Capacity Development by People in Actionaid Denmark

CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT BY PEOPLE[1]

2nd draft 20thJune 2011

ACTIONAID

The AAI strategy highlights, time and again, the importance of connecting people as main building blocks in our endeavours to end poverty and injustice. In building deeper connections between people and socialmovements across the planet, we maximize our joint efforts towardour vision of a poverty free planet. The notion of being connected to people at the other end of the planet can provide hope to marginalised people, break the feeling of isolation and mobilise the strength to engage in the fight to change their conditions. Thisis done in ActionAid through e.g. sponsorships and campaigns, exposure visits, study tours, exchange visits, voluntary work and immersions.

CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT BY PEOPLE IN ACTIONAID DENMARK

Bringing people together who are committed to social change through various ways has been at the coreof AADK‘s programme delivery approach. It builds commitment and solidarity; and facilitates inspiration for action beyond our core staff.

For poor people to gain influence and create social change, capacity development of their organisation is crucial. AADK has long-term experience and expertise using personnel assistancein facilitatingcapacity development by people.Recently, this has been through what has been labelled People4Change. The goal of capacity development bypeople is to facilitate international exchange and nurture development processes. It values the direct contacts of solidarity across borders in order to transfer experience, knowledge, skills, share ideas, provide inspiration and promote solidarity.

Capacitydevelopment by people within AADK has purposely sought to develop a range of skills, tools, methods and attitudes with the objective of elevating programme quality and performance.AADK draws here on the international network of committeddevelopment professionals and practitioners working to further stimulate nurture and grow capacities beyond the status quo.

Linking people across borders, be they AA staff, local partners, people in DAs, has brought a range of perspectives to anti-poverty work. It has exposedchange-makers to different and additional methods and experiences that haveinspired them to do things differently. While the placements are focused on partner needs, learning has been a two-way street.

Applying the HRBA in all that we do, today inspirators and advisors work with partners and provide the external perspectives of people from different cultures and different experiences, which often end up being significant triggers of change.

ActionAid has a similar tradition of providing fellows, who are national volunteers who go to work with marginalisedcommunities and organise them to claim their rights. It also frequently facilitates short and long term secondments to fill temporary staff gaps across the Federation.

CURRENT MANAGEMENT OF PEOPLE4CHANGE

People4Change has in the past focused on “Just and Democratic Governance” related programmes and provided the opportunity to post two differentcategories namely, advisors and inspirators. While the levels of responsibilities and qualifications are different,both categories work on focused capacity building plans developed by ActionAid partners (Country Programmes/Associates Affiliates).

Advisors are experienced and specialized highly-qualified professionals, who possess special competencies, experience and knowledge to advise and empower partner organisations.They support at strategic levels and make important contributions to programme work and programme development and cannot substitute for regular jobs. Advisory work includes facilitating training workshops, reflection process and demonstrations of tasks and outputs. They are internationally recruited and remunerated based on market rates for similar qualifications.

Inspirators are cross-national development practitioners with relevant experience from voluntary or professional work and with the knowledge to inspire, rethink, empower and share experiences with local partners. They are recruited for specific tasks over a shorter, time bound period to facilitate capacity-building. They are recruitedthrough a Roster with online application on a voluntary basis andat very low cost.

The AA Country Directors are overall responsible for the Advisors and Inspirators. Advisors are employed by AADK and receive their remuneration from there, while Inspirators make voluntary agreements with national AAs andreceive their allowances from there.

During the initial phase of this capacity support programme, AADK supported the employment of People4Change facilitators, who served to implement mainly the Inspirator category inthe national AAs merged with former MS country programmes. On top of this support, all national AAs have received a monthly overhead per Advisor and Inspirator,as well as funds to facilitate the Advisors’ and Inspirators’ outreach activities.

AADK has developed an E-learning Introduction Course for both Advisors and Inspirators, as well as designed toolsto monitor their work.

INSPIRATOR ROSTER RECRUITMENT PROCESS DESCRIPTION
Application Process

1. On line registration – minimum requirements (five years’ experience – voluntary or paid work)
2. Written References received (at least from two persons)
3. Validation Interview (personal or Skype)
4. Rejected or approved.

Placement Process

1. Needs assessment
2. ToR defined – including needs for specific qualifications and competences
3. Search in Roster among all approved Inspirators– a number of qualified (anonymous) Inspirator profiles are identified and presented to the partner organization
4. Partner organization identifies three Inspirator profiles – who are invited for follow-up interviews (Skype or telephone)
5. One Inspirator is selected for the position

June 20, 2011

Birte Hald
International Programme Director,ActionAid Denmark

Yadina Montenegro,
UCA Ramon Development Coordinator, Nicaragua
Our first experience has been very good, and we can see that we have good results. Because an Inspirator is a person who works in an area where the organisation has little to no experience, but can help it achieve results – such as with the Economic Empowerment of Women at UCA Ramón.
Inspirator Partner, Red Democracia, Nicaragua
In descripting an Inspirator, “The key words are solidarity, dedication and enthusiasm…and always going a bit further.
Doing what you are told is something anybody can do. Doing more than you were told requires dedication and determination.”
Key Individual, KWACHA Afrika, Mombasa, Kenya
Noted that the Inspirator’s newly instituted practices are used on a daily basis and as a result of this placement, KWACHA has seen a new zeal in their volunteers in regards to their reporting. This is because the Inspirator had one-on-one motivational talks with the volunteers; he has inspired many and continues to do so. With the heads of department, the Inspirator has facilitated their ability to write concepts and proposals.
Another key individual noted that she personally had gained the skills of facilitation, and gained confidence in talking, as well as skill in report-writing. Moreover, the Inspirator has motivated the volunteers to be who they are through holding large inspirational forums focused on allowing participants to discover their talents, inspire them to be what they want to be, see the importance of education as well as the importance of pursuing further education, and the importance of standing tall.
Ayman – Colleague from local partner organisation in Gaza about Lucas
“He didn’t tell me what to do. He was like helping me to think. He helps you to make you think more, make you go with your thinking to wider places and to get better ideas and stuff like this.”
ActionAid Zambia, Yearly Summary Assessment on Advisors
The initiative by BLD Advisor and Information Advisor to assist partners in capturing and cross sharing of impact of their work, has to a great extent brought in new motivation and energy in carry out partners building local democracy work
Advisors have fitted well into the work of the country programme and have been proactive in their involvement in different processes and initiatives aimed at enhancing the work of the programme
The Land Rights advisor has shown and given unprecedented level of support to Land Rights partners in their engagements with traditional leaders on the customary land rights for the marginalised poor people, as a result the impact of partner advocacy work on customary land rights is slowly getting conspicuous.
ActionAid Denmark’s Mozambique Country Office,
Advisor Joint Progress Report
The Advisor has played a crucial role in developing, planning and implementing the anti-corruption campaign on “Free Schoolbooks to all” which was facilitated by MS Mozambique and carried out by all MS partners between October and January. He gave insightful strategic advice on making the campaign as profiled as possible in both local and national media and communities. He produced material and he assisted partners in the actual work during campaign peaks.
The Advisor has systematically carried through assessments of all partners’ needs in relation to communication, and on the basis of these assessments he has developed a plan for capacity building support to them to be implemented during 2011. In relation to this it is one of the prouds of MS Mozambique that we are managing to capture support to partners within the field of communication in the partner LFAs thereby ensuring that communication is an integral part of the programme work.
In line with this, it has been an important added value to the programme team in the country office that the communications advisor has been an active participant in the programme team’s work and meetings.
Tsitsi Choruma, Director of ActionAid International Zimbabwe
"Inspirators are exchanges of personnel coming to capacity-build of colleagues in other countries, so it is a south-to-south cooperation. The activities are short-term, very specific and focused. I feel that the inspirator program can bring a lot of benefit into the work of ActionAid. In Zimbabwe, we have huge gaps around capacity-building and the inspirator program could be a solution.” / Charles Businge, Director of ActionAid Uganda
"The inspirator program is intended to provide support to partners. The inspirator can add value from a technical point of view and from a generalist point of view – addressing institutional weaknesses within the partner organisations.
People4Change Facilitator,
Ahmad Alzghoul, ActionAid Denmark Regional Office in Jordan
Lucas was the first Inspirator in the region and he was really good in his place by inspiring people around and in Gaza; as we know, Gaza is under siege and is facing limited opportunity, especially in terms of development. Having an Inspirator there really helps the local partner to improve their ways and methods of using development, especially in planning and advocacy. This also inspires a lot of workers and young people to be more active in their community
Suma – Governance Advisor in Kenya with AAK
“The advantages or the strength of the P4C program is the opportunity that it has created for people from different background and different experiences and competencies, to share all those capacities with other people.
You bring in a different perspective into the program. Program officers are there, but because they have been part of the program design, they lose an opportunity to see things differently. They are part of the status quo. The person, who is coming in, is coming with a world of experience and background. If you combine these two, then you get a cross-fertilisation of ideas and skills.” / Lucas – Inspirator in Gaza
“I ask a lot of questions and try making them think and reflect about what they want and how they can achieve their goals. In that process there is a lot of capacity building, there is a lot of explaining and transferring knowledge about: how does it work, how can you manage a project, how can you fundraise?
I actually do use some methods I learned before. It’s a way of communicating called appreciative inquiry where I have the tools that make them able to think for themselves and reflect about the answers, and together we find the answer, but mostly I want that person to find the answer themselves. I don’t want to give the answer; I don’t want to give the solution.”
Suma – Governance Advisor in Kenya with AAK
“What I have done is to make sure that we build on the partner’s work rather than giving partners different work. It’s working within the partners work plan, but ensuring that what we are doing is consistent with the partners’ mission and vision. What I have also been doing, is to make sure that I don’t do the work for partners. I support them to do their work, I comment on their work; I advise for them to do their work, I don’t do it for them.”
Bhim Bahadur Khadka, Inspirator with AAUganda partner KOCISONET
“I have helped Kocisonet’s staff, board members and its member organizations in the areas of fund raising, documentation and organizational development as per our agreed TOR. I think they have been benefited from my support within this short of period of time. I have mentioned in detail of achievements scored in my four months placement report, which has already been submitted to AAIU and Kocisonet. I have also got a lot of experiences within this period which is really fruitful, relevant and important in my life.”
Suma – Governance Advisor (AAK)
“Previous governments in Kenya, had closed space for civil society, and civil society created those spaces through mainly confrontational approaches like demonstrations and also some things. What I am trying to do is to use experiences from other countries like Tanzania and Uganda, which are helping the three partners structure their engagement with government and in make increasingly using existing spaces that are offered by government for civil society to participate and influence”

[1] Also known as People4Change