NGO support toolkit (English)  >  Strategic planning  >  Situation assessment 

Institutional response analysis

In order to define the added value of an NGO support provider (NSP), it is important to understand the extent of existing programmes of other key players in HIV/AIDS and related areas, as well as major new initiatives that are currently being planned.

First of all there needs to be an analysis of what is required for an effective response based on the HIV situation assessment. This can be articulated at three levels:

• what kind of direct services are required;
• what changes are necessary at the individual level (such as hope, motivation, skills);
• and what is needed to provide a sufficiently supportive and enabling environment for behaviour change, access to services and protection of rights.

At each level, the analysis needs to question the scope, geography and population profile of needs, and the quality and sustainability of the overall HIV/AIDS response and the civil society HIV/AIDS response. Analyzing the overall response to HIV/AIDS involves reviewing:

• government plans, structures and the reality of the delivery of public services
• broad civil society responses (for example, media coverage, religious groups, trade unions)
• visibility and activities of people with HIV/AIDS and their self-help groups
• key actors and leaders in the commercial sector
• major donors active in the country or region
• major NGOs already working on HIV/AIDS (including non health-sector HIV/AIDS work; for example, human rights organisations).

Analysing existing HIV/AIDS related NGO/CBO support involves determining:

• who offers money, what amounts and over what time periods?
• who offers technical assistance (including both financial and non-financial support)?
• what formal and informal training resources exist, including information resources, training manuals, adaptable education materials, etc?
• who offers what assistance with the supply of commodities to NGOs/CBOs, such as medication, condoms, sterile injection equipment, etc?

The range of agencies and individuals to include in such an assessment includes:

• HIV/AIDS-related NGO and CBO support organisations
• donors
• resource centres and key resource people
• individuals who are identified as leaders in the NGO/CBO and HIV/AIDS sectors
• possible providers of support from outside the catchment area of the NSP (for example, an adjoining country)
• other major initiatives not focused specifically on HIV/AIDS, such as Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan (PRSP) initiatives, ‘social funds’ and Sector Wide APproaches (SWAPs). Increasingly such initiatives focus some attention to financing HIV/AIDS work for the poor.

Issues to consider

• As in the HIV/AIDS situation assessment, NSPs may conduct both a general response assessment across the country or catchment area and more detailed response assessments in designated priority sites.
• Donors from outside a country (for example, the World Bank) will often have available evaluations and similar documents that can richly inform a response analysis.
• Response analysis can be very difficult as competition between organisations may encourage some people to distort the true picture of who is doing what.
• It is often particularly difficult to get accurate quality, coverage and cost data from other programmes. Assessment teams will need to balance the level of effort required against the benefits to be gained from understanding other programmes in detail.
• The response analysis may reveal that other organisations are undertaking work using approaches that the NSP does not support. The NSP must decide if its approach represents significant value added in comparison to that which is already being offered.

Related themes

Partner and project selection

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