NLV Jul-Dec 2013 External (2014) by The Power Is In People

contents List of acronyms

Executive Summary

Program Overview

Exploring Humanitarian Strategies

Strengthening Civil Society

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

Partnerships

Financial Audits

Changes in the External/National context

Program Context Analysis

List of Partners

Progress against Program Objectives

Improving health outcomes relating to HIV and AIDS, TB and water-related infections and diseases

Increasing and sustaining food security and livelihoods options available to households

Increasing and upholding access to social protection and rights

Cross-cutting issues

Progress against Management Objectives

Strengthening community development approaches with a focus on supporting civil society organisations (both formal and informal groups of people) 29

Supporting the sustainable delivery of, and increased community participation in, integrated development programs

Creating and sustaining an enabling environment with a focus on communities of vulnerable people

List of Partners and their Beneficiaries

Conclusion

Appendix 1 No Longer Vulnerable Output Summary Report, July to December 2013

list of

acronyms General acronyms AACES ART ARV/ARVs CLTS CSO DRR ECD GBV HCT MEL NDMC NHI NPO NRDRG

Australia Africa Community Engagement Scheme

Antiretroviral Therapy

Antiretroviral medication

Community Led Total Sanitation

Civil Society Organisation

Disaster Risk Reduction

Early Childhood Development

Gender-based Violence

HIV Counselling and Testing

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

National Disaster Management Centre

National Health Insurance

Non-Profit Organisation

National Rural Development Reference Group

NSP OAU OCA OGB OIT OVC PMTCT SANAC SRH TB TWL WASH WNZ YWLI

National HIV, AIDS and STIs Strategic Plan 2012–2016

Oxfam Australia (in South Africa)

Oxfam Canada (in South Africa)

Oxfam Great Britain (in South Africa)

Oxfam Italia (in South Africa)

Orphans and Vulnerable Children

Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission

South African National AIDS Council

Sexual and Reproductive Health

Tuberculosis

Transformational Women’s Leadership

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

Women’s Networking Zone

Young Women Leadership Initiative

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Acronyms/abbreviated names used for partners in this report AFH ALN Biowatch CATCH CHoiCe CREATE DHC FSG GLN HACT HAPG HWC Isibane JAW KMCRC KRCC LAFN LifeLine LIMA OpUp OVSA

Art for Humanity

AIDS Legal Network

Biowatch SA

Caring, Affirming, Teaching Children Projects

CHoiCe Trust

CREATE

Denis Hurley Centre

Farmers Support Group

Gay and Lesbian Network – Pietermaritzburg

Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust

HIV and AIDS Prevention Group Bela Bela

PACSA Palabora PE RAPCAN RCCTT RSS SCKZN Sinamandla Sinani Siyavuna Sophakama

Curt Warmberg Haven Wellness Centre

Isibane Sethemba

Justice and Women

KwaMakhutha Community Resource Centre

KwaZulu Regional Christian Council

Loaves and Fishes Network

LifeLine Durban

LIMA

Operation Upgrade

OneVoice South Africa

TAC TCOE Thušanang TP TU WFSA Vhutshilo WFP Africaid WM

Pietermaritzburg Agency for Community Social Action

Palabora Foundation

Project Empower

RAPCAN

Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust

Refugee Social Services

Save the Children KwaZulu-Natal

Sinamandla

Sinani/KZN Program for Survivors of Violence

Siyavuna Abalimi Development Centre

Sophakama Community-Based Development, Care and Support Organisation

Treatment Action Campaign

Trust for Community Outreach and Education

Thušanang Trust

Triangle Project

Tholulwazi Uzivikele

Wilderness Foundation South Africa — Umzi Wethu Project

Vhutshilo Mountain School

Women on Farms Project

Africaid Trust WhizzKids United

Woza Moya

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executive

summary The Oxfam Australia Country Office in South Africa, through its No Longer Vulnerable (NLV) program, supports civil society organisations which deliver programs that: improve health outcomes relating to HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, water-related infections and diseases; increase and sustain food security and livelihoods options; and increase and uphold access to social protection and rights.

Partnerships

This document reports on activities between July and December 2013, during which time the integrated NLV program reached its 18th month of operation. The key processes and emerging lessons from the period under review are highlighted in this executive summary.

Partners worked towards outputs in five key areas: • Improving health outcomes; • Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH); • Food security; • Access to Rights; and • Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

Two new partnerships — with Sinamandla and Siyavuna Abalimi Development Centre (Siyavuna) — were entered into, leading to a total of 43 partners receiving support through grants, with 27 of these based in KwaZulu-Natal. Partners reported they had reached a total of 597,828 beneficiaries — 98,899 direct beneficiaries and 498,929 indirect beneficiaries, with over half in each of these two categories being female.

The Context South Africa continued to be a dynamic and rapidly changing context within which to implement development initiatives. Highlights from a detailed analysis of the context (Context and Power Analysis – Oxfam in South Africa 2014-2016) and from partner contextual analyses included: • Divisions: South Africa remained divided, with a widening level of inequality that is considered a real threat to stability in the country. • Marginalisation: Substantial gaps between policy and practice continued to be evidenced through ongoing marginalisation of vulnerable groups. • Gender: Inequality has remained a critical development issue, and one that is complex and impossible to separate from race and class-based constructs. • Access to Health: The healthcare crisis has not abated. Most South Africans continued to use an under resourced and poorly managed public sector health system, with the private sector arrangements becoming increasingly unaffordable. • Basic Services: Access to potable water and adequate sanitation has increased, however both issues remain areas on which improvement efforts should be focused.

Progress towards Program Objectives Each of the progress summaries below will begin with quantitative data to provide a snapshot overview of some progress indicators.

Improving Health Outcomes:

HIV prevention programs underway

people receiving home-based care visits

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Significant strides towards the implementation of sound HIV and AIDS treatment have been made across the country. Prevention and treatment of TB remains a challenge. Partners have expressed experiencing “AIDS fatigue” among the communities they work in. Drug “holidays”, lower levels of HIV prevention awareness, HIV “normalization” (where so many people are living with HIV that the prevention concern decreases) and general treatment defaulting are considered evidence of this fatigue. Partners are ensuring that close monitoring, and continuous and innovative prevention strategies are considered and implemented.

Key learning: • WASH and HIV-related services can and should be integrated for increased impact. Partners have emerging models for the successful integration of these two focus areas. • Integrating wash into general rights-based work leads to an increasing tendency among partners to have their voices heard by local decision makers on WASH issues. • Increasing “voice” by partners on WASH issues facilitates a process of holding decision makers to account on service delivery quality and timelines.

Key learning: • The possibility exists that broad-based HIV prevention programs are no longer an urgent priority for HIV and AIDS service providers and government. The link to decreased donor interest in prevention services could be fuelling this decline in attention to prevention work. • Programs are no longer focusing with urgency on the basics of HIV and its impact (education, prevention, and issues such as gender, masculinity, sexual and reproductive rights, general rights). • The Health Outcomes component of Oxfam’s work continues to use an HIV-related results framework, but there is a need to adapt this because originally proposed indicators may have to be revised as partners and communities respond to contextual demands and changes.

Food Security:

household gardens established

Technical support to produce food was provided, for example, one partner supported 658 small-scale food producers to increase production using agro-ecology farming methods. This came to the attention of government officials who have started considering scaling up support for the producers using these methods. Small-scale producers also showed increased awareness of the potential and real impact of climate change on food security, with increased implementation of climate change adaptation strategies.

WATER,SANITATION AND HYGIENE (WASH):

communities with access to appropriate hand washing facilities

households harvesting food crops more than once a year

Key Learning: • As with already noted components of the NLV program, the integration of food security work with WASH, livelihoods work, HIV and DRR resulted in partners having a stronger understanding of the interconnectedness of systems and processes, and maximized the impact of their work on development-related issues. • Increased capacity among partners results in increased standards of living in communities. This is particularly so where partners are engaging with government and service providers (in various ways, including multi-stakeholder forums) to meet the immediate needs of the communities. • Some partners reported an increased ability by beneficiaries to access resources, including livelihoods options, food security and even income. This is attributed to increased beneficiary capacity emerging from training and technical support provided through partners’ work.

people accessing improved sanitation facilities

Most partners have successfully integrated WASH and HIV-related services. A key focus has been the facilitation and creation of a range of approaches to increasing community knowledge and application of WASH principles and integration. Rainwater harvesting from rooftops, catchment dam building and appropriate water use (including proper hand washing and water storage) are being promoted in a range of contexts, including schools and homesteads. Partners have engaged well within their communities, raising their “WASH voices” in relevant community forums.

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Access to Rights:

Partners have indicated success in integrating DRR elements into their primary work. Partners implemented work that resulted in a community setting up an early warning system for harsh storms and a system of support among female community members around processes such as protecting homes from flooding. Work was also successfully implemented around engaging responsible role players (such as disaster management teams, ward councillors and community leaders) to map hazards and determine actions to respond to these.

birth certificates applied for and received

successful attempts to secure identity documents

Key learning: • DRR uptake among partners works best when integrated with existing focus areas and services. • Increased partner confidence results in high levels of engagement and influence, demonstrated, for example, by engagement with a wider range of stakeholders. • Engagement by partners in capacity building processes has a direct impact on their sustainability beyond Oxfam’s specific funding period.

Partners implemented increasingly elaborate strategies for campaigning around rights, advocating for justice and advancing the voices of minorities. Examples of this included engagement in national level processes such as the Traditional Courts Bill and the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act (also known as the Sexual Offences Act). Work done to ensure the constitutional right to an identity resulted in beneficiaries successfully accessing identity documents and birth certificates, processes that are often complicated and inaccessible in some communities in South Africa. Joint work among partners to ensure the implementation and monitoring of sexual offences legislation also took place, with government subsequently announcing the reintroduction of specialised sexual offences courts.

Cross-cutting issues: Active Citizenship and Gender remained cross-cutting issues. With a significant focus on upcoming elections, partner programs were aimed at conscientising community members and youth in particular about their rights, responsibilities and potential roles in a democratic context. During this reporting period many partners were able to demonstrate that their beneficiaries have been exercising their agency and accessing or claiming their rights. However, their experiences in engaging multi stakeholders, especially local government, vary considerably. In the last NLV program report, Oxfam noted that there were low levels of participation and engagement with policy-making processes by partners, whereas, in the last six months, there appears to have been a shift as more partners are now aggressively engaging with policy-making processes.

Key learning: • Partner’s engagement of local politicians (such as ward councillors) often serves as an initial link between communities and local government. Risks exist that the issues raised may become politicised in a ‘party politics’ manner. • Mobilised communities that hold local officials to account see increases in the quality of the services delivered to their communities.

DISASTER RISK REDUCTION (DRR):

people attended DRR related community meetings or dialogues

With regards gender, partners’ programmatic work during the period shows the use of strategic interventions and innovative methodologies to empower young girls and as well as men and women to ensure confident, independent, visible and politically conscious people who become change agents in their own communities. Programs, including awareness drives, attempted to encourage self-determination and agency in order for people to think critically and to effect change in their own lives. Transformational leadership is an area that has been explored through the continued Transformational Women’s Leadership community of practice webinar (web-based seminar) series. The current series, Practices for Change, is looking at examining and articulating current approaches, strategies and practices being implemented across various contexts to further social transformation.

community action plans were created

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Inter-affiliate Collaboration

Conclusion

The period saw positive developments relating to inter-affiliate co-operation. Mechanisms such as formal inter-affiliate agreements on specific projects and sharing staff time and capacity were evident and successful. Financial collaboration on specific projects was another mechanism for enhanced inter-affiliate engagement. An example of inter-affiliate collaboration was the joint support for AWETHU! – a civil society initiative to establish a people’s platform for social justice in South Africa.

The period reported on in this document has been one of dynamic program implementation across a large range of communities and their specific contexts. In addition, the NLV program has taken place in a changing and challenging national context, where past, current and planned political processes and events impact on almost all aspects of development work. Despite the external challenges, and those brought about by the changing internal space experienced by the Oxfam team, there has been considerable positive movement towards goal attainment by both partners and staff, and a large reach in terms of partners and beneficiaries.

Management Objectives

Perhaps the learning of primary importance emerging from this phase is that the integrated approach is showing levels of success that cut across each key focal area. This could be because the integrated approach is giving many partners the opportunities and the space to “see the links” between all the factors that contribute to the vulnerabilities evidenced by their particular beneficiaries. This empowers the partners, and in turn their beneficiaries and affected communities, to begin engaging with government and local authorities, and holding them to account for non delivery and poor delivery. This is a powerful and profound way to begin effecting change. In addition, key learning points have emerged in each of the program focus areas; these will also be used to influence and drive future positive change. This momentum will be sustained to ensure that the remainder of the programmatic year is successful in meeting the core goals of the No Longer Vulnerable program in South Africa.

Strengthening civil society: During this reporting period various activities took place in continuation of the strengthening of civil society, these included events, workshops, capacity building and attendance at short courses offered by universities.

Supporting sustainable delivery of integrated programs: Work towards supporting the sustainable delivery of integrated programs was carried out, with some key components being exchange visits, support for events focusing on central issues, and shared learning. Partner learning was documented and shared in text format as case studies. Learning in video format was also developed and promoted and shared online.

Creating and sustaining an enabling environment: The NLV program revisited some of the debates on HIV prevention, supported initiatives around the early childhood development sector and supported the Women’s Networking Zone (WNZ), a community-based and driven partnership forum for learning, dialogue and exchange.

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program

overview The No Longer Vulnerable integrated program reached a full eighteen months of implementation in December 2013. At that stage anecdotal evidence suggested more partners were integrating their initiatives and deriving some benefits; the benefits of integration will be fully investigated and reported on later this year (2014).

2013 the first public mass meeting of AWETHU! was held in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. The meeting was called after consultation (with over 100 organisations and individuals across South Africa) about the need for a broad civic alliance of organisations and individuals committed to the re-centring of South Africa politics around social justice. The three Oxfam affiliates in South Africa, Oxfam Great Britain (OGB), Oxfam Italia (OIT) and Oxfam Australia (OAU), support AWETHU!. OGB was mandated to manage the partnership due to the location of AWETHU!. The resources were made available to AWETHU! to support initiatives happening between January and June 2014 that are geared around the May 2014 elections.

The annual operational plan for the period July 2013 to June 2014 called for some ambitious initiatives to be implemented. As with every new operational plan, glitches and diversions will occur and the desire to stick to the original plan must, out of necessity, be influenced by what happens during the implementation phase. The usual program management processes also took place, but with grants to partners disseminated later than anticipated due to internal processes. By November 2013, the majority of partners had received their first tranche. The payments that had not been made by then had been delayed by complicated internal processes, especially with respect to a partner placed at a university, and the weakness of a partner’s operational plan. Going forward, the team in Durban will be looking at ways of minimizing late payments to avoid negatively affecting partners’ programming.

“AWETHU!’s work will not end with the 2014 elections. Neither does AWETHU! see elections as the most important moment in a democracy. However, elections present a time of heightened politicization which can be used to consolidate a platform for social justice, so that on the other side of elections civil society is more unified and better co-ordinated to hold government and private power to account and advance struggles for rights.”

The Durban office is known for its ability to host big learning events and our most recent one, entitled “Voices”, again more than fulfilled this expectation. It brought all our partners and affiliates in the country together and, in that context and as a result of them collectively acknowledging the shift in the South African political space and how that was affecting civil society, there was a realization that there was a need to respond and to divert resources to support an initiative or initiatives that could facilitate this response. This realization ultimately gave rise to what became “AWETHU!”,1 a people’s platform for social justice. In November

AWETHU!

“Awethu” means “it is ours!”

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Exploring Humanitarian Strategies

2013 are also made possible by this funding. This event arose after a number of organizations operating in Durban, including Refugee Social Services (RSS), met with OAU staff in Durban in October 2013 to discuss the “Sharing the City Campaign”. That campaign was initiated to address the poor recognition of the issues that affect the refugee community in South Africa, and as an acknowledgement that the existing “World Refugee Day”, which occurs once a year, draws insufficient attention to the realities faced by refugees. OAU offered to support the design of the campaign, using expertise from the broader Oxfam network.

Drawing on the draft Humanitarian Strategy of Oxfam in South Africa (2013–2016), OAU staff worked together with the Adventist Relief and Development Agency (ADRA) to plan the resurrection of the Humanitarian Assistance Network of South Africa (HANSA), which had been established through collaboration by OGB and a number of humanitarian actors in South Africa. Unfortunately, ADRA did not have the opportunity to complete the necessary documentation before the deadline. With additional resources available, it was decided to invest in the component of civil society organisations and the South African Government that focuses on building capacities to meet the needs of the on-the-ground realities while also creating and strengthening relationships between them. It is hoped that these working relationships will then broaden beyond reactive short-term responses to include proactive long-term programming based on a thorough understanding of vulnerability. Through its work in the Ekurhuleni metropolitan area (Gauteng province), OIT has developed a strong working relationship with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), which is the department under which the National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) works. The NDMC Capacity Building Project was born out of this relationship. This project will work to ensure that the institutional capacity of the South African Government is strong enough to enable the effective implementation of disaster management policy and legislation. It will do so by transferring knowledge and providing technical support to government regarding the implementation of the National Disaster Management Framework (NDMF), DRR and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA). The project will be managed by OIT with support from OAU and OGB, with OAU seconding an OIT employee to manage the project (amongst other humanitarian initiatives). This new way of working for the Oxfam affiliates in South Africa, and the progress made, will be elaborated upon in our next report.

“When we are told that there are terrorists in the country the refugees and asylum seekers get blamed or targeted. There is great deal of corruption with regard to documentation. Our municipality treats these people as drug dealers, criminals and a burden. Ninety percent of the clients at Refugee Social Services are decent people in a terrible situation. They are exploited by landlords. They have been forced to flee their home countries and have come to a place that possibly won’t work for them either. The breakdown in the home country has forced people to flee.” Refugee Social Services Director During the period under review a planned TWL exchange visit to Bangladesh had to be cancelled due to unrest in that country, however, an exchange visit that involved partners visiting WaterAid in Malawi, through the Water Sanitation and Hygiene program, went ahead and proved to be a highlight of the period. Tholulwazi Uzivikele (TU) participated in the visit and subsequently applied some of the knowledge acquired by setting up “Water Ambassadors” in the schools in which it is working. In October 2013, a number of partners participated in a workshop in Port Elizabeth under the DRR umbrella. Bringing these partners together allowed them to share in the lessons, and to elevate some of the key issues, that have arisen out of the ongoing reviews and documentation of the DRR case study. They also shared information about the work being done and were offered a chance to have further input into the process. In essence, this was a continuation of the consultation with partners engaged in DRR work, along with exposing those partners that might be considering integrating DRR into their programs to relevant information and experiences.

Strengthening Civil Society Over the years OAU programming has focused on strengthening South African civil society through providing technical support for capacity building; this financial year saw an increase of 8% in the funding allocated to this area of programming. In the 2012–2013 period, the ratio of partner grants to capacity building was 78:22, whereas the 2013–2014 year allocates 70% to partner grants and 30% to capacity building. Funds for capacity building are essential to our programming as they give us opportunities to engage with partners on different issues. These opportunities will be highlighted in various areas of this report, and include our support of the continuation of the documenting of Phase 2 of the HIV and AIDS Prevention Group Bela Bela (HAPG) case study; the continuation of the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) case study; video storytelling and screening; the Transformational Women’s Leadership (TWL) community of practice series of webinar (web-based seminar) sessions; governance and organisational development; and exchange exposure visits. Public events like the “Refugee Day” held in

“It was good to learn from Malawian partners’ innovations and ways of working.” Tholulwazi Uzivikele

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Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

their CD4 count. Unfortunately, the guidelines and the ways in which they are applied in clinics indicate a lack of understanding of how HIV “works”. One result of the confusion they create may be an increase in mother-to-child-transmission and it is thus essential for us to monitor this area.

In the June 2013 report we articulated the challenges experienced in collecting and reporting on quantitative data from our partners. The design of the collection tool, our partners’ unfamiliarity with it and their failure to use it correctly all appear to have contributed to this. Subsequently our team worked on the tool to improve it, reworking ambiguous fields, adding clearer definitions for ambiguous terms, and providing a guide for partners on how to engage with the output summary. These efforts, and additional support from the program team, resulted in great improvements (see Appendix 1. No Longer Vulnerable Output Summary Report, July to December 2013).

“Prevention” is the key strategic objective in the South African government’s “National Strategic Plan on HIV, STIs and TB, 2012–2016”, which has as its vision for South Africa these four “zeros”: “Zero new HIV and TB infections; Zero new infections due to vertical transmission; Zero preventable deaths associated with HIV and TB; Zero discrimination associated with HIV and TB.” Unfortunately there was little reported in the way of new prevention ideas by partners. CHoiCe Trust (CHoiCe) indicated it thinks that prevention activities have become so integrated into other activities that they have become harder to define. For example, CHoiCe talks about food security training being part of prevention because it can alleviate some of the reasons young girls have relationships with “sugar daddies”. CHoiCe also indicates that care and support are part of prevention because a suppressed viral load (due to treatment and adherence) means that a person is less likely to pass on the virus if they have unprotected sex. CHoiCe has found that it is doing so many other “responsive” activities that it is not engaging in direct prevention messaging. It also argued that the impact of prevention activities is so difficult to measure that sometimes there was a tendency for OAU to sway towards those that delivered the more measurable changes. CHoiCe is now looking at dialogues and community capacity enhancement as a way for it to promote behaviour change that will prevent HIV transmission. Ongoing debates and monitoring of HIV prevention programs will continue to form part of our agenda.

In our continued efforts to refine how we track our work, our HIV Result Framework Tool has been simplified. It is used to track how we are progressing, using the indicators and risks that have been identified for monitoring purposes. In the June 2013 report we undertook to monitor at least three of the major risks that could impact negatively on our HIV programming work. One of those risks is the lack of supplies of essential HIV and/or TB medicines that has been experienced by some health facilities. (This shortage is usually referred to as a “stockout” or “stock out”, from the notion that these supplies are “out of stock”.) Of our partners, only the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which has taken on a mandate to monitor and hold government to account, has reported on the prevalence of stock outs. If stock outs continue they could reverse the progress that has been made. Being unable to access medication can create drug-resistance amongst people who have been doing well on treatment, and it can ultimately lead to death or severe health complications that are very expensive for individuals, households or the state to treat.

“We have moved so far into lifestyle factors and contributing cause or drivers of new HIV infection that we may need to regroup around basic prevention methodologies which work”

HAPG argues that a lot has been achieved in the area of HIV, and that the state’s HIV and Prevention of Mother-to-Child-Transmission (PMTCT) guidelines for 2013 are well-intentioned, but that there is confusion at clinic level where the guidelines get interpreted and implemented. The guidelines do not provide for baseline viral load testing and this exclusion is puzzling. If this was a cost-saving measure its omission may simply result in the hiding of costs, especially longer-term costs, associated with HIV. It suggests that people are being “processed” in a way that initially saves money, but seriously undermines treatment. Pregnant women found to be HIV positive are automatically placed on fixed-dose combination highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), however the guidelines do not also suggest testing of

CHoiCe This financial year’s operational plan includes the following review processes: AACES Mid-term Review, AACES Value for Money case study, No Longer Vulnerable Integrated Program Mid-term Review, and the end of program DRR evaluation. The results of these processes will be discussed in the report that covers activities from January to July 2014.

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Partnerships

Financial Audits

At the beginning of this reporting period OAU took on two additional partnerships; this saw the number of partners receiving support through grants reach 43, with 27 of these partners based in KwaZulu-Natal (with a spread between rural and peri-urban areas and the inner city of Durban). These new partners, Sinamandla and Siyavuna, were engaged because we recognised that we needed to strengthen the food security and livelihoods part of our work.

In this reporting period our office performed finance audits on 23 of our partners. All the audits were declared “clean”, however, concerns were raised in respect of some of the partners. These concerns are as follows: • Key positions, including director and bookkeeper and some other positions, did not have contracts or contracts were not updated to reflect changes in the position — this was noted at three of the partners; • Documents related to the renewal of salaries and increases to salaries were not updated and filed with the personnel files. (This is required because it helps to verify that the correct people are being paid, and that the payments on the payroll agree with the employment contracts.); • There were inconsistencies in the way policies were implemented; • One partner’s expenditure report was not in line with its support documents, however, there was no misappropriation of funds; and • One partner pays stipends; an external audit recommended that these stipends should be treated as salaries, and that the organisation should register with the South African Revenue Services (SARS) and the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF).

Sinamandla, a non-profit organisation based in Pietermaritzburg, is primarily involved in promoting the Self-Help-Group project (SHG) and in building capacity in partner organisations that implement SHG project. Sinamandla focuses on the social and economic empowerment of those rural women who are trapped in poverty with little access to resources and information and who are living in a patriarchal system that places a lower value on their contribution within the household. Sinamandla is being funded to work with Thušanang Trust (Thušanang) in Limpopo and KwaZulu Regional Christian Council (KRCC) in KwaZulu-Natal (these OAU partners are already working with SHG projects) and also towards developing the capacity of Save the Children KwaZulu-Natal (SCKZN) to establish SHG in rural communities. The other new partner, Siyavuna, is a non-profit organization that works in the Ugu District of KwaZulu-Natal in two of the six municipalities, namely Umdoni and Hibiscus Coast. It has developed a market-led agricultural development model called the “Agricultural Sustainable Community Investment Program” (Agri-SCIP). Central to this model is the Siyavuna Kumnandi brand, which defines and sets a large part of the standards on which the model is based, and which, amongst other things, works towards empowering rural families to improve their food security and to develop a livelihood through agriculture.

These concerns will be followed up on by the NLV program team to ensure that they are eliminated in the future. Two of the partners had hired new bookkeepers during the period being reported on and it is expected that this will result in an improvement to their bookkeeping and financial management. The majority of the partners that were audited by our office had also undergone external audits, with only two of those partners failing to list Oxfam as a donor. Our conclusion is that most of the partners that were audited by Oxfam have good systems in place, and that we will need to work with those partners that are still battling in order to improve their financial management systems.

In this period some hard decisions were again taken, including the decision to phase out Hluhluwe Advent Crèche from its partnership with OAU in the next financial year. Reaching a decision to release a partner is never easy; the circumstances upon which this decision was based were discussed in the June 2013 report.

Changes in the External/National context As always when presenting the six months NLV program report we also reflect on the environment in which we work, and the external changes that have occurred in this environment. A full contextual and power analysis, entitled Contextual and Power Analysis — Oxfam in South Africa 2014–2016 — March report was completed in March 2014 and the information that follows is largely extracted from it. (The full report is available on request from OAU).

During this reporting period the various Oxfam affiliates in South Africa have worked together on more occasions than was previously the case, generally through inter-affiliate agreements on certain projects. OAU and OIT have begun sharing staff members, including the post of “Program Coordinator” that is filled by Winile Maboko, who manages the Eastern Cape partners and participates in the NLV program meetings and staff meetings in the OAU Durban office every second month. Another position that is shared with OIT is filled by Benedetta Gualandi, who leads the NDMC Capacity Building Project (which falls within the DRR work we do) and who is based in Pretoria. The partnerships between affiliates also include financial collaboration on projects and initiatives, particularly AWETHU! and the NDMC Capacity Building Project.

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Young democracy and the legacy of apartheid:

Women’s rights and gender equality:

Twenty years into democracy, South Africa remains divided. Inequality is widening and threatening the stability of the country. The triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment continue to plague the majority of South Africans, ravaging their hopes and dreams of a better life. While some argue that apartheid should no longer be blamed after almost 20 years of democracy it is impossible to deny that the legacy of apartheid continues to shape South African society today. A system of discrimination, imposed and enforced over generations, designed to benefit a small minority at the expense of the majority, takes time and unyielding determination to dismantle. The structural impedances created to wealth accumulation and improved livelihoods persist across a number of generations. Despite government responses, inequalities continue to skew the distribution of wealth and opportunities. While the composition of the South African elite is slowly changing, there is a lack of genuine economic transformation in the lives of the majority of South Africans — especially previously disadvantaged communities. This lack of real transformation has led to tensions which threaten to undermine the gains of the country’s young democracy. Major indications of this threat include: the increased internal tensions within the ruling African National Congress (ANC) with regard to South Africa’s development path; tensions in the ANC’s relationship with its traditional allies, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP)2; and the increasing frequency of what have come to be termed “service delivery protests”3. In this period the Marikana massacre continued to be the point of “rupture” in post-apartheid politics. It has been followed by other ruptures that point to decisive change in politics in South Africa. These include generalised worker struggles for a living wage, the mobilisation of the middle class around e-tolls, the possibility that the cost of electricity, water and other services will continue to rise, and the death of Nelson Mandela. These ruptures can either be turned into an opportunity for progressive forces, or a defeat. Watchful eyes have been on the “NUMSA moment” which indicates a reaching for a new kind of labour politics and signals a stronger challenge to neo-liberal macro-economic tenets. Another moment that South Africans are watching is the road to 7 May 2014, when they will have to cast their vote under democracy for the fourth time. There is confusion over which political party to vote for, with parties continuing to make promises in their political manifestos in the hope of winning more votes.

Women’s rights and gender equality are at the centre of our working towards achieving transformational women’s leadership. Despite the progress made by women in political leadership and in the private sector, women in communities still feel the effects of race and gender inequality. A combination of factors drives gender inequality in South Africa. Social drivers include attitudes and beliefs, particularly those backed by patriarchy that continue to subjugate women, contributing to a “globally unprecedented” incidence of violence against women.4 In South Africa 144 women report rape to police every day, equating to six cases reported every hour. Yet many rapes go unreported — recent research from the Medical Research Council (MRC) indicates that only one in 25 women in Gauteng who have been raped actually report the rape to the police. It is therefore possible, extrapolating from these figures, that up to 3,600 women are raped every day. Gender justice must be informed by a thorough analysis and understanding of the factors that influence the unequal status of women in South African society. It is important to realize that gender is about the power difference between men and women and not about “women’s affairs”. The resistance of men to give up part of their power is a major driver of the continuation of gender inequality.

2 3 4

Marginalisation of women and other vulnerable groups: The broad goal of the NLV framework is the reduction in vulnerability of the people of South Africa. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people and sex workers experience high levels of vulnerability and a number of our partners have been engaged because they work at reducing these vulnerabilities through different initiatives. These groups are vulnerable despite South Africa having a strong legislative framework for the protection of LGBTI people and sex workers. As with most social policy in South Africa, there is a substantial gap between the “paper” rights and the lived experiences of large segments of the community. South African society generally shows high levels of homophobia and low levels of tolerance for people who do not fit an absolutely heterosexual identity. The risks facing the LGBTI community are increased significantly in rural communities, where they are compounded by conservative beliefs and practices. A prevalent discourse in South Africa characterizes homosexuality as an “un-African, colonial import”. Religious and traditional fundamentalism has further provoked the anxiety of LGBTI activists who are working to promote and ensure the protection of rights guaranteed by legislation.

The “Tripartite Alliance” of the ANC, COSATU and SACP was a coalition that successfully campaigned against the apartheid government. Violent protests against the lack of service delivery have taken place in a number of communities across the country. Jewkes R, Abrahams N, Mathews S, Seedat M, Van Niekerk A, Suffla S, Ratele K, “Preventing Rape and Violence in South Africa: Call for Leadership in a New Agenda for Action, Medical Research Council Policy Brief, 2009. Available online: http://www.mrc.ac.za/gender/prev_rapedd041209.pdf

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There is clear evidence from NGOs across the country that levels of homophobic hate crimes, including assault, rape and murder, are increasing. Between June and November 2012 at least seven people, including five lesbians, were murdered as a result of attacks based on sexual orientation.5 Women living in townships in South Africa are at particular risk of “corrective rape” and murder, with an average of 10 cases of “corrective rape” reported to Western Cape organisation Triangle Project (TP) every week.6 In December 2012, the South African justice ministry agreed with international concerns regarding similar human rights abuses and accepted that there is a vast need for public education to address prejudices based on sexual and gender identity. Compounding the situation facing the LGBTI community in South Africa is the very real problem of secondary victimization, under-reporting of rape and assault cases, and a very low conviction rate of perpetrators in the courts.

nutritious and is sometimes even harmful to health. People struggle to produce their own food for consumption for several reasons, including lack of access to arable land, farming inputs, equipment and technical support. This is partly a legacy of apartheid but also a result of poor policy implementation and coordination. Also, global maize and wheat prices have increased drastically over the last decade and since 2002 global food prices have been on an upward trend.8 In South Africa maize prices rose by one third from November and December 2013 to reach record highs in January 2014.9 It is not only the price of food that has increased significantly in South Africa, but also the cost of essential services such as electricity. This has resulted in people who are living in poverty having to make complex trade-offs.10

Access to health:

The South African state also falls far short in its international and constitutional obligations to sex workers. The main perpetrator of human rights abuses against sex workers is the state itself, in the form of police harassment. Civil society has had to litigate against the state to compel it to abide by existing laws that prohibit the arrest of sex workers for purposes of harassment. This litigation in relation to the rights denied to sex workers has far reaching implications for South Africa — it exposes the state’s complicity in denying constitutionally enshrined rights to dignity, freedom from violence, access to health, and fair labour practices.

Health care in South Africa is in crisis. The inherited inequalities of the apartheid system have left South Africa with a health system divided between private and public, rich and poor, urban and rural. Despite almost 20 years of democracy, there has been no significant impact made on the problems. Harrowing accounts of long queues, pharmacies without stock, patients lying on floors, and women dying in labour indicate the realities of health care for many South Africans. The inherited inequalities were exacerbated by a period of enforced economic austerity during the late 1990s and 2000s, during which time there was retrenchment of health professionals, closure of training colleges for nurses, and cutting of funds to public hospitals, along with rapid privatisation. The end result is that the majority of South Africans (84%) now utilise an under resourced, poorly run public sector while the private health sector has become an increasingly unaffordable profit-driven industry.

Gender inequality remains a critical development issue for South Africa. It is also a complex issue that is impossible to separate from the inequalities created by class and race. These factors combine to put rural, poor, black women at most risk.

Livelihoods and food security:

Health system reform has been discussed since 1994, but a definite resolution was only passed by the ANC in 2007. The system is presently set to undergo a planned overhaul that aims to achieve universal coverage and deliver quality health care to all citizens. There are “revitalisation” plans to improve equipment in health care facilities, and management and training of health care professionals. In addition, there are plans for a comprehensive reengineering of the primary health care system, achieved through improving district health systems, school health services, and primary health care outreach. The National Health Insurance (NHI) that is being proposed as a solution to the current challenges in the health system is promoted as being able to address the past inequities in relation to quality and

In South Africa, 26% of the population is food insecure and 28.3% at risk of being food insecure. According to the South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, published in 2013 by the Human Sciences Research Council, the largest percentages of participants who experience hunger are in urban informal (32.4%) and rural formal (37%) localities.7 The reasons for food insecurity range from the inability of individuals and households to produce adequate food to feed themselves, to a lack of adequate income to access sufficient food. Furthermore, food produced or bought is not always adequately

5 6 7 8 9 10

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23033423 See http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/12/eudy-simelane-corrective-rape-south-africa Shisana O, Labadarios D, Rehle T, Simbayi L, Zuma K, Dhansay A, Reddy P, Parker W, Hoosain E, Naidoo P, Hongoro C, Mchiza Z, Steyn NP, Dwane N, Makoae M, Maluleke T, Ramlagan S, Zungu N, Evans MG, Jacobs L, Faber M, & SANHANES-1 Team, 2013. “South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (SANHANES-1)”. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Pg 10. Available online: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/uploads/pageNews/72/SANHANES-launch%20edition%20(online%20version).pdf FAO GIEWS, “Food Price Data and Analysis Tool”, http://www.fao.org/giews/pricetool/ FAO, 2014. “Global Food Price Monitor”. Italy: FAO McDaid L and Gore T, 2013. “You Can’t Eat Electricity”. Oxford: Oxfam Great Britain

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Other basic services:

access. Not surprisingly, there has been heated debate in all spheres of society about the form and function of the NHI, as well as resistance from the private sector to the proposals. The government’s White Paper setting out its policies on this matter is still eagerly awaited. Effective reform to health care in South Africa will require significant restructuring of both the private and public sectors.

The number of households with access to potable water (> or = to RDP12 standards) has increased from 79.8% in 2003/4 to 95.5% in 2011/13, meaning that South Africa has already surpassed an element of the 7th Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015. However, access to potable water in particular communities is still a highly contentious matter, with municipalities being unable to meet the infrastructure targets because of a lack of skills and poor maintenance of in situ installations. Climate may impact significantly on water access and availability in the future as certain areas in South Africa are particularly drought prone and the country as a whole is water scarce. The proportion of households with access to sanitation increased from 66.1% in 2003/4 to 83.4% in 2011/12. While this is an admirable achievement, more work needs to be done in this area because sanitation-related outbreaks of disease pose a huge risk to an immune compromised and already disease-burdened country.

South Africa faces a composite of colliding epidemics: explosive HIV and TB epidemics; a high burden of chronic illness; mental health disorders; injury and violence-related deaths; as well as an epidemic of maternal, neonatal and child mortality (South Africa has an infant mortality rate of 46 deaths per 1000 live births).11 South Africa’s per capita health burden is the highest of any middle income country in the world and still affects mainly the poorest families.

HIV and AIDS: South Africa has the largest number of people in the world living with HIV: around 5,5 million people (an estimated 20% of the adult population). HIV infection is disproportionately high for females compared to males and poverty continues to exacerbate the effects of the epidemic on poor people. It is estimated that while over 1 million people need to be on antiretroviral therapy (ART), the number of people actually on ART falls between 700,000 and 900,000. These figures are contested, but this is also the case with other statistics relating to the epidemic. This is largely due to the fact that no comprehensive national monitoring and evaluation framework is in place, despite this being a central component of the National HIV, AIDS and STIs Strategic Plan 2012–2016 (NSP). Widely regarded as an excellent example of what a national response to HIV and AIDS should look like, the NSP remains largely a paper “wish list”. Implementation of the plan continues to be a daunting task in the context of declining human resources as well as the difficulty of funding the R44 billion budget necessary to fully implement the plan. Of critical importance to work in the HIV and AIDS sector will be the outcomes of the policy processes around the NHI and the Community Health Worker Policy Framework.

Program Context Analysis The 2014 National election on 7 May will be a celebratory election that marks the 20 year anniversary for democracy in South Africa. Whilst many South Africans will be celebrating the country’s transition from apartheid to democracy, for the majority of people living in South Africa the quadruple challenges to development: poverty, unemployment, inequality, and HIV and AIDS remain the stark reality 20 years later. Casting one’s vote is considered to be the most basic and simple form of political participation and hence the goal of political freedom has been attained. We must also, however, recognise that political freedom was not followed by economic freedom, or by increased gender and environmental justice. The poverty gap has increased, service delivery is non-existent in many areas, and education and health are two major areas of concern. During electioneering the division lines along race and class become more visible and prominent in public debates, platforms and the media. This has the potential to fracture society further and threaten social solidarity, however, during the period under review none of the partners highlighted this as an issue, or mentioned that it had had any impact on their programs. Compared to our last reporting period, more partners demonstrated confidence and willingness to participate and engage in policy-making processes. Furthermore, community dialogues to enhance knowledge about new policies and about participating in formal structures such as the National Rural Development Reference Group (NRDRG) are being seen as necessary to influence change.

Again, while much progress is evident, the challenges facing South Africa in the response to HIV and AIDS (and other social and development issues) are daunting and will require unprecedented cooperation between all sectors of society. And, while several building blocks for this cooperation are in place, for example the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), issues around representivity and broad consultation still remain.

11 12

IMF World Factbook, 2009 Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP)

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The NLV program attempted to create an understanding of the vulnerabilities of minorities in targeted communities and to deepen the ways of addressing these vulnerabilities. Interventions aimed mostly at shifting organisational culture towards being inclusive of vulnerable minorities. Partners joined forces to create, or to attempt to create, an enabling environment in various ways. The perceived shortfalls in the Women’s Empowerment Gender and Equity Bill (WEGE Bill) created a situation that ably illustrates these collaborative efforts. The WEGE Bill prompted partners like Justice and Women (JAW), LifeLine Durban (LifeLine), Rape Crisis, Gay and Lesbian Network – Pietermaritzburg (GLN), Pietermaritzburg Agency for Community Social Action (PACSA), Woza Moya (WM) and Women on Farms Project (WFP) to promote and advocate for the development of social policy that was more appropriate. These partners saw the WEGE Bill as yet another piece of South African legislature that focused on formal rather than substantive equality; it omitted to put in place adequate measures to make significant changes to the realities of the daily struggle faced by the South African women and girls who are exposed to sexual abuse, domestic violence, and oppressive cultural gender stereotypes. It did not offer redress to women to whom services are denied or incomplete due to reported “shortage” of police, corruption of government officials, and missing police dockets (all reasons that survivors of rape are not willing to report cases13). The omissions in the bill will impact even more greatly on rural, uneducated women who do not have access to information. A further point of concern was that the bill defined gender in binary terms and as a result excluded gender non-conforming people.

mutilation and murder of two girl toddlers (aged two and three), in Diepsloot in Johannesburg; and the torture, rape and then setting alight of a nine-year-old girl in Delft on the outskirts of Cape Town (she was left for dead in a field by her attacker and she subsequently died from the injuries). Preventing the abuse of children is a critical element in the strategies required to prevent violence against women (VAW) — one of the major findings of the VAW baseline studies is that childhood experience of abuse is a key driver of VAW. For these reasons partners like Rape Crisis are working with teenage children and women to raise their awareness of human rights and prevention of violence. Because a higher proportion of men who experience neglect and physical and sexual abuse during their childhood will perpetrate violence as adults it is necessary for schools, early childhood development centres and families to be directly involved in designing and implementing strategies to prevent VAW. Through partner capacity building on child social protection issues facilitated by RAPCAN, partners like Vhutshilo Mountain School (Vhutshilo) and SCKZN (which work in the ECD field) are now reviewing and strengthening their systems around protection of children. OAU is progressively extending child protection capacity building to all its partners, resulting in partners that have started to strengthen their child protection policies. Vulnerability in South Africa is exacerbated by high numbers of people living in continuous poverty and persistent unemployment thus partner projects continue to aim at providing household food in the short term and generating income in the long term to improve livelihoods. Partners like Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust (HACT), Farmers Support Group (FSG), Wilderness Foundation of South Africa — Umzi Wethu Project (WFSA), Isibane Sethemba (Isibane), Biowatch SA (Biowatch), JAW and WM are involved in income generation work, and in food gardens being established at homesteads, schools and community gardens to improve livelihoods.

The partners14 engaged collectively with the public consultation processes on the WEGE Bill and, along with other Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), opposed the process and content of the bill and looked at creating an alternative bill. Through the various interventions of the CSOs to highlight the inaccuracies of the bill and to gain collective support, it is apparent that CSOs are collaborating more closely and are assisting each other in making submissions, endorsing press releases and attending public hearings. Given that it is an election year, it is expected that the WEGE Bill will be passed into law hastily, irrespective of the shortfalls identified by our partners and other CSOs.

South African NGOs and CSOs joined the global community in commemorating World Aids Day, and took the opportunity to applaud the progress that has been made by government, civil society organisations and other stakeholders in ensuring access to HIV testing, counselling and treatment. The many campaigns that have been rolled out over the years, particularly in South Africa, have contributed immensely to achieving the current prevention and treatment milestones. However, South Africa still grapples with access to HIV care and treatment, most especially for migrant and mobile populations. Many migrants (including asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented migrants) still face challenges in accessing HIV care and treatment services. For a long period, NGOs filled the gap by providing access to ART to non-

During the period under review South Africa continued to be plagued by horrendous crimes of violence against women and children, including infants. Among all the alarming statistics and reports, the following received significant media attention in the period: the kidnapping, rape,

13 14

As observed and reported by partners like Rape Crisis, PE and JAW JAW, LifeLine, RCCTT, GLN, PACSA, WM and WFP

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nationals. While some progress has been made to obtain access to care in state facilities, many challenges still remain, including negative attitudes from hospital staff. These attitudes, also often coupled with a lack of knowledge regarding the right to access to health for non-nationals, sometimes result in the denial of services based on nationality. Partners like RSS and HAPG work with refugees and migrant workers to explore how things can be done differently to create better health outcomes in resource-constrained environments. Their work will be monitored to identify best-practice solutions that can be shared. With regard to what was discussed regarding the NHI in the previous reporting period, the NHI was subsequently incorporated into the long-term work of some partners, including PACSA, HAPG and Sophakama Community-Based Development, Care and Support Organisation (Sophakama). PACSA works with those community groups in the NHI district of uMgungundlovu, in KwaZulu-Natal, that have identified health as a priority in their communities. In the last six months PACSA has been working to enhance the knowledge base of these groups so that they better understand the health infrastructure and the reforms to heath policy that are taking place at national level. PACSA and representatives from the community have also met with hospital managers and clinic managers in an attempt to understand the challenges these managers face in delivering health care. It is envisaged that in the next six months the community groups will develop ways to monitor health service delivery and lobby for improvements at the NHI pilot sites. The special unit within SANAC was tasked to develop a monitoring framework for the NSP, however, there have been no developments in this regard yet.

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improving health outcomes

WASH

food security

• CHoiCe Trust • HIV and AIDS Prevention Group Bela Bela • Palabora Foundation • Thušanang Trust • Vhutshilo Mountain School

• Caring, Affirming, Teaching Children Projects • Curt Warmberg Haven Wellness Centre • Loaves and Fishes Network • Sophakama Community Based Development, Care and Support Organisation • Wilderness Foundation South Africa Umzi Wethu Project

• AIDS Legal Network • Women on Farms Project • RAPCAN • Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust • Triangle Project • Trust for Community Outreach and Education

access to rights

disaster risk reduction

• Advent Crèche Hluhluwe • Africaid Trust WhizzKids United • Art for Humanity • Biowatch SA • CREATE • Denis Hurley Centre • Farmers Support Group • Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust • Isibane Sethemba • Justice and Women • KwaMakhutha • Community Resource Centre • KwaZulu Regional Christian Council • LifeLine Durban • LIMA • OneVoice South Africa • Operation Upgrade • Pietermaritzburg Agency for Community Social Action • Gay and Lesbian Network - Pietermaritzburg • Project Empower • Refugee Social Services • Save the Children KwaZulu-Natal • Sinamandla • Sinani/KZN Program for Survivors of Violence • Siyavuna Abalimi Development Centre • Treatment Action Campaign • Tholulwazi Uzivikele • Woza Moya

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progress against

program objectives Improving health outcomes relating to HIV and AIDS, TB and water-related infections and diseases

next three years government has indicated it will spend R77 billion on primary health care services and R240 billion on hospitals. KwaZulu-Natal province has proven that it carries more than 30% of the national HIV and AIDS caseload, however it only receives 25% of the national funding.

South Africa has made strides in the treatment of HIV and AIDS in recent years, however, there are still challenges experienced in the public health system when it comes to treating HIV and TB. Nevertheless, we need to question whether we as a country have put too much emphasis on HIV and TB, which are now manageable with treatment, at the expense of other illnesses like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and chronic lung disease. Strokes resulting from hypertension are strongly linked to poverty — most people in rural and informal urban areas remain undiagnosed and untreated. Nationally, mortality rates from non-communicable diseases decreased over the reporting period, but increased for some provinces and remained stable for others as a result of differing trends in hypertensive heart disease and respiratory diseases. The cost to the health system is already enormous and without serious attention it is set to escalate further. It is unlikely that the state will be able or willing to provide the significant resources required to address this epidemic of lifestyle diseases. Donor funding is shrinking, and the state’s “envelope” for non-communicable diseases could also decline as the government assumes greater responsibility for treating HIV and TB.

hiv prevention programs

beneficiaries referred for tb treatment Government has allocated R600 million nationally to the roll out of the HPV vaccine to prevent cancer of the cervix. Roll out will start at schools in March 2014; we will provide details of this initiative in the report that covers activities from January to July 2014, with an emphasis on how our partners are including it in their educational programs. The NHI is seen as a lifeline for South Africa’s failing public health system. Whilst the NHI, which is a financing model, aims to address the inequity, it also seeks to strengthen social solidarity within the health sector. However, it was envisaged that the NHI could not be successfully implemented if the systems and structures supporting the primary health care (PHC) system are not re-engineered. Over the last six months the re-engineering of primary health care entailed the employment of medical doctors from Cuba, other previously vacant medical staffing positions being filled, and the upgrading of infrastructure. Whilst these measures represent great strides, they are not without challenges. What are the implications to care? With the Cuban doctors not being able to speak the languages of the communities they are brought in to serve, is there any benefit to the community? Are patient rights being violated because there is a language barrier? Unrelated directly to the re-engineering, but impacting on the care and treatment of people living with HIV and AIDS, are the continued stock outs and shortages of drugs.

beneficiaries initiating tb treatment

The national budget for health care has been tabled as R146 billion, but it is not known how much of this will actually be used for care and treatment, and what portion may have to go towards making up the previous deficits experienced within the health department. Over the

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What are the implications for the NLV program as it tries to address the issues of HIV and AIDS in South Africa? The partners we work with are starting to see AIDS “fatigue” amongst their beneficiaries. This results in more people seeking primary health care services more often as their health is being compromised. There is also a steady increase in the defaulter rate due to “drug holidays”. The partners perceive a need to go “back to basics” with the beneficiaries of their services as it seems that what is happening is directly linked to lack of knowledge (CHoiCe; HAPG; Caring, Affirming, Teaching Children Projects (CATCH); Palabora Foundation (Palabora); and Sophakama). Partners responded to concerns by robustly keeping track of the number of defaulters, and increasing the number of home visits. In turn a positive response from defaulters was noted. Continuous education, provision of information and monitoring of treatment adherence is what enables beneficiaries to take responsibility for their health. Partners see inequality in basic human rights — in which poverty plays a big role — as a major causal factor in AIDS fatigue and treatment defaulting. As custodians of the NLV program we need to work on understanding all the components of AIDS fatigue and also to work out the most effective ways of curbing the problem.

infections and counteract the twin realities that fewer men participate in the dialogues about HIV prevention and that young people are seeing ARVs as a “way out” (OneVoice South Africa (OVSA), RSS, WM, CHoiCe, Loaves and Fishes Network (LAFN) and HAPG). Though partners are reporting seeing an increase in awareness and knowledge around HIV and AIDS, there is still lots to be done around prevention, even for those that are HIV positive. On average during this reporting period, partners who do home visits visited 7,000 homes and arranged for 560 people to be screened for TB. Attendance by 5,000 beneficiaries at awareness workshops was also made possible. Some partners engaged women in literacy programs that provided knowledge about safe sex and how to access and use treatment when needed. Two thousand two hundred young boys and girls attended life skills training. Facilitating and creating different approaches to increasing communities’ knowledge and understanding of WASH integration has continued. WM, which was selected as a WASH partner demonstration site, facilitated the completion of innovative WASH infrastructure at a local school. Installation of rainwater harvesting systems, hand-washing facilities, “tippy taps” and waterless “Enviro Loos” was completed. An additional 520 people (250 boys and 250 girls, 15 educators and 5 school workers) are now accessing decent and appropriate sanitation. Hand washing is now easier and is being practised and monitored in more than 15 communities. In response to climate change challenges, and to improve water access for households and crop production, KRCC, FSG and Isibane are promoting water harvesting techniques that include the building of catchment dams and harvesting rainwater from roof tops. There is hope that this will have a positive effect on food supply to HIV and AIDS infected and affected households. Most partners, especially those operating in rural areas and informal settlements, are building stronger WASH voices for themselves and others by participating in and influencing the decisions of local decision makers through attending forums such as “War Rooms”15 and community dialogues. These events are usually attended by community members, local government representatives, political representatives, the traditional leadership and, at times, the youth. This has created good working relationships and an understanding of WASH issues among stakeholders as well as helping to hold officials accountable to approved service provisions and timelines.

The behaviour of young people is starting to raise concern because they are continuing to engage in unprotected sex despite the fact that most awareness-raising programs are being targeted at them. Partners like HAPG and TP are noting an HIV “normalisation” trend, especially among young people who now seem to be more afraid of pregnancy than of contracting HIV. Careful observation by partners has revealed high termination of pregnancy rates, which indicates that the consistent use of condoms has declined. This raises the question of whether condom distribution is having an impact. It seems the implications of living with HIV have been concealed and this constitutes a time bomb for HIV prevention programming. These issues will need close monitoring by ourselves and our partners. Partners work towards improving health in communities by engaging in dialogues on various health-related topics with stakeholders. These dialogues serve as a platform that enables these communities to implement the decisions that are taken and to promote behaviour changes that will result in decreased rates of HIV transmission and AIDS (KwaMakhutha Community Resource Centre (KMCRC), Operation Upgrade (OpUp), LifeLine, CHoiCe, KRCC, Thušanang and Vhutshilo). Involvement in local health committees gives partners the opportunity to facilitate, monitor and influence service delivery within communities and to make sure that services are delivered according to the principles of democracy and human rights (KMCRC, Palabora, Project Empower (PE) and LifeLine).

people with access to appropriate hand washing facilities

Most partners have integrated services relating to HIV with WASH and food security, allowing about 1,600 children to be provided with nutritious meals daily. This is a way to prevent HIV 15

meetings held with traditional authorities

These War Rooms have been established through a nationwide campaign introduced by the President’s office in 2008 to facilitate the reduction of poverty among the country’s poorest citizens. Through this system, the poorest wards/communities are visited periodically by a team of professionals, inter-departmental task teams and community workers to identify their specific needs, accelerate their access to government services, and provide safety nets. The long term goal for the War Rooms is for the poorest households to receive assistance and support in a coordinated and sustained way.

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While other partners report increased male condom distribution, TAC’s condom distribution as an OAU partner has dropped dramatically. This is due to a change in OAU’s involvement with TAC. Prior to the Jul-Dec 2013 period, OAU funded TAC’s national program, but thereafter its funding was limited to TAC’s activities in KwaZulu-Natal. Only 2,631,732 male condoms were distributed during this reporting period, with TAC accounting for 76% of this total.

beneficiaries initiating art

meetings held with government officials

Some partners feel driven to work with government departments such as the South African Police Services, Department of Justice, Department of Health and Department of Social Development in an attempt to ensure sustained and strengthened implementation of programs around HIV and AIDS care and support, and some feel the need for this has become more urgent (Vhutshilo, JAW, LifeLine, KMCRC, KRCC and Palabora). There has also been a move by some partners to establish strategic relationships with the Department of Health and men’s forums in order to influence and address issues of gender and HIV and AIDS; as a result of these partnerships many issues have been resolved. Many partners are well placed within communities and some government departments are making use of these partners’ services to spread health messages. ART defaulters are being traced via partner homebased care programs. Communities are being empowered to participate in processes that involve their input in the formulation of policies that address their livelihood problems. Two hundred community dialogues have taken place. Several partners actively participated in the Shukumisa campaign with JAW taking the lead as coordinator in KZN (other partners included PE, LifeLine, WM and TP).

male condoms distributed

beneficiaries receiving home based care visits Partners conducted 42,162 home visits in the period under review. Reasons for visits may have included (but were not limited to) monitoring adherence and ensuring that beneficiaries had received follow-up care at clinics. Partners also attended meetings with Department of Health officials in an attempt to expand services related to HIV care and treatment (KRCC, HAPG and DHC). There seems to be a general need amongst partners to do more to raise awareness and to provide services to LGBTI people and to encourage dialogues and safe spaces for engagement.

Key Learning: HIV continues to be a concern in the communities our partners serve, especially among young people, and despite the continuous efforts of partners to find innovative ways to respond to the issue. Is this because prevention programs are no longer a priority? And can this be linked to donors’ disinterest in funding prevention work? In the context of health it is imperative that programming goes back to basics (education) and to deepening individual consciousness around HIV and AIDS. Oppressive cultural gender stereotypes impact on the health of both women and men, increasing their vulnerability to HIV infection and increasing women’s vulnerability to gender-based violence. Community dialogues seek to address this by creating awareness around sexual and reproductive health, HIV and gender roles. In monitoring health outcomes we continue to use an HIV results framework which recognises that conclusions about effectiveness or relevance have to be flexible, adaptable and responsive to context.

Awareness campaigns about health policies, HIV and AIDS, PMTCT and teenage pregnancy were introduced within home-based care activities (Palabora and CHoiCe). Partnerships with local municipalities and stakeholders were strengthened. Partner organisations committed to inculcate a child’s right to culture and to develop policies that demonstrate their commitment to the protection of children within their programming. This has positively influenced the implementation of improved health services for children. One thousand, one hundred and twenty-three people were initiated on ART through the support of a partner and, as a result of partners’ vigorous activism around educating people on their right to quality health care, more people are accessing single dose ART.

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Increasing and sustaining food security and livelihoods options available to households

Biowatch and FSG championed agricultural skills development through training, best sustainable crop production techniques, farmer exchange visits, and linking and sharing events. Consciousness was increased through partner-hosted events (such as a food Indaba), multi-stakeholder forums, exchange visits and training sessions, all of which resulted in an increased understanding of agro-ecology and other livelihoods options. During this period Biowatch supported 658 small-scale farmers to increase their production of food using agroecology farming, and FSG reported that an additional 300 farmers were able to harvest crops more than once per year. Education and awareness-raising meetings were well attended, with partners reporting that 1,228 people participated. FSG focused on varying methods of agriculture in order to raise consciousness and give farmers the knowledge and ability to choose farming methodologies that best suit their context. FSG reported that females dominated in water conservation methods while males dominated in tillage systems. Overall, knowledge of and implementation of climate change adaptation strategies by small-scale farmers has increased.

In this reporting period partners indicated that a total of 1,228 people participated in food security education and awareness meetings, and that technical support to produce food increased. Biowatch reported that the monitoring and evaluation it had engaged in had revealed a phenomenal increase in agro-ecology compliance and increased seed diversity. This success, and the success of Biowatch’s monitoring and evaluation process, is attributed to the fact that the small-scale farmer beneficiaries actively participated in determining what results they wanted to achieve and what indicators would be used to measure those results. This validates the principle that the participatory approach to development results in successful development within communities and sustainable development in general. Events designed for linking, learning and sharing proved to have the most positive advantages when all the relevant stakeholders, including the government departments, were participants. By being given exposure during these events, grass root community development work was able to gain further financial support, and government departments were influenced to improve their strategic planning and implementation of development work. It was observed that coordination and collaboration with other stakeholders results in improved impacts because problems faced by communities can then be addressed in a holistic way. HACT reported that referrals were made to other organisations to address problems that they could not address. Biowatch reported that the Department of Agriculture was impressed by the agroecology farming being carried out by small-scale farmers in uMkhanyakude district and had thus asked the farmers to write a business proposal for up-scaling their work.

households harvesting more than once in the year

WFSA (through its Umzi Wethu Project) and HACT focus on skills development of youth. HACT’s project primarily focuses on increasing the life skills of primary and secondary school children, while WFSA’s Umzi Wethu Project focuses on developing the skills required by school leavers to enter and be successful in the job market. A total of 84 youth successfully completed training through the Umzi Wethu Project. Partners’ skills development efforts generally target mostly women who bear the burdens of reproduction, producing and providing food and caring for their families. As a short-term intervention before implementation of long term development work, Hluhluwe Advent Crèche and Sophakama focus on emergency relief, especially the provision of food, to the most vulnerable groups - orphan and vulnerable children (OVCs) and those who are sick. A total of 240 food parcels were provided to malnourished OVCs by Sophakama.

The United Kingdom’s government Department for International Development (DFID) states that a livelihood comprises capabilities, assets and activities and that it is sustainable when it can cope, recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets.16 Our partners’ work during this reporting period corroborated this statement. Several partners exhibited positive core principles that are resulting in improved livelihoods; these principles included people-centred work where the partners’ capabilities were focused in an integrated, holistic approach to addressing community problems. Due to this work, there has been increased consciousness and skills development among the communities where partner organisations are working. These skills, education and awareness were observed in food security, WASH, health issues, adult literacy, disaster risk reduction, income generating activities and leadership, especially leadership in women. Some highlights are described below.

household gardens established

Department for International Development (DFID), 2000

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Increased access to resources during this reporting period occurred in a number of ways. Several organisations reported that beneficiaries had acquired increased access to livelihoods options and food security, which they attributed to beneficiaries having increased capacity and knowledge, gained through training and awareness raising. Communities that were enabled to improve their skills in climate change adaptation strategies and techniques have been able to increase production of crops for home consumption and to sell any surplus, resulting in an increase in income generation. Through improved literacy, OpUp reported that communities it works with are more able to access services and resources needed for their livelihoods projects to succeed. In addition, community projects such as gardening and craftwork were reported to have increased in effectiveness and efficiency and abilities to access markets had improved. The work of Biowatch and FSG has progressed from addressing food for household consumption to include production of food that is sold to generate an income, again improving the livelihoods of the communities. Some partners, including HAPG, reported an increased adherence by patients to treatment due to education and access to adequate food.

network meetings Higher level governing bodies have been persuaded to change some laws and policies, and women have transformed from being recipients of decisions about strategies that address their problems to participants making decisions about those strategies. The latter is particularly evident in the engagement of women community workers in the War Room meetings with government. Another example is the KwaQatha project in Ingwavuma — the women participating in the project have gained the confidence to articulate their needs and to engage with decision makers. With respect to laws and policies, Biowatch has succeeded in influencing the Department of Agriculture to draw up an agro-ecology strategic plan.

The work of partners has improved the standard of living of community members. Targeting the most vulnerable groups has led to restoration of dignity and the provision of sustainable livelihoods options. Increased development is being observed where networks (multistakeholder forums and events) are influencing government officials to increase service delivery and design projects that address the immediate needs of communities. FSG is one of the partners that conduct these multi-stakeholder forums, which it does at least three times a year. It is hoped that one of the gains from these dialogues could be the establishment of markets for the farmers.

Some of the challenges faced by partners during this reporting period were addressed by changing processes and procedures. In at least one instance continuous rainfall caused a partner to halt activities that were aimed at conserving water: KRCC reported that it had to stop constructing water harvesting tanks as the rain was not allowing the construction materials to dry. Another challenge was that some communities did not seem to “own” projects, and instead they expected partner organisations to solve every problem that arose, jeopardising the sustainability of the projects. One example reported by WM related to communities that expected the WM/WASH Manager to empty their pit latrines when they were full. This is an indication that at least some of our partner organisations require training, or additional training, on the fundamentals of community development. It is imperative that partners have the skills to enable the communities in which they work to become the drivers and owners of any development effort that is designed to improve their livelihoods. In the initial stages of our program the community development and participatory rural appraisals worked well, giving partner organisations the skills required to engage communities in designing and implementing projects that are totally owned by those communities, that are sustainable and that best address community problems.

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Successful integration of DRR into the responses of partners and stakeholders was identified through their capacity to contextualise, identify, analyse, evaluate and deal with short term disasters and long term climate change risks. Partners like PE worked to raise awareness amongst community members. The work included facilitating the setting up of an informal early warning system for storms and creating a system of support amongst female community members, as well as increasing the women’s resilience through activities such as digging wells and rebuilding homes. PE reports that young women subsequently feel increasingly aware of practical steps that can be taken to protect their homes from flooding and to support one another. Sophakama’s work focused on ensuring that responsible people were aware of, and understood, DRR and the hazards faced by the community. Sophakama worked with the disaster management team, ward councillors, community leaders, fire department and the housing development agency to map hazards and determine possible actions. It held additional meetings with the community and local committees to discuss the hazards. The lessons learnt from integrated DRR work have added to the body of knowledge and information and allowed for appropriate, context-specific project models to be developed and trialled.

social grants received by beneficiaries

identity documents issued to beneficiaries The human right to adequate food is a universal right to which every individual is entitled, yet South Africa remains a country of gross inequalities where this right is routinely denied. The disparity in the distribution of socio-economic resources is another example of the gross inequalities that still predominate. For these reasons partners have undertaken to address ways in which people, especially women and children, can begin to gain better or equal access to economic resources. Possession of a birth certificate and an identity document can be a doorway to securing basic economic rights, but the process of obtaining these documents can be fraught with complications and delays. From July to December 2013, identity documents were issued to 10,739 people as a result of intervention by our partners.

Key Learning: Partner support and capacity development are important strategies to ensure the sustainability of programs beyond their funding phase. Support must be provided for organisational development, institutional strengthening and content inputs in order to ensure that the structures developed through the NLV program continue to function effectively and the beneficiaries have a sound understanding of the work in which they are engaged. The livelihoods work of our partner organisations revealed that an integrated, holistic approach increased the impact of their work.

Increasing and upholding access to social protection and rights

Yet another face of poverty, testified to by LifeLine, is evident in Park Rynie (in KwaZuluNatal). LifeLine provides life skills training in the area and reports that the adverse socioeconomic conditions have resulted in minors being forced to seek sex work on the streets to “make a living” for themselves and their families, sometimes with their parents or relatives acting as “pimps”. In this context, modern day slavery and human trafficking have become the consequences of these minors being denied socio-economic rights. Our program needs to review the drivers of poverty on a regular basis and determine how best to intervene. In Park Rynie the life skills provided by LifeLine will need to be accompanied by other support programs, such as a livelihoods program that will work to alleviate poverty. Collaboration with other stakeholders and government will be essential to realise long term benefits for this vulnerable community.

This reporting period saw an increased drive in social protection initiatives across our partner organisations. They worked more intensely on campaigning for rights, advocating for justice and advancing the voices of minorities. These actions coincided with the increase in political hype generated in the run up to the national elections in 2014; as could be expected, civil society also geared up its momentum, engaging with various pieces of legislation and policy. Examples of legislation that partners engaged in public dialogues about include the Traditional Courts Bill and the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act, 2007 (Act No. 32 of 2007; also referred to as the Sexual Offences Act)17.

birth certificates received by beneficiaries

The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act, 2007, reformed and codified South African law relating to sexual offences. It repealed various common law crimes (including rape and indecent assault) and replaced them with statutory crimes defined on a gender-neutral basis. It expanded the definition of rape, previously limited to vaginal sex, to include all non-consensual penetration; and it equalized the age of consent to sex for heterosexual and homosexual sex at 16. The act provides for various services to survivors of sexual offences, including free post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV, and the ability to obtain a court order to compel HIV testing of an alleged offender. It also created the National Register for Sexual Offenders, which records the details of those convicted of sexual offences against children or people who are mentally disabled.

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Our child protection policy work with partner organisations, which took place in previous reporting periods, was instituted to ensure that the organisations internalised mechanisms to reduce and prevent vulnerabilities amongst children. An indirect benefit of the work was that it promoted organisational leadership and governance within the organisations, and this leadership and governance and its effects continued to be evident in the current reporting period. The child protection work involved ensuring that partners became aware of child protection, child abuse prevention and risk assessment, and that they then developed policies and procedures, including a child safe code of conduct for their staff and volunteers. This “policy socialisation” generated such an increase in the level of awareness of children’s rights that some partners began reviewing all their human resources policies for compliance, and thereafter integrating policies regarding children and disability issues into them. Empowered by engaging in these processes, partners such as WM, Thušanang and Palabora went on to address the sustainability issues experienced by their respective organisations. WM also engaged RAPCAN to research, update and, where required, rewrite its (Woza Moya’s) policies and procedures. WM also reports that after the training in child protection policies and the subsequent policy socialisation process, its staff members remain motivated, independent and better able to fulfil their roles, including those in the after-school program run by WM. (The after-school program supports 150 vulnerable children (6–18 years) who attend three afternoon session per week.) Great positive changes were noted as more women and children became aware of their rights and there is hope that men’s self awareness will grow alongside this, so that gender-based violence can be discussed and confronted openly.

Partners continued to mobilise communities to hold local government to account for the delivery of quality social services, and they supported initiatives already set up for this purpose. HAPG also reported that it had supported the community to participate in processes to advocate for quality services to be established in Bela Bela. KRCC’s creation of men’s forums allowed men the space to address issues together. The forums affirmed positive gender roles, and strengthened active citizenship and participation in calls for improved service delivery. Increased tolerance and a reduction in hate crimes in communities were also reported as a result of participation in the forums. Art for Humanity (AFH), JAW and KRCC also directed efforts into helping vulnerable and marginalised people know their rights and learn about public participation and active citizenship. AFH facilitated empowerment through art, dance and poetry, and it contributed its 67 minutes19 to Macedonia Crèche in Umzinyathi, installing a banner promoting an understanding of moral and ethical values. Key Learning: Despite the risk of politicisation of program interventions, local politicians are the first contact between the people and government or local authorities, and thus their involvement is vital to NLV program planning and implementation. Local politicians, such as ward councillors, who develop strong working relationships with their communities as a result of the NLV program become very strong allies in linking communities to local authorities.

Cross-cutting issues Active Citizenship

The Shukumisa18 campaign, an ongoing rights-based campaign started in 2008, saw deliberate collaboration and networking between Oxfam-funded partners (JAW, LifeLine, WM, WFP, Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust (RCCTT), TP, GLN, PACSA and CATCH) in the period under review. Shukumisa aims to ensure that the monitoring and implementation of the sexual offences legislation and policies are in line with constitutional rights to access health, courts and social justice services. Positive results emanating from this process include the announcement by government in August 2013 that it would re-establish specialised Sexual Offences Courts.

Over the last six months South Africa’s paradoxical political landscape has been marked by massive election campaigning on one hand and heightened citizen dissatisfaction, evidenced through often violent service delivery protests, on the other. According to the Electoral Commission of South Africa, by November 2013 approximately 24,1 million South Africans were registered to vote. Women outnumbered men, with a total of 13,94 million (54,9%), compared to 11,45 million (45,1%) men. The biggest segment of voters fell between the ages of 30 to 39 years, followed by the 20 to 29-year-old group. The “born frees”, those who are 18–19 years old, made up 12% of the registered voters. These statistics indicate that the youth currently make up a large proportion of voters in South Africa (for OAU purposes, youth are defined as people within the ages of 13–35). Given the political landscape, and the multitude of challenges that the youth face, a short analysis of active citizenship of the

TP undertook preliminary desktop research to establish the resources available to survivors of LGBTI-related hate crimes and identified key gaps. This knowledge will be an important tool for increasing awareness in and amongst LGBTI people and will also provide them with information that may relate to future hate crime legislation within the criminal justice and health sector (HAPG, TP, GLN). In December 2013, GLN again successfully addressed LGBTI issues through its annual Pink Mynah Festival.

18 19

The word shukumisa means to shake or stir things up. The Shukumisa campaign was started by the National Working Group on Sexual Offences. It “aims to stir and shake up public and political will to develop and implement policies related to sexual offences”. www.shukumisa.org.za. Every year on 18 July, the birth date of Nelson Mandela, people are encouraged to give 67 minutes of their time to fight poverty and promote peace and reconciliation. Each minute represents one of the 67 years that Nelson Mandela spent serving others.

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youth within OAU partnerships is informative. Our partners’ programs are still aimed at raising the critical consciousness of community members in general, and the youth in particular, about their rights, responsibilities and the challenges they experience (this is referred to as “conscientising”). These conscientising interventions by partners are built on the premise that informed citizens will “exercise their agency” and have the power to influence the decisions that affect their lives. Since the last reporting period there has been a noticeably greater focus on the youth by partners. Many of the partners sought to strengthen the voice of the youth in their communities as well as provide a space or platform so that they can become leaders and are better able to engage with and influence decision makers on issues that affect them. AIDS Legal Network (ALN), through the WNZ at the 2013 International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), provided eight young women from across Africa with an opportunity to amplify their voices and be heard. These young women claimed their space in the conference, defined their own priority issues and put forward possible solutions. One of the young women described the experience in these words: “as a leader this was my first time in a conference and my first time to stand up and speak. It was great to speak on the issues of rape and discrimination for lesbians and our children. Lesbians are not safe in South Africa. I took a STAND! I felt so good.”

PACSA continued, through its publications and media profiling, to leverage support from the middle class and build a stronger voice for people to engage in discussions on high food prices, and lobby the uMgungundlovu District Municipality on the affordability of basic services. It released its 2013 PACSA Food Price Barometer20 on 15 October 2013, and the report was featured in more than 20 newspapers, 10 radio stations and 15 news websites, leading PACSA to estimate that the information reached approximately 12 million people. WFP marked the centenary of the 1913 Native Land Act, which “legally” dispossessed the Black populations of their land in South Africa, by joining nine other partner organisations to embark on a “land rights caravan” that travelled from the Western Cape to Pretoria. WFP used this opportunity to raise the profile of farm women’s need to access land and tenure rights and security. Whilst some partners are more comfortable to take up opportunities and build solidarity and challenge norms and practises at national or societal level, other partners are more comfortable locating this work at a local level. A few partners are able to connect their work at a local level with the influencing work being done at a macro level. Clearly this is something that OAU could facilitate over the next six months through the AWETHU! platform.

Many partners were able to demonstrate that their beneficiaries had been exercising their agency and accessing or claiming their rights. However, their experiences in engaging multi stakeholders, especially local government, range from “the good” to “the bad”. From partners’ reports, “the good” can be demonstrated by such things as the fact that government has been more receptive and open to collaborate with some partners. For example, the Department of Agriculture responded to the work done by Biowatch to raise the profile of small-scale farmers in the uMkhanyakude district by inviting these farmers to submit business plans for scaling up their work to address the food insecurity challenges in their district. In a similar vein, the National Department of Education signed a Memorandum of Understanding with OVSA for it [OVSA] to roll out its life skills program in schools. HACT reported that through it conscientising work with young pupils in schools there was an increase in HCT and ARV treatment, and CATCH reported that its engagement with local politicians led to the establishment of a health committee.

In the January–June 2013 NLV program report, it was noted that there were low levels of participation and engagement with policy-making processes by partners. In the last six months, however, there appeared to have been a shift as more partners began aggressively engaging with policy-making processes. Clear evidence of this is the work, mentioned previously, that WFP did in relation to the centenary of the 1913 Native Land Act, together with the policy workshops they were invited to participate in by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform. These opportunities enabled the women to gain insight into the policy-making process, and make submissions on the draft amendments to the Extension of Security of Tenure Amendment Bill, 2013. Members of WFP were also able to influence policy directly at the National Rural Development Reference Group (NRDRG), which they attended as representatives of WFP. Likewise, PACSA believes that its increased publications on food prices caused many people to become engaged in discussions nationally, ultimately resulting in the Minister of Finance addressing these prices in his budget speech.

“The bad” from partners’ experiences with local government is evidenced by the frustration they reported. They voiced feelings that the structures that invite public participation are “biased” and “polluted and corrupted by politics”. WFP was moved to organise a protest when the Paarl Municipality evicted a farm worker’s family without providing alternative accommodation. Likewise, the Stellenbosch Municipality did not release infrastructural grants to small-scale farmers, seriously challenging the farmers’ ability to access water, security and other services.

Key Learning: The rapidly changing political context, and the electioneering, will present partners with many opportunities to raise the profile of issues such as unemployment, inequality, poor service delivery and poverty. Young people have an immense opportunity to influence South Africa’s political landscape and it is therefore important for us and our partners to understand what drives them to participate in the politics of the country and how key issues impact on their willingness to participate. In order to reverse the trend of the

The report can be accessed online: http://www.pacsa.org.za/images/docs/2013_pacsa_food_price_barometer_2.pdf

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youth becoming more marginalised it is imperative that they are empowered to develop a stronger voice and exercise their agency to influence decisions about their lives and shape the direction in which the country heads.

LifeLine participated in a national study21 which found that the age of sex workers has decreased, with those girls in the Ugu district in which it works mostly 12–16 years of age. These girls are reportedly sent by their families to engage in sex work, and this shows the correlation between poverty and gender. Additionally, LifeLine raised the concern that human trafficking and sex work is linked and highlighted that more needs to be done to understand the linkage.

Gender

Through their programs many partners sought to increase leadership skills, particularly among women. This has caused shifts in the status of these women in their communities, with the women using their new skills to take up leadership roles in community structures that include local clinic committees and school governing bodies (CATCH, PE, OpUp, FSG, KMCRC, KRCC and Sophakama). FSG and Sinani/KZN Program for Survivors of Violence (Sinani) reported that women, having been empowered to increase their capacity to take on leadership roles, are changing traditional norms and practices by taking the lead in addressing the socio-economic issues affecting their households. They are also now involved in decision making in traditional leadership structures that were previously dominated by males. This information speaks to transformational changes and it is important to be able to link these lessons and significant changes to the broader TWL work.

Partner’s programmatic work during the period shows the use of strategic interventions and innovative methodologies to empower young girls, as well as men and women, to attempt to ensure confident, independent, visible and politically conscious people who become change agents in their own communities. Programs, including awareness drives, attempted to encourage self-determination and agency in order for people to think critically and to effect change in their own lives (Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE), KMCRC, HAPG, RCCTT, ChoiCe and WM). RAPCAN facilitated processes that allowed girl children to become informed about and understand their rights to engage in positive relationships. CHoiCe has raised concerns that fewer men being beneficiaries of the work done by partners could result in men’s issues not being adequately dealt with. It is a sentiment that HAPG also highlighted after learning that men take longer to seek treatment for HIV and AIDS. Feedback from men indicated that they found clinics were not “men-friendly” in terms of staffing, because staff are mostly females. Also, cultural issues have an impact as men do not readily admit to being sick as it is seen as weakness. Palabora, however, has successfully involved men in dialogues around reproductive health and self-stigma reduction, and found that they subsequently participate in health-related issues, including accessing HCT. These areas will need to be cross-examined with our partners, and lessons drawn from their programming. It could possibly form part of the exploratory work into how to engage with men which Oxfam has already begun.

JAW reported that 1,279 women and 180 men were reached through its project called “Who owns my body” (WOMB), and that there were signs that the project has raised women’s consciousness to a level where they were openly discussing issues with each other. It reported that with time it hoped that this would enable the women to build solidarity with one another and also enable them to identify issues in the community on which they would want to campaign. OVSA supports young girls, strengthening their collective voices, giving them leadership skills and encouraging them to excel. OVSA’s work with young people between the ages of 13–18 years has seen these young people gain a better understanding of gender issues and increase their understanding of sexual and reproductive health rights. Through its new Enterprise Project, OVSA develops the entrepreneurial abilities of young people. Additionally, through the WASH program, OVSA provided Dream Packs22 containing washable sanitary towels to impoverished Grade 8 learners who are part of the Pilot Advocacy Schools Project, making it easier for them to continue attending school when they menstruate. Through the AACES program, OAU is developing an advocacy strategy over the next two years that will explore sanitation issues, including menstrual management, in schools.

LGBTI persons and sex workers report experiencing discrimination when accessing health services, and other services (LifeLine, TP and GLN). For that reason, HAPG held LGBTI awareness-raising training sessions for its staff members. These sessions increased the staff members’ knowledge of LGBTI people’s rights and allowed them to understand how to best support LGBTI persons.

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Synthesis of Research on Prevention of Sexual Transmission of HIV in South Africa with an emphasis on Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga provinces. (2012), USAID, PEPFAR and RSA. Dream Packs are produced by Dignity Dreams, see www.dignitydreams.com

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Key Learning: In an Oxfam media briefing released in 2013, South Africa was singled out as the most unequal country in the world.23 At that time the Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality) for South Africa was 63.1, which is amongst the worst globally.24 Gender dynamics are one of the factors contributing to this inequality. Women and young girls remain the most vulnerable people in South Africa, with limited access to resources, including education and employment. They also continue to be afflicted by the extreme violence that is seemingly engrained in South Africa, with much of that violence and abuse shrouded by secrecy, fear and shame and/or hidden behind and “excused” by “culture” or economic indebtedness. To deepen the work of mitigating the vulnerability of women and young girls, gender must remain a central issue in the NLV program’s framework, and thus in the frameworks of our partners.

The Birds and Bees Program run by RCCTT brought about collective action to respond to the needs of rape survivors in schools and in communities. The program trained young people (aged 13–21 years) to become peer educators. These educators were trained to undertake awareness-raising activities in their schools, to challenge the prevailing myths and stereotypes about rape, and to educate their fellow learners about the processes in the criminal justice system. They are able to offer support to survivors of sexual abuse and sexual bullying at school. Boys on the program spoke about misconceptions they had about how to be a man and how to treat women, and committed to changing their own behaviour as well as challenging the behaviour of their peers. The lesson for RCCTT was that it needs to focus far more on addressing the causes and drivers of rape in South Africa, as opposed to only looking at services to individuals and groups within communities. RCCTT has indicated it wishes to develop a “whole community response” to empower communities to develop actions that address the causal factors they identify in their communities.

Many partners’ programs are aimed at conscientising individuals on their rights relative to specific gender-related challenges in the community, and this, in turn, can increase the community’s ability to influence government’s decisions. As such government has a constitutional obligation to co-operate across all spheres and departments. It must use its power to protect and advance human rights, recognising that those rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent. Poverty and inequality deepen vulnerability to human rights violations. Government’s response thus needs to engage both human rights principles and structural problems to advance all rights. At program level OAU will continue to strengthen gender monitoring, evaluation and learning by ensuring that the processes engaged to measure and evaluate impact and change are gender just and rights based.

Our partner LIMA initiated a system where it insists that women represent at least 50% of the participants in its projects. This raises the question of whether representation leads to transformation for the person in the position and whether this transcends to others. LIMA will be encouraged to track and monitor if change happens due to this system and, if so, how the change takes place. Transformational leadership is being explored through the continued Transformational Women’s Leadership community of practice webinar series. The current series, Practices for Change, is looking at examining and articulating current TWL approaches, strategies and practices that are being implemented across various contexts to further social transformation. The webinar series has focused on drawing lessons from the practices and approaches which OAU partners are using in their work, and examines how these cause shifts and changes in power relations, structures, institutions and norms. Topics covered have ranged from GBV to hate crimes, HIV and AIDS, food insecurity and sex work.

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education and awareness raising meetings

http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/cost-of-inequality-oxfam-mb180113.pdf http://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-economic-trends/sa-most-unequal-country-on-earth-report-ahead-of-d

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progress against

management objectives Strengthening community development approaches with a focus on supporting civil society organisations (both formal and informal groups of people)

DRR: A consultative workshop was held in Port Elizabeth in October 2013 and brought together urban and rural partners (TU, Sophakama, KRCC, PE, RSS and WM). Although WM is not funded through the DRR component of the NLV program its staff members are interested in exploring the possibility of integrating DRR work into their existing work. The workshop provided feedback to partners about the key issues that had arisen through the review, shared the work being done and offered a chance for further input into the process. The workshop also covered the following topics: working with authority; the politics of poverty; power; redefining disaster; defining roles and limitations; and Oxfam as a partner. (A detailed workshop report is available.) It was shared with partners that the experiences of the OAU DRR program suggest that DRR is something the partners have been doing all the time, and that labelling them DRR does not make them different. To illustrate this, the RSS case studies included in the DRR document are based on events that occurred prior to the introduction of the concept of DRR, but they show that RSS has always been responding to disasters. This learning suggests that in the South African context the notion of vulnerability is far broader than that applied in “conventional” DRR and that for vulnerable people disaster presents itself in many forms and can include: • Unsafe living conditions, including unsafe electrical connections; • Inadequate service provision resulting in people living in hazardous situations that include, but are not limited to, having to use illegal and unsafe electrical connections because basic needs are not being met; • Xenophobia, sometimes brought on by language and cultural barriers. The RSS work challenges the notion of a community responding in one way because the refugees do not form one community; and • Gender violence and related issues.

During this reporting period various activities took place to continue the strengthening of civil society. These activities included events, workshops, capacity building and attending courses offered by universities; a few of these are highlighted in this section.

Hygiene: In November 2013, a “family and hand washing day” was organized by SCKZN through the Wentworth Crèche forum. The event was educational and fun for children, parents, the general public, government departments and local NGOs/CBOs and fell under the umbrella of raising awareness regarding hand washing. It showcased simple technologies such as “tippy taps”, with demonstrations of how to construct and use them. Various stakeholders ensured a range of services were available at the event. Personnel from the Department of Health weighed children; administered Vitamin A to children under five years old; and tested eyesight, blood sugar levels and blood pressure. HIV testing was made available by Blue Roof, a local NGO. It was reportedly amazing to watch the shift in the Wentworth community, with people comfortably and openly availing themselves of these health services, including the HIV testing. The shift was especially notable because communities like Wentworth report high levels of stigma, unsafe sex practices, alcohol and drug abuse, and sexual violence. Maybe this proves that finding simple innovations (like ways of hand washing) and presenting them along with services in relaxing, non-judgemental and less formal spaces makes it easier for people to use the services.

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A key learning was gained from Sophakama’s experience where the initial response to the DRR program involved bringing in staff from the electricity supplier (Eskom) to remove illegal electricity connections. This resulted in community animosity towards Sophakama, causing it to review how it implemented DRR. It subsequently engaged with the community around creating change through collaboration and focused its efforts on educating people about safe electrical connections. This included encouraging people to raise electrical cords above the houses rather than leaving them at ground level, as well as pointing out the dangers of using unsuitable electric cord and promoting the use of standardised safe cord. Another example of contextualised DRR that was presented was the “My Home” project that PE was involved with. This project’s aim was to create a space where young women in the shack communities of Mhlasini and Bhambayi (in KwaZulu-Natal) could discuss simple, practical ways in which they could make their homes safer, more functional and more beautiful.

and knowledge of organisations and practitioners working in Southern Africa. About 35 participants attended the discussions; they represented various sectors (including the South African Human Rights Commission) and engaged in an intense and critical dialogue on the CLTS approach within South Africa and beyond its borders.

Capacity Building: In our ongoing interactions with partners through monitoring visits two partners, KMCRC and OpUp, were identified as needing support after they had both been faced with difficulties that threatened their survival. The support, which is ongoing, is being provided to the two respective Boards and Program Managers/Directors and is taking the form of mentoring and assistance with organisational development. The intention is to enable them to develop and implement strategic plans that will bring about effective change within their organisations. The support will entail skills development around governance, strategic development and planning, basic fundraising, proposal writing and resource mobilisation. This work began towards the end of 2013 and the progress made will be shared in the January to June 2014 NLV integrated report.

The workshop also shared with partners that DRR in South Africa sits somewhere in between short term humanitarian responses to crises and long term development (which is a slow and reflective process during which there is constant learning). What emerged from this is that DRR is an approach to programming — it can be integrated into all programs and vice versa. DRR is not welfare but rather rights based, integrated and holistic, respectful of the context, consultative, careful (not to raise expectations) and facilitative.

Case studies and other documents: We are pleased to report that the two case studies, on HAPG and WFSA’s Umzi Wethu Project, have entered phase two. It is intended that the HAPG document will first be launched to the community of Bela Bela and then presented at the AIDS conference in Melbourne in July 2014. The January to June 2014 NLV integrated report will share detailed information about these case studies. A video documenting the history of HAPG and featuring interviews with staff members and beneficiaries will also be available.

In the interests of building further skills and knowledge, OAU made it possible for staff members from two of the urban DRR partners — Sophakama and PE — to attend short courses at Stellenbosch University (near Cape Town), Sophakama on disaster medication for sustainable livelihoods and PE on risk assessment in informal settlements.

Sanitation:

Other documents that are still currently in design are Occasional Paper 3: Baseline Development with AACES Partners in South Africa and Case Study 15: Building Early Childhood Development Capacity in Limpopo, The Thušanang Trust’s Approach. The Africaid Trust WhizzKids United Publication Case Study 14: HIV Prevention and Treatment for adolescents: A social study of Africaid WhizzKids United’s comprehensive model has been printed, and published online. It is accessible in Oxfam’s open online database.25 This open database makes it possible to distribute and promote the work of our partners in South Africa and is accessed by development workers, academics and others around the world. Plans are also in place for a dialogue with various stakeholders from government, private sector and development practitioners to continue debate and discourse on the subject of HIV prevention and treatment for adolescents.

Prior to the current reporting period, OAU commissioned research to address a number of questions being raised in the Southern African context about the efficacy of the CLTS approach, given the cultural, physical, social and economic factors that characterise the region. The results were contained in a report entitled Addressing Southern Africa’s sanitation challenges through community-led total sanitation. In response to some of the findings and questions raised in the report, OAU hosted a roundtable discussion on 28 August 2013 that included representatives from civil society organisations working in the sanitation sector, donors, representatives of governments, academics and OAU partners supported under the AACES program. OAU’s intention was to strengthen regional dialogue around sanitation approaches and to build on the research findings by drawing on the experiences

http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/hiv-prevention-and-treatment-for-adolescents-a-social-study-of-africaid-whizzki-301394

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Video:

health care and the government-initiated policy changes, most notably the long-awaited NHI plan, require systematic and well coordinated advocacy by all those involved in health. SAPHU sought to make a contribution to the important work of training communities, organisations and activists in health systems and health policy in order to facilitate this crucial advocacy.

The use of video technology has had an immensely positive impact on partners’ abilities to showcase their work. WM is using video to deliver messages around water and sanitation in schools in the Ufafa valley and also to increase community understanding of disabilities issues. Video storytelling capacity-building work was extended to new partners in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal in 2013. Fly Piggy Fly Media, a service provider in the Eastern Cape, came on board and supported three partners: CATCH, Sophakama and WFSA’s Umzi Wethu Project. New and existing partners in KwaZulu-Natal that were supported by service provider Rebel Rabble (trading as Jetty) were TU, SCKZN, OVSA and WM. Joint screenings of partners’ videos were held in Port Elizabeth on 26 September 2013, and for the KZN partners on 4 November 2013. The KZN event was able to include many of the communities and individuals who had been interviewed and local government officials and traditional leaders from the area also attended. These screenings generated great motivation and excitement, encouraging people to show off their new skills and share their stories. WM’s videos are published on its YouTube channel.26 Over 20 of WM’s videos had been uploaded at the time of writing this report; the following three can be accessed by going directly to the web addresses shown. • A training video about hand washing 27 • A video about the new technologies WM is piloting 28 • The Dingizwe School Project 29

In August 2013 the AACES program facilitated an exchange visit by partners WM, TU, OVSA, LIMA and SCKZN to Malawi to visit WaterAid projects. Partners were exposed to various antipoverty interventions that are being implemented by Oxfam and partner NGOs across Malawi. The visiting partners used the opportunity to get to know and interact with one another. They were also given the opportunity to meet and interact with the beneficiaries of the WaterAid projects in a favourable environment that facilitated the asking of questions and allowed them to gain a deeper understanding of the projects underway. One of the projects that was visited involved the construction of ecologically friendly “Eco-San” pit latrines to improve sanitation. Another was related to improving water supply and involved the drilling of boreholes within rural villages to supply water for domestic purposes and reticulation systems. In the interests of equity and inclusion the partners also visited projects promoting infrastructure designed to include people with disabilities. As part of the Monash-Oxfam NHI project, HAPG, PACSA and Sophakama took the respective communities or groupings that they work with through a consultative process and at the same time documented what it meant to do a proper consultation around a policy, framework or bill that government is introducing. Each partner reported different experiences and learning through this process. PACSA’s observations from this process included the following: “During the Oxfam-funded NHI project … and working with three community partners, our reflections and learning presented us with greater awareness of the very substantial role the NHI will play in the public health sector in the future. Emerging from this recognition we have decided to change our strategy to better affect our advocacy work. To build a broader advocacy platform we have decided to stay with the voices of ordinary community members, health care workers, security and cleaning staff at clinics and hospitals and listen deeply to their experiences with the public health care system. We will engage ordinary people in much deeper levels of consultations. These consultations will provide us with accurate, contextual and credible data on which to formulate an appropriate advocacy strategy for greater access to quality health care”.

Supporting the sustainable delivery of, and increased community participation in, integrated development programs The first “South African People’s Health University” (SAPHU) took place from 2–6 December 2013 at the University of the Western Cape’s School of Public Health. It was organised by the People’s Health Movement in conjunction with the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU). The Monash-Oxfam NHI project supported SAPHU and representatives from two partners, Sophakama and PACSA, were given the opportunity to participate in the event. It consisted of five days of participatory discussions and workshops that aimed to develop and build the participants into health activists. The current crisis in

26 27 28 29

https://www.youtube.com/user/WozaMoyaIxopo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T4WlW2HxpM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuTfXmPu2uw&list=UU58gs50cxRXjOsYJ4SfzsJg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJtZecc5y-k&list=UU58gs50cxRXjOsYJ4SfzsJg

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Creating and sustaining an enabling environment with a focus on communities of vulnerable people

•

During July to December 2013, as part of the ongoing effort to create and sustain an enabling environment, OAU supported WNZ through ALN and also supported initiatives in the early childhood development sector, as well as revisiting some of the debates on HIV prevention. ALN was provided additional funds to attend the 17th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) in Cape Town. As a result of the support provided to ALN by OAU, it was possible for a group of eight young women living with HIV, from Ethiopia, Burundi, Uganda and South Africa, to participate in the conference. They were members of the “Young Women Leadership Initiative” (YWLI), which is part of WNZ. The YWLI provides an opportunity for personal and professional leadership development for young women living with HIV. The young women are mentored by experienced activists in the interests of advancing the sexual and reproductive rights and health of young people, especially those affected by HIV. At the conference ALN worked in collaboration with WNZ, which provided a space that women used to raise their voices and have their issues heard. Resources permitting, ALN hopes that WNZ and YWLI initiatives will be visible at the upcoming International AIDS Conference in Melbourne in July 2014, and that WNZ and YWLI will be integrated into the organisational capacity building and advocacy activities of ALN at a national, regional and global level.

Early Childhood Development What does quality ECD entail? The National Development Plan (Vision 2030) suggests that all children should have access to two years of quality ECD before they start formal schooling. A speech by the Minister of Social Development on 10 October 2013 included the following remarks: “As part of implementing the ECD Action Plan, the country will have a new ECD Policy and programs to scale up the delivery of quality services. The new ECD Policy will provide guidance on removal of service delivery bottlenecks, particularly in the area of human resource development, funding and institutional arrangement. The early childhood development programs will prioritise accelerated delivery of a package of essential services for the first 1,000 days of life as well as for children up to the school going age.”30

“Life never gets the way it was before starting pills” HIV and AIDS Prevention Group Bela Bela

Revisiting HIV Prevention Efforts It has become clear that there is a need for debates around current HIV prevention work. With the ability to provide antiretroviral treatment it looks like things have become “easy”, but, in reality, if we do not watch and act carefully we could be faced with greater difficulties. It seems that prevention has become a broad range of activities that no longer address the unique needs of young people, and so the message is not packaged in a way that reaches them. Organisations like HAPG are experiencing first hand the challenges that this creates and they are beginning to report on the issues they believe could have negative impacts on current HIV prevention efforts. Two reported issues that are of great concern are as follows: • People, especially young people, are becoming “easy going” and are no longer worried when they find out they are HIV positive. Their responses are along the lines of “I don’t 30 31

worry, I will take the pills”. While ARVs have improved and have fewer side effects, their use can still have serious complications like heart failure and kidney failure. Thus prevention of HIV infection remains of outmost importance, and it has become obvious that the prevention sector must do something more or different on HIV prevention for young people. There are inherent problems in the way the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) program is being implemented. Through PMTCT pregnant women are provided with triple therapy and as individuals they are currently doing well and HIV transmission from mother to child is being prevented. However, what is missing when a woman is started on the PMTCT treatment is counselling, and this omission can have serious ramifications. Expectant mothers are started on fixed-dose combination (FDC) therapy as soon as they are diagnosed, with no testing of their CD4 counts, and without them receiving counselling. They are usually told to take the treatment until the baby is born and when the baby is born the treatment is stopped abruptly. In reality, to protect themselves against drug resistance in the future they should continue taking treatment for at least two weeks after delivery if they are not breastfeeding. If they are breastfeeding they should continue with treatment and only stop treatment two weeks after breast feeding has ended.

OAU partner LAFN works in the ECD field and has experienced these “bottle necks” at various levels during the implementation of its ECD work. In collaboration with OIT, East London office, additional support has been provided to the partner to conduct “iincoko”31 to provide a platform for ECD centre caregivers and their community representatives to put forward their ideas around quality ECD, map their understanding of essential services in the first 1,000 days of life, share their experiences of ECD implementation, and contribute their voice towards the new ECD policy development and implementation. The iincoko will also assist LAFN and its supporters to collect critical research data that will assist in establishing an “LAFN gauge of ECD” amongst its 29 centres in the Buffalo City Metropolitan area. Progress made by the iincoko will be shared in the January to June 2014 report.

The full speech made by Minister of Social Development, Ms Bathabile Dlamini, at the launch of the South African Child Gauge 2013, Cape Town, can be accessed online: http://www.ci.org.za/depts/ci/pubs/pdf/general/gauge2013/speeches/MinDlamini_ChildGauge2013.pdf This Xhosa word means public dialogues.

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List of Partners and their Beneficiaries Beneficiary totals

Partner Advent Crèche Hluhluwe

Female Female (number) (% of total)

Partner

Beneficiary totals

Female Female (number) (% of total)

OneVoice South Africa

2,500

1,410

Palabora Foundation

6,838

3,335

Pietermaritzburg Agency for Community Social Action

233

Project Empower

113

111

605

RAPCAN

13 partners

1,070

768

Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust

380

223

1,051

746

Refugee Social Services

147

120

Save the Children KwaZulu-Natal

–

5,686

3,342

264

174

100

1,120

867

Sinani/KZN Program for Survivors of Violence

865

473

Curt Warmberg Haven Wellness Centre

769

510

Siyavuna Abalimi Development Centre

New

Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust

740

405

Sophakama Community-Based Development, Care and Support Organisation

3,246

1,770

21,125

12,627

Thušanang Trust

755

674

973

702

Tholulwazi Uzivikele

1,474

859

2,892

2,759

Treatment Action Campaign

1,149

915

30,553

15,811

Triangle Project

KwaZulu Regional Christian Council

1,767

1,180

Trust for Community Outreach and Education

2,373

1,134

Loaves and Fishes Network

3,246

1,770

Vhutshilo Mountain School

301

214

541

505

104

LIMA

Wilderness Foundation South Africa — Umzi Wethu Project

Operation Upgrade

1,497

990

98,899

58,211

–

Africaid Trust WhizzKids United

1,536

832

AIDS Legal Network

2,450

1,900

Art for Humanity

185

Biowatch SA

658

Caring, Affirming, Teaching Children Projects CHoiCe Trust

(report and totals not received)

CREATE Denis Hurley Centre Farmers Support Group Gay and Lesbian Network – Pietermaritzburg

HIV and AIDS Prevention Group Bela Bela Isibane Sethemba Justice and Women KwaMakhutha Community Resource Centre

LifeLine Durban

(totals not received by deadline)

Sinamandla

Women on Farms Project Woza Moya

Total

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conclusion This report has provided an overview of a wide range of activities implemented across diverse communities and contexts in South Africa over the period July to December 2013. During that time the South African context remained politically, socially and economically dynamic. In particular, it has been a context where past, current and planned political processes and events have impacted on almost all aspects of development work. Simultaneously, the internal Oxfam context, globally and locally, continued to change. This very dynamic combination of external and internal change presented challenges and opportunities for Oxfam Australia in South Africa and its partners.

This report has highlighted the fact that there has been considerable positive movement towards goal attainment in terms of both partner and staff initiatives. Also clear is the large reach of the NLV program in terms of partners and beneficiaries. The emergence of key learning points in each of the program focus areas is an additional positive outcome. These points will be used to influence and inform the future work of the program. A primary lesson emerging from the work during the reporting period relates to the progress towards an integrated approach. Work within the emerging integrated framework has shown evidence of success that has cut across the range of key programmatic focal areas. Among other things, this can be attributed to the fact that the integrated approach has provided partners with opportunities and environments to identify and experience the value of links between the range of factors that contribute to the vulnerabilities experienced by their particular beneficiaries. Partners and their beneficiaries have experienced their understanding of this connectedness as both liberating and empowering, and this has allowed them to begin engaging with government and local authorities with enhanced confidence, to hold them to account for service delivery and service quality. This is a powerful and profound way to begin effecting positive change and contributing to the reduction of vulnerability. The momentum witnessed in this reporting period will be sustained to ensure that the remainder of the programmatic year is successful in meeting the core goals of Oxfam Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s No Longer Vulnerable integrated program within the complex context of South Africa.

oxfam australia in south africa â&#x20AC;˘ no longer vulnerable integrated program report â&#x20AC;˘ july 2013 to december 2013 34

appendix 1: no longer vulnerable

output summary report July to December 2013

Due to these problems, the January 2013 output summary template was updated and this updated version became the July 2013 output summary template, which partners used for the July–December 2013 reporting period. The July 2013 output summary template differs from the January 2013 output summary template in three main ways. Firstly, many fields (all of which required disaggregated information) were removed from the output summary template. Secondly, semantically ambiguous fields were either reworded, or definitions were provided for ambiguous terms. Thirdly, partners were provided with a guide on how to engage with the output summary. This guide can be found as Appendix A of this document.

Overview: The output summary is a vital piece of the Oxfam Australia puzzle. Each individual output summary shows us how our partners are utilising their funds and how far their reach extends. When all our partners’ output summaries are combined, we get a clear idea of how well funds received are being utilised. We can also compare and contrast partner outputs to previous years and see which areas need more work. The final output summary is then sent to Oxfam’s back donors, which include institutional funders as well as other Oxfam affiliates supporting the program.

Supporting Health Outcomes: Improving Health Outcomes is arguably Oxfam Australia’s largest area of work in South Africa. The work began in 1998 and goes through three-year cycles. The work relates to HIV and AIDS, TB and water-related infections and diseases. As an initiative, Improving Health Outcomes intends to strengthen the community-based provision of essential health services. The vast majority of this work falls within the program theme of Supporting Health Outcomes. Areas pertaining to Supporting Health Outcomes encompasses a broad range of work executed by partners, including: access to essential treatment, access to and quality of essential health services, HIV prevention services, HIV care services, health awareness raising, and public engagement around sexual and reproductive health, as well as other issues and concerns affecting the individuals and communities served. Twenty-nine of the forty-three partners reported on health outcomes.

In January 2013, Oxfam Australia partners in South Africa started using an updated output summary to tabulate their outputs. The new spreadsheet was made up of over 100 fields, split into five sections, each of which was dedicated to the main program themes: Health Outcomes, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Food Security, Access to Rights and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). While the previous output summary asked for generalised outputs, the new output summary aimed to comprehensively gather information about outputs that were specific to partners and the work they do. The new output summary grew most extensively in the sections dedicated to WASH and DRR. However, as with any new system, there were a number of challenges related to the new output summary. The two main problems can be summarised as follows: 1. Many of the fields were semantically ambiguous — it was unclear from the phrasing what information the partner was required to report. 2. Many of the fields required data that partners were unable to collect. An example of this is the “number of male condoms distributed to males”.

Condom Distribution Partners reported that 10,776,660 male condoms were distributed during Jan–Jun 2013. The Jul–Dec 2013 report revealed that condom distribution had dropped dramatically with only 2,631,732 male condoms being distributed. Over the past three periods the Treatment

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Action Campaign (TAC) accounted for the vast majority of male condoms distributed by Oxfam Australia’s partner organisations (Jul–Dec 2012: 93%, Jan–Jun 2013: 88%). The decrease in male condom distribution is largely attributed to a shift in Oxfam Australia’s involvement with TAC. Prior to the Jul–Dec 2013 period, Oxfam Australia funded TAC’s national program. Jul–Dec 2013 marks the beginning of a new program cycle and Oxfam Australia now only funds TAC’s work in KwaZulu-Natal. TAC still accounts for 76% of the program’s male condom distribution.

To ensure that this did not reoccur, partners who reported on VCT/HCT were explicitly requested to complete all fields relating to VCT/HCT. If they reported on VCT/HCT sessions, they were required to supply beneficiary numbers and vice versa. Thus, for the first time, we were able to develop a full picture of VCT/HCT engagement in our partner organisations. Jan–Jun 2013

Female condom distribution has also dropped substantially, from 102,913 in Jan–Jun 2013 to 33,148 in Jul–Dec 2013. The decrease can be exclusively attributed to TAC, which did not report distributing any female condoms for the period, after having distributed 70,224 in Jan–Jun 2013.

Home-based Care Visits

Jul–Dec 2013

Number of VCT/HCT sessions

7,818

10,081

Number of males at VCT/HCT sessions

3,276

3,504

Number of females at VCT/HCT sessions

5,284

6,786

Total beneficiaries at VCT/HCT sessions

8,560

10,290

In all four fields, numbers have increased. The data also suggested that although many VCT/ HCT sessions are conducted exclusively individually (Africaid, DHC, LifeLine, Palabora, Woza Moya), more organisations are conducting VCT/HCT sessions in groups:

The total number of home-based care visits that were conducted has more than doubled from 38,173 in Jan–Jun 2013 to 88,354 in Jul–Dec 2013. Partners reported that 42,162 beneficiaries received home-based care visits during this period. This figure cannot be compared with reports from previous periods as the wording of the field has changed. Previously, partners were asked to report on number of males/females/beneficiaries present at home-based care visits. This field was revised because of inherent ambiguity (ie the field could have been interpreted to mean either “number of males/females/beneficiaries physically present in the house at the time of the home-based visit” or “number of males/females/beneficiaries receiving home-based care visit”). It was agreed that the second interpretation was the intended meaning and thus this field was changed and the correct field was contained in the July output summary template.

Jul–Dec 2013

VCT/HCT

CHoiCE

HWC

Sinani

Sophakama

WFSA

Number of VCT/HCT sessions

599

Total beneficiaries at VCT/HCT sessions

140

683

Triangle reported conducting two sessions that were both attended by couples. HAPG only conducts sessions for individuals or for married couples as it has found that group VCT sessions lead to beneficiaries not taking the sessions seriously. HAPG held 3,528 sessions attended by 3,558 beneficiaries.

Fields relating to Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) and/or HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT) were problematic in the previous period. According to the Jan–Jun 2013 report, 8,560 beneficiaries attended 7,818 VCT/HCT sessions. Nine of the twelve partners reporting on VCT/ HCT only reported on how many sessions were held and did not supply beneficiary numbers (HAPG, CATCH, HACT, KMRCC, Operation Upgrade, Palabora, Sophakama, WFSA and Woza Moya). Conversely, CHoiCE and DHC only provided beneficiary numbers. HWC was the only partner that completed both fields, reporting that it held 20 sessions which were attended by 40 beneficiaries in total. As neither data set was complete, it was difficult to extrapolate any useful information relating to VCT/HCT from the Jan–Jun 2013 output summary.

Anti Retroviral Treatment (ART) The total number of (additional) beneficiaries receiving ART has dropped from 10,066 in Jan– Jun 2013 to 1,123 in Jul–Dec 2013. Once again, this is largely due to the change in TAC funding. TAC accounted for 8,552 of the 10,066 beneficiaries reported in Jan–Jun 2013. In the Jul–Dec 2013 reporting period TAC supplied no ART data.

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TB Treatment and Referrals

HIV Prevention Programs

In the Jan–Jun 2013 output summary, 10 partners reported that 406 beneficiaries received TB treatment with the support of their organisation. This was a large decline when compared to the preceding period in 2012. The Jul–Dec 2013 figures showed an increase.

A concern arising from the Jan–Jun 2013 reporting period was that there was not a clear enough distinction between the fields reporting on “prevention programs” and “education and awareness-raising meetings”. In the new output summary format the “prevention programs” field has been amended to “HIV prevention programs”. In the guide, it is stipulated that “education and awareness-raising meetings are meetings related to any other diseases other than HIV”. According to the Jul–Dec 2013 output summary, 64,338 beneficiaries participated in 416 HIV prevention programs and 54,954 people attended 1,376 education and awarenessraising meetings.

Possible explanations for the previous decline have been suggested, including a possibility that they were affected by a mistake in the spreadsheet given to partners. Fields reporting on ART were duplicated in the space that should have been dedicated to TB treatment. Some partners mentioned they had picked up on this mistake by comparing the old (2012) output summary template to the Jan–Jun 2013 version, whilst others did not. In order to rectify this mistake, the Jul-Dec2013 output summary template had fields explicitly dedicated to TB treatment, while the duplicated ART fields were removed. Another reason for the drop in TB treatment numbers from Jul–Dec 2012 to Jan–Jun 2013 (or one that contributed to the drop) could have been that organisations were referring beneficiaries elsewhere for treatment instead of providing the treatment directly, and thus not reporting this data. For this reason, an extra field for “Total number of (additional) beneficiaries being referred for TB treatment with the support of your organisation” has been added to the spreadsheet. The figures for this field for Jul–Dec 2013 indicated that 2,194 people had been referred for treatment.

Technical Workshops In Jan–Jun 2013, TAC was the only partner to report on “total number of people attending (technical) training workshops”. TAC held 31 training workshops attended by 28,631 beneficiaries, with an average of 924 people attending each training workshop. This could be seen as an extremely large group to attend a technical workshop, but that depends on the definition of “technical workshop”. A lack of clarification could have been one of the reasons why no other partners responded to this field, therefore, in the revised output summary guide, a definition for “technical workshop” was provided.

The figures in right-hand column in the accompanying table reflect the data gathered from the corrected output summary template for the period Jul–Dec 2013, thus the large differences compared to the previous six months. Jan–Jun 2013

Jul–Dec 2013

Number of (additional) male beneficiaries initiating TB treatment with the support of your organisation

828

Number of (additional) female beneficiaries initiating TB treatment with the support of your organisation

680

Total number of (additional) beneficiaries initiating TB treatment with the support of your organisation

454

1,508

In the Jul–Dec 2013 output summary, 15 partners reported that 8,033 people attended 398 (technical) training workshops (Africaid, CATCH, GLN, HACT, HWC, JAW, KMCRC, One Voice, Operation Upgrade, Palabora, RSS, Sinani, Sophakama, TAC and Woza Moya). This large increase in partner response points to the success of including the definition in the guide as an aid to partners’ understanding of what is required.

WASH: WASH remains an important part of the work carried out by partners. As noted earlier in this report, a concern raised in the Jan–Jun 2013 report was that partners may have found certain terms ambiguous. Terms such as “increased” and “appropriate” require partners to make potentially subjective judgements and this makes standardisation extremely difficult, if not impossible. Due to Australia Africa Community Engagement Scheme (AACES) requirements it was not possible for us to change the wording of these fields. What we were able to do is to dedicate an extensive section to WASH in the guidelines that were given to organisations at the end of 2013 along with the output summary template for the Jul–Dec 2013 reporting. Inclusion of the section has not led to improved WASH numbers, however, we do hope that it led to an enhanced understanding of the requirements of each field.

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Food Security:

In the Jan–Jun 2013 output summary, 13 organisations reported WASH outputs (CREATE, Fancy Stitch, Isibane, KRCC, LifeLine, MDIC, One Voice, Operation Upgrade, Save the Children, Sophakama, Thušanang, TU, Vhutshilo, Woza Moya). Oxfam is no longer supporting MDIC and Fancy Stitch. In almost all fields, WASH outputs have decreased since Jan–Jun 2013. The total number of (additional) people with access to safe water has dropped from 5,442 in Jan–Jun 2013 to 222 in Jul–Dec 2013. The total number of (additional) people with access to appropriate hand washing facilities reflected a similarly large decrease, from 4,401 in Jan–Jun 2013 to 228 in Jul–Dec 2013. The total number of (additional) people with increased knowledge of hygiene practices has declined slightly, from 7,238 in Jan–Jun 2013 to 7,009 in Jul–Dec 2013. The number of (additional) women and members of vulnerable groups participating in decision making related to WASH (school or community WASH committees) has increased from 56 in Jan–Jun 2013 to 130 in Jul–Dec 2013, with 96 of those beneficiaries reported by Operation Upgrade and the remaining 34 by TU. The total number of (additional) people with increased awareness of their WASH rights has improved from 3,564 in Jan–Jun 2013 to 3,870 in Jul–Dec 2013. The number of (additional) local CBOs/communities that participate actively in local government monitoring processes has also improved from five in Jan–Jun 2013 to 25 in Jul–Dec 2013.

Food security remains an important focal point in partners’ work. There has been a notable increase in self sustainability, knowledge, awareness, capacity building and training within communities regarding livelihoods activities. Education and awareness-raising meetings have been considerably better attended during this reporting period. A total of 1,228 people participated in education and awareness-raising meetings as opposed to the 42 in Jan–Jun 2013. Similarly, technical training workshops are being better attended. In Jan–Jun 2013, 53 people attended 49 (technical) training workshops, whereas in Jul–Dec 2013, 734 people attended 60 (technical) training workshops.

Additional vs. New There was an inconsistency between the terminology used in the Food Security section and the rest of the Jan–Jun 2013 output summary. Many fields called for partners to report on “additional” beneficiaries, projects etc. In these cases, the term “additional” referred to “beneficiaries or projects which were brought on or introduced strictly during the reporting period and not before”. However, instead of using the same term, fields within Food Security which aim to collect the same type of data used the term “new”. This inconsistency was corrected in the Jul–Dec 2013 output summary. All fields now use the term “additional” and a comprehensive definition has been supplied in the output summary guide. Unfortunately, this means that we cannot compare the number of (additional) household and community gardens with the previous reporting period.

Disability Numbers of additional people accessing disability services have decreased notably: Jan–Jun 2013

Jul–Dec 2013

Number of (additional) males with disability accessing services

390

Number of (additional) females with disability accessing services

264

Total number of (additional) people with disability accessing services

668

Access to Rights: Access to Rights is the section which underwent the greatest amount of change between Jan–Jun 2013 and Jul–Dec 2013. As with the section on Food Security, Access to Rights previously used the term “new”. In all cases, “new” was replaced with “additional” in the Jul– Dec 2013 output summary template. Also, based on the manner in which partners reporting on Access to Rights provided data for Jan–Jun 2013, it became apparent that the fields provided did not adequately deal with all aspects of Access to Rights (it almost exclusively focused on questions surrounding “identity”). Some partners (such as CREATE and AFH) which deal with access to rights chose to answer questions within the DRR section as they better represented their work. Due to these gaps in the Access to Rights section, additions were made drawn from the fields in DRR to which partners dealing with access to rights had previously responded. These new questions in the Access to Rights section and the responses for Jul–Dec 2013 are shown below:

This decrease can be attributed to problems with reporting by Sophakama, which recorded high numbers for the Jan–Jun 2013 period, but omitted to report disability numbers in Jul–Dec 2013. In Jan–Jun, the organisation reported that 385 males and 259 females with disabilities accessed services, accounting for 644 of the 668 people with disabilities accessing services for this period. In the report for Jan–Jun 2013, it was acknowledged that these numbers were uncharacteristically high, especially when compared to the numbers reported by other organisations (KRCC: 6; One Voice: 8; Woza Moya: 10). (Unlike the other organisations, KRCC is not receiving AACES funding for its WASH projects, but it is addressing issues relating to WASH through the No Longer Vulnerable program.)

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DRR:

Jul–Dec 2013 Number of community action plans created with community

Number of education and awareness-raising meetings held

274

Number of public community meetings held

Number of meetings held with Government officials facilitated by your office

Number of meetings held with traditional authorities facilitated by your office

Number of network meetings attended by your organisation

DRR has provided certain partners with an opportunity to further extend their reach into urban areas, particularly inner city areas and informal settlements. The crux of the work has focused on providing safer spaces for vulnerable groups and persons – particularly young women and refugees. DRR work has grown to such an extent that it has been represented as its own section in the output summary since January 2013, rather than being incorporated into other sections. DRR is also the only section that remained unchanged in the Jul–Dec 2013 output summary template. It is encouraging to see that numbers have either increased, or only decreased slightly in almost all DRR fields.

All fields requiring information about “boys”, “girls” and “youth” were either removed completely or replaced with “males”, “females” and “beneficiaries”. This decision was made due to the fact that disaggregated youth fields were being consistently left blank with partners reporting that they were unable to provide this information.

Jan–Jun 2013 Total number of fieldworkers trained

Partners continued to work extremely hard to help both rural and urban beneficiaries access proper documentation and receive necessary social grants, all of which aid in reducing individual vulnerability. Distribution of documentation improved dramatically between Jun–Dec 2012 and Jan–Jun 2013. The number of birth certificates, identity documents and social grants received by beneficiaries all increased. Unfortunately, due to the extensive redesign of the Access to Rights section, it was not possible to do a similar comparison between the Jan–Jun 2013 and Jul–Dec 2013 reporting periods. Only three identical fields appeared in both output summaries; they are shown below:

155

176

Number of education and awareness meetings

Total number of staff attending education and awareness meetings

311

Total number of people attending community meeting/dialogues

2,660

760

Total number of community members surveyed or interviewed

2,505

2,712

Total number of community members participating in focus group discussions

393

802

Total number of people with disability engaging in partner’s activities

201

177

400

1,737

1,679

Total number of community meeting/dialogues

Total number of focus group discussions Jul–Dec 2012

Jan–Jun 2013

Jul–Dec 2013

Total number of identity documents issued to male beneficiaries as a result of intervention

5,103

Total number of identity documents issued to female beneficiaries as a result of intervention

5,276

Total number of identity documents issued to beneficiaries as a result of intervention

Number of community action plans created with community

916

1,275

Number of community action plans created by government for community Number of infrastructural outputs

10,379

Number of network meetings attended by your organisation Total number of community members participating in Participatory Capacity Vulnerability Assessment (PCVA) process

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Jul–Dec 2013

Beneficiaries:

Only four sets of questions provided fully disaggregated information. In all cases, females accounted for more than 60% of total beneficiaries:

As well as recording their outputs, partners are expected to report on their beneficiary numbers. These figures are vitally important in order for Oxfam Australia to gauge the reach of partner organisations. From July to December 2013, a total of 597,828 men, women and children benefited from the No Longer Vulnerable program. Of this number, 98,899 people benefited directly from the program and 498,929 benefited indirectly. These figures include 1,717 people with disabilities who benefited directly. Although some partners did not provide disaggregated figures, of those that did, youth (13–35 years) appears to be the age group that accounts for the largest number of beneficiaries (18,058 direct beneficiaries).

Female (%) Fieldworkers trained

80%

Staff attending education and awareness raising meetings

84%

Community members participating in PCVA process

61%

Beneficiaries with disability engaging in partner’s activities

69%

General:

A snapshot of partners’ work from July to December 2013:

Supporting Health Outcomes, WASH, Food Security and Access to Rights all contained the following fields: • Number of meetings held with Government officials facilitated by your office • Number of meetings held with traditional authorities facilitated by your office • Number of network meetings attended by your organisation These fields were added to Access to Rights in the Jul–Dec 2013 output template, so this section’s outputs cannot be compared to the Jan–Jun 2013 report. It is interesting that the number of meetings held with government officials has decreased across the board. In Jan– Jun 2013 Supporting Health Outcomes reported 198 meetings were held with government officials, but only 50 were reported in Jul–Dec 2013. Similarly, in Jan–Jun 2013 WASH reported 42 meetings were held with government officials, but only 14 were reported in Jul–Dec 2013, and Food Security reported 49 meetings in Jan–Jun 2013 and 44 in Jul–Dec 2013. The number of network meetings attended by organisations has also decreased in all three sections. The number of meetings held with traditional authorities has decreased in both the Supporting Health Outcomes and WASH, but improved in Food Security, increasing from 21 in Jan–Jun 2013 to 28 in Jul–Dec 2013.

Where we work: In the past six months, Oxfam Australia in South Africa has worked in partnership with 43 partner organisations across four provinces: KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Eastern Cape and Western Cape. The partner organisations are involved in a wide range of work, however, the predominant focus of their work tends to deal most predominantly with issues in Health, Food Security, DRR, Access to Rights and WASH.

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Appendix A: Guidelines for submitting the Output Summary Submitting an output summary to Oxfam Australia This output summary guideline aims to assist you, as the documenter of the output summary for a partner organisation, to complete your output summary as accurately and comprehensively as possible. Below we describe the process of completing the summary, its importance and what happens once your organisation’s output summary has been received by the Oxfam Australia Field Office in your country.

Output summary process—what is involved at Oxfam? Once an output summary has been received in the required format it is added to Oxfam’s consolidated output summary. The final output summary is made up of all the partners’ output summaries. The numbers provided by all the partners are consolidated into one spreadsheet. The final numbers are used by Oxfam in program reports as well as other documents which are then supplied to back donors.

Output summary – why is it so important? The output summary is a vital piece of the Oxfam puzzle. Each individual output summary shows us how each partner is utilising its funds and how far its reach extends. When all our partners’ output summaries are combined, we get a clear idea of how the funds you are receiving are being utilised. We can also compare partner outputs to previous years and see which areas may need more work. These collated numbers are then shared with our back donors; these include institutional funders as well as other Oxfam affiliates supporting the programs.

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Output summary — what happens?

Definitions for terms used in the Output Summary

All output summaries rely on you, our partners, to carefully document your outputs throughout the period, on a continual basis. We understand that this can be a challenging process and for this reason it is vitally important that any and all misunderstandings or confusions are resolved at the beginning of the period. Therefore it is important that you remain in contact with your Oxfam Program Coordinator and call on them should you have any difficulties with understanding the various outputs listed in the form. We advise that you read through the output summary, highlight fields relevant to your area/s of work and then if there are any queries or confusing issues at this point address these immediately with your Oxfam Program Coordinator. Please try to be consistent in how you interpret the fields (for example: if you work on an average number of people for a household then you should be able to document what this number is and be able to explain why your organisation has chosen this as the average number). It is also important that you retain your own internal support records to be able to substantiate the data you provide in the output summary (this could be beneficiary lists, workshop attendance registers, etc). This is also important when reporting on “additional” elements or fields to avoid double counting.

General Boy: Male aged 0–13 Girl: Female aged 0–13 Male youth: Male aged 14–35 Female youth: Female aged 14–35 Man: Male aged 35 or older Woman: Female aged 35 or older Additional: The term “additional” refers to anything that has occurred since the beginning of the new period. If “additional” is used in the field, you must not report on any beneficiaries, projects, etc that began in the previous period. Education and awareness-raising meetings: Education and awareness-raising meetings are meetings related to any other illness or health condition other than HIV. Technical workshop: A technical workshop refers to any event where a skill (or more than one skill) is being imparted to beneficiaries.

How to use this document

As an example: If your organisation arranges an event where it teaches beneficiaries how to fill out a form, then that would be a technical workshop.

This document is intended to provide you, as the documenter of the output summary for your organisation, with the guidance you need to produce an output summary that meets the standards Oxfam requires of its partners.

Another example: If your organisation arranges an event where it teaches beneficiaries how to make a sock monkey, then that would also be classified as a technical workshop.

Where we have used terms that you may not be familiar with or that have caused confusion in the past, we have provided definitions to help you understand what we mean when we use these terms. The definitions can be found on the pages that follow. Please pay attention to these and ask your Program Coordinator for clarity if you have any uncertainty regarding these or any other terms in the output summary.

WASH Appropriate: There is no single standard for the term “appropriate”. Appropriateness is measured by what is feasible and sustainable within your community.

A blank version of the template will be made available to you in Microsoft Excel format.

Appropriate Sanitation: Appropriate sanitation is measured by what is feasible and sustainable within your community. Appropriate sanitation is measured by the following types of sanitation: 1. Composting toilets 2. Pit latrine with slab 3. Ventilation improved pit (VIP) toilet 4. Water borne toilet/flush toilet

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Access to safe water: Definitions of “access” to safe water can vary widely within and among countries and regions. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target for access is based on definitions for safe water and basic sanitation adopted by WHO and UNICEF in the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation. This relies on the global definition of “improved” water sources that include: • Piped water into dwelling • Piped water into yard/plot • Public tap or standpipe • Tube well or borehole • Protected dug well • Protected spring • Rainwater

Unimproved sanitation services which cannot be counted towards this indicator include: • Flush/pour flush to elsewhere • Pit latrine without slab • Bucket • Hanging toilet or hanging latrine • No facilities or bush or field Hygiene: Hygiene refers to home and everyday life hygiene. It includes: 1. Hand washing 2. Food hygiene 3. Water storage and treatment 4. Sanitation hygiene 5. Basic medical hygiene 6. Disease and illness frequency.

Access to unimproved water sources cannot be counted as increased access except where there is additional intervention such as the provision of household water treatment that results in improvement of the water. Unimproved sources of drinking water include: • Unprotected spring • Unprotected dug well • Cart with small tank/drum • Surface water • Bottled water

Hygiene practices: Hygiene practices are actions that are intended to support the preservation of health. WASH programs often place an emphasis on hygiene behaviour change, in particular through the promotion of hand washing with soap at critical times. Increased knowledge of hygiene practices: Increased knowledge of improved hygiene practices can be gained from campaigns that involve approaches including direct messaging in schools, markets, community halls, health centres and household campaigns. Increased knowledge of hygiene practices can also be gained through promotion of activities including Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST), Focus on Opportunity, Ability, and Motivation (FOAM) and sanitation marketing. These are accepted approaches for building demand for sanitation and improved hygiene behaviours. Organisations that focus on building demand for sanitation and hygiene will adapt these approaches to local conditions and to motivate different groups in the community, taking into account the different needs of men, women and children.

Access to basic sanitation: Definitions of “access” to basic sanitation can vary widely within and among countries and regions. The MDG target for access is based on definitions for safe water and basic sanitation adopted by WHO and UNICEF in the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation. This relies on the global definition of basic “improved” sanitation which is for household access and a toilet that hygienically separates human excreta from human contact. This includes: • Flush toilet • Piped sewer system • Septic tank • Flush/pour to pit latrine • Ventilated improved pit latrine (VIP) • Pit latrine with slab • Composting toilet

Water and Sanitation Service providers monitored separately: This refers to public or private entities (government officials, water authorities, school governing bodies) that supply water and sanitation. The information that you are asked to provide will be used to support partners’ work in the area of Governance and Effectiveness, essentially holding service providers to account. Partners might have their own meetings or support the community to demand meetings with the service providers about improvements to the quality of services, partners may use evidence from their own project (baselines, meetings, etc) to influence the policy makers at the national level, or Oxfam may support partners to mobilise local communities to join up and campaign for better services.

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