Botswana's
adolescents, like many other teenagers around the world, are sexually active at an early
age. In expanding its efforts to fight a growing HIV/AIDS epidemic and high pregnancy
rates among its teens, the government of Botswana has encouraged nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) serving adolescents to provide more reproductive health services.
With this impetus, the Population Council's Operations
Research/Technical Assistance (OR/TA) Africa II Project recently completed a program
to strengthen NGO services.
"This exercise enabled the NGOs to create a strategy for assisting
youth and to move towards offering more health care and education," said Mercy
Rapelesega Montsi, who directed the intervention with Naomi Rutenberg.
Entitled the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP), the OR/TA program relied
on the collaboration of the Botswana National Productivity Centre (BNPC) and the Health
Research Unit of the national Ministry of Health. The YEP had four goals: to provide
general management skills and tailor-made technical assistance in program administration;
to assist in creating long-range strategies; to give training in identifying service
delivery problems and formulating operations research proposals; and to assist in pilot
projects.
Managers find problems and solutions
Members of 11 major NGOs participated in the year-long intervention. The
management component of the YEP opened with a series of retreats facilitated by the BNPC.
Staff from each NGO examined their organizations to pinpoint internal features they wanted
to change in order to improve performance. With their goals before them, participants
attended four workshops on managing change, performance, projects, strategy, and time.
BNPC consultants then helped the NGOs begin working toward their objectives.
The Mambo Arts Commune, for example, decided to decentralize
responsibility for project development. The Botswana Family Welfare Association, an IPPF
affiliate, developed goals that included giving its staff clearer evaluations, more
opportunities to advance in their jobs, and a better work environment.
Research results improve programs
The Health Research Unit coordinated parallel training. Staff from eight
NGOs received training on how to use and design operations research aimed at increasing
performance. With HRU facilitators, staff prepared proposals for research entailing a few
weeks of field work and costing between US$3,000 and US$8,000.
"This part of the intervention was unique for the NGOs. They had
received management training before, but had little experience with operations
research," comments Rutenberg.
The Botswana Scouts Association and the Botswana Youth Centre
collaborated, for example, on a study of knowledge, attitudes, and practices concerning
sex among young people aged 13–30. Based on their findings, they decided to develop new
programs, including one designed to teach youth to withstand peer pressure, and to expand
their reproductive health curriculum to include pregnancy risks and antenatal care.
The Association of Medical Missionaries in Botswana evaluated their AIDS
prevention, control, and care activities. They also found a need for new programs, such as
one to promote support services to the caregivers of youth living with AIDS.
"The NGOs all learned more about their target populations. I think
they also learned that it doesn't take a lot of training or money to collect some useful
data," summarizes Rutenberg.
The YEP culminated in a workshop at which participants gave
presentations to some 80 attendees from the government, the private sector, and the
international donor community. Botswana's First Lady, who is executive director of the
participating Botswana Youth Center, attended this final workshop and played a role in the
YEP ad hoc committee that presented recommendations to the workshop for follow-up.
Offers of support ensued
The ad hoc committee principally recommended continuation of technical
support from BNPC and HRU. It also suggested creating a group of trainers to spread a
common approach and facilitate the adoption of new management approaches within the NGO
community.
"The external stakeholders endorsed the critical role of the NGOs
in youth reproductive health, and they wholeheartedly agreed on the need for a collective
approach," says Montsi. "We were also grateful that they came forward with
specific offers of financial, logistical, and other types of aid."
In analyzing the project's effectiveness, Montsi and Rutenberg point to
four crucial aspects of the design: early and close collaboration between OR/TA staff and
local institutions; a full-time coordinator backed up by a local coordinating office; the
creation of NGO networking opportunities; and emphasis on dissemination of new skills to
all staff of the participating NGOs.
"We see abundant evidence of positive change now, both in the
programs the NGOs are developing and in their new appreciation of the need for strategic
planning," says Rutenberg. "But it's too soon to envision long-term effects. Our
challenge now is to sustain and build on the changes we've achieved."
Source
Montsi, Mercy Rapelesega and Naomi Rutenberg. 1997. The Youth Empowerment Project:
Strengthening NGO Management, Research and Service Delivery Capabilities in Botswana.
Nairobi, Kenya: Population Council Africa Operations Research/Technical Assistance Project
II.
Outside funding
United States Agency for International Development
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