Alliance technical support hubs encourage new horizontal cooperation
28 October 2008
In an example of south-south collaboration through the Alliance’s new technical support hubs, Alliance India has provided specialist monitoring and evaluation (M&E) support to the Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance (KHANA), the Alliance’s linking organisation in Cambodia.
Following the launch of the Alliance’s fifth technical support hub earlier this year – based in New Delhi and providing support to South Asia – technical support has been delivered successfully from one Alliance partner to another. KHANA approached the hub and requested a regional consultant that could advise it on Global Fund M&E requirements. KHANA is currently a Global Fund grant sub recipient for round five and is hoping to become principal recipients in round nine. It required a consultant who could prepare the organisation and ensure that it had the necessary M&E capacities.
Preeti Das, the programme officer for M&E at Alliance India was selected to undertake the work in September 2008 following a competitive, quality assurance process. The assignment involved finalising M&E guidelines for KHANA’s partners, providing feedback on its database which is currently being developed, and taking staff through a mock session with an M&E strengthening tool developed by the Global Fund.
As a result some changes were proposed to KHANA’s data collection tools. A draft M&E plan and a detailed report were prepared, highlighting the organisation’s strengths and weaknesses in the area of M&E with respect to the Global Fund.
Alliance India has been a principal recipient of the Global Fund itself for the last 18 months, so Preeti was able to share her organisation’s own experiences and learning in this area. Examples like this of horizontal support and cooperation within the Alliance family suggest a promising start for the new system of decentralized technical support.
