There is donor dependency among the counterparts visited and this is deteriorated due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Due to the many deaths, HIV/AIDS is a human disaster and people try to survive. Coping is more a practice than sustaining. However some of them already succeeded to access grants or funds from national AIDS committees (especially in Malawi and India), the Global Fund and other bigger donors. Continuing investment in capacity building of the counterparts is at stake to enable them to attract other donors or funding from national government.
One has to be vigilant to not over fund counterparts. On the one hand there is this danger of over funding, on the other hand, the needs are huge and counterparts ask for more funds. The evaluators have seen some examples of counterparts that have grown too fast and have expanded their limits, threatening their survival.
Due to financial constraint many counterparts rely heavily on volunteers, mostly female volunteers. It will be a challenge to keep up the motivation of these volunteers. Many counterparts loose volunteers frequently. When volunteers are not supported appropriately (by counselling, motivating, providing an income, putting them on a career path) the use of volunteers is not empowering for women, not attractive for men and eventually not sustainable. The situation analysis of the SAN! project group on gender, challenges the non-payment of female volunteers. It would be advisable to find an innovative solution to this problem.
