure a sustainable and integrated national response, including by:

• supporting the development of standard operating procedures to select, contract, manage, monitor and provide oversight to implementing partners;
• providing technical support to orientation workshops;
• providing capacity assessment and plan development tools.

Guidance

Actions to support the capacity development of implementing partners should be integrated into all phases of their engagement, from the selection process to monitoring and oversight. Some considerations include:

• Selection: the selection process for implementing partners should outline the minimum criteria required to ensure transparency (such as the ability to carry out specific project activities and financial management and reporting).

• Contracting: template contracts should be developed outlining what happens if implementing partners are not performing as required, and what support will be given to them. Before signing the contract, the nominated partner should have a detailed work plan and budget attached to the contract.

• Capacity assessment: Capacity assessment: the capacity of all implementing partners should be assessed before a contract is signed and before any funds are disbursed to the new partner. If the implementing partner does not possess the required capacity to carry out the planned activities, then a capacity development plan should be developed and a budget set. The results of the capacity assessment should be compiled in a report for review to assess progress later.

• Implementation and ongoing capacity development: there should be an induction workshop for implementing partners, to outline the requirements and processes for financial and programmatic reporting, and to provide partners with reporting forms and templates and details of any supporting documentation required. The capacity development activities should be implemented as soon as possible at the beginning of implementation, but ongoing mentoring may carry on during the life cycle of the programme.

• Oversight of implementing partners: there should be a documented programme for each year outlining all oversight visits to verify the financial and programmatic data reported. There should be standard operating procedures with supporting templates for monitoring the programme implementation, and for reviewing financial and programmatic reports for completeness and technical soundness. Oversight mechanisms should include processes for problem identification and mitigation, as well as actions to solve any issues identified.

The risk management of implementing partners is a continual process — risks should be assessed and plans should be carefully documented, with responsibilities for follow-up properly assigned and monitored. For example, one way of managing risk is to give implementing partners that have been assessed as having weak financial management capacity smaller instalments of funds more frequently to carry out specific activities.

Purpose

The objective of capacity development planning with a national coordinating body, such as national AIDS commissions (NACs), is to design and implement a process to strengthen capacities in national coordination, communication, and monitoring and evaluation. The intended results are greater national ownership; resilient, accountable and transparent systems; and effective and efficient approaches for the monitoring and evaluation of national strategies by national entities.

National coordinating bodies capacities

The capacities required by NACs to effectively and efficiently act as the custodians of national strategic plans (NSPs) as part of a coordinated multisectoral approach include:

1. Coordination: coordination among national and local government, civil society organizations, key populations and the private sector is central to the achievement of NSPs through a multisectoral approach. Coordination activities include the ability to carry out joint stakeholder planning, advocacy activities, sector meetings, mentoring and joint review visits.
2. Communication: communication strategies and campaigns aligned to NSPs that have clear target audiences at local, regional and national levels, and relevant messages for identified key populations, are crucial to the response. NACs also need to have effective communication skills to negotiate with, motivate and represent the various sectors involved in HIV/AIDS.
3. Legal framework: the national legal framework can hinder the full implementation of NSPs. NACs should have the capacity to carry out legal environmental assessments and to work with government to create an enabling environment for the implementation of the approach, in consultation with civil society organizations and key populations.
4. Policy engagement: NACs need to work in collaboration with other key partners, including technical working groups, to review national policies and update these in line with current international best practice. Policy focus should include gender, human rights, discrimination and stigma, and support to people living with HIV and key populations.
5. Resource mobilization: resource mobilization at international, national and provincial levels ensures the financial sustainability of NSPs. NACs need the ability to cost national plans, monitor all donor funding within the country and identify gaps and overlaps to maximize resources.
6. Monitoring and evaluation: monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of the national strategy using one harmonized M&E framework is key to national responses. NACs need to be able to map all activities being implemented within the country and to source and analyse data from all implementing sectors. National strategic plans should be supported by a national M&E plan. NACs need capacity to update and harmonize the M&E plan and should have national M&E guidelines, a database to collect verified data from all sectors, systems for analysing the data and processes for evaluating the national strategy.
7. Risk management: risk management is key to identifying the risks that may hinder full achievement of NSPs. NACs should possess the capacity to assess the environment and identify both programmatic and financial risks and ways to mitigate these.
8. Governance: good governance includes being responsible and accountable as a national coordinating body to the other sectors within the country and developing robust, resilient and sustainable systems, with effective oversight.
9. Financial management: although most NACs do not usually directly implement health activities, they do manage funds. As such, they need strong financial management and systems aimed at mitigating risk and ensuring that they are accountable to country stakeholders.
10. Human resources: NACs need skilled human resources to reflect the roles that they play in coordination, communication and law, rights and policy engagement. Staff performance needs to be monitored through staff performance systems, and staff need clear roles and responsibilities.
11. Programme management: capacity in programme management includes the ability to facilitate national and sectoral work planning, developing the capacity of civil society organizations or other groups working in the country, partner selection and contracting, and monitoring and reporting.
12. Procurement: NACs need the capacity to carry out procurement for non-health products and to select and contract technical assistance. There is a need for procurement policies, procedures, oversight and procurement plans.

UNDP’s Approach

UNDP supports national AIDS coordinating bodies to establish and implement capacity development plans to provide a framework to:

• ensure a clear vision and structure to coordinate, monitor and evaluate the national strategy
• coordinate and represent all the key sectors operating within the country
• strengthen policies and guidelines to meet the country’s needs, in line with the national strategy
• develop good-quality products and services to respond to the needs of stakeholders and key populations.

Tools

UNDP has developed and tested the Capacity Assessment and Planning Tool for NACs, which can be amended to suit the country context as required. UNDP provides guidance and support to participatory capacity-planning processes, which lead to a more country-led capacity development work plan. Strong coordination is key to an efficient and effective response and is required for the successful implementation of national strategies. Capacity development plans for national coordinating bodes should identify coordination challenges, both internally and at national and district levels, and should also identify the sectors working within the response, mapping these and monitoring and evaluating all partners and their roles.

Purpose

Civil society groups in many countries have experienced a changing environment in terms of HIV and health care over the last few years, which has resulted in more centralized implementation by national ministries of health, stronger and different treatment approaches to HIV and other disease programmes, and a subsequent reduction in funding for civil society groups.

There is a need for civil society to review and redefine its role, both in response to HIV and to other emerging health priorities. For example, as people living with HIV live longer on treatment, they are more likely to develop a non-communicable disease such as cancer.

As governments provide the majority of treatment, civil society groups need to assess what their role is in supporting health programme implementation, such as adherence to treatment, supporting marginalized and key populations to enable access to both prevention and treatment, and advocating for policy change to reach universal health coverage (UHC) and ensure rights-based service delivery. There is a need to define and clarify civil society organizations’ new role in supporting the achievement of the goals of the Global AIDS Strategy 2021–2026, expand their role in the move to a more coordinated health and HIV approach, focus on the achievement of UHC, and develop the capacity of networks of civil society groups to strengthen their voice and advocacy role. There is also a need to assess the overall structure of civil society, asking if groups should consolidate or work more in networks to increase their power to advocate and consolidate operational costs.

UNDP’s approach

UNDP, in collaboration with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and other United Nations agencies, supports civil society organizations (CSOs) to define their strategic direction within national HIV, tuberculosis and malaria responses and address capacity gaps that hinder their objectives. UNDP can, additionally, support countries to map the landscape of registered civil society and community-based organizations engaged in HIV/AIDS and other health responses in a country and support the development of cohesive networks. This might include activities to:

• formulate a strategic direction by supporting the establishment of a civil society organization (CSO) strategic priority action plan or charter
• bring visibility to registered and validated CSOs by developing an open-source website and database of HIV and health-related CSOs in a country
• support dissemination of information on how CSOs can support the move to more comprehensive health programming, integrating HIV within the broader health agenda

Tools and examples

UNDP has developed and tested a tool to support civil society in carrying out in-depth discussions on what the role of civil society organizations has been and what changes have taken place in the health landscape. It offers guidance for discussion on how civil society organizations can assess what their new role should be, how this new role can be operationalized and what skills they need to carry out this role.

The tool includes:

• a set of questions to guide discussions
• example activities to support changes in strategic direction possible indicators to measure progress
• a template to budget for these activities.

For additional resources on UNDP’s work to empower civil society organizations in national disease responses with public funding, visit the “Social contracting for effective service delivery under domestically funded health programmes” page.