Mbn hiv/aids evaluation final report Team of consultants

4.2.2.3. Sustainability

It is not clear to what extent counterparts in Southern Africa will be sustainable in times of HIV/AIDS: impact is not well documented, workplace policies have not yet been implemented to the full extent, knowledge management systems have not been put in place (with some exceptions such as Safaids, Wasn, SWEAT, AFSA,), etc. The vulnerability of many of the counterparts to HIV/AIDS has not decreased so far. In India the counterparts are generally not yet prepared for the internal impact of HIV/AIDS, and it is possible that this will negatively influence their organisational sustainability in the future. But the CFAs are working hard on this aspect.
The evaluators have visited good examples of organisations that invest in knowledge management, engage multi skilled staff, train second persons for each post, offer a balanced lunch for staff, facilitate access to treatment, etc. If there is commitment from senior staff and ongoing support for HIV/AIDS mainstreaming from CFAs – for longer than 10 years – sustainability of these organisations will improve as most of the counterparts funded are strong organisations with lot of opportunities. Increased efforts in capacity building will even make the “strong and sustainable” counterparts attractive for other donors.
Counterparts are looking for a sustainable funding of their workplace policies. The evaluators have seen examples of organisations where staff developed income generating programmes or fundraising activities to cover treatment costs for all staff, to the detriment of their own daily work. Seen from this perspective the elaboration of the “donor guidelines on support to partners to manage HIV/AIDS in the workplace” is an important step forwards. Novib adopted them for all counterparts. The other CFA’s, except PLAN use the donor guidelines in two pilot countries, India and Uganda. Funding of insurance premiums is one of the bottlenecks. These can be covered in overhead costs financed by the CFA (budget support), but it will be a challenge to look for local responses. Worth mentioning is the initiative taken by Hivos to analyse, with the sector of micro finances, to what extent local response can be developed. The success of these experiments will contribute to the sustainability of the counterparts.