Anchoring Awareness in the Community - Handicap International

STRENGTHENING PARTNER ASSOCIATIONS
Another way to permanently anchor project
effects in the region was by strengthening
the capacities of local partner associations,
who acquired expertise on raising awareness
of HIV/AIDS through the project. Throughout
the project there was also an on-going effort
to strengthen their project management
capacity.
Use partner knowledge
Partner associations, who know the context
very well, enabled us to have a critical
appreciation of the project. At the beginning
of the project, numerous meetings with them
enabled us to discuss the pertinence of
actions planned and to re-define them if
necessary.
In addition, the particular skills of the partner
associations enabled enriching project
activities. Thus, the partner association in the
Afar (Ethiopia) region had already organized
community discussions on different topics. For
the project, once the animators were trained
on the HIV topic, they were able to organize
community discussions on this topic.
Transmit methods by working together
To strengthen the capacities of partner
associations, Handicap International
sometimes chose to support them by
working daily with them at the beginning
of the partnership, until they were able to
function independently. In this way, Handicap
International was at the side of some partners
for writing the terms of reference of some
activities, planning, follow-up, etc. When
the methods were assimilated and habits
formed, the partners were able to carry out
activities they were responsible for on their
own, while continuing to maintain an on-going
interchange with Handicap International.
“With Handicap International, we had a very
strong partnership. We did everything together,
from planning to follow-up. In this way, we
learned a lot and acquired good working
methods.” 17
Provide partners with reusable tools
Because some partner associations had never
developped, we proposed monitoring tools
and then worked together on their adaptation.
Using these tools, the person responsible
for the animators collected daily data on the
activity of five team animators and gathered it
together in a monthly report.
Provide training adapted to needs
After identifying needs for reinforcement of
skills, specific training was organized for the
partners. For example, following a mid-project
evaluation, gaps were noted in the monitoring
and evaluation carried out by animators
and partner associations. Because of this
observation, we organized a general training
program around monitoring and evaluation
for the animators and project managers from
partner associations in the three countries.
SUCCESS STORY:
Ethiopian associations declared
themselves pleased to be so well
“tooled” by HI, since they had felt
inadequately equipped to correctly
monitor projects financed by other
investors. Some have even adapted
these follow-up tools to make them
useable for some of their other
projects.
17. Getahun Mekonen, project manager for the Shama Brihan Association in Ethiopia, a partner
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