The German Foundation for World Population (DSW) has implemented AHEAD for Reproductive Health since February 2009.

The international aid environment has undergone drastic changes in recent years, with increased use of budget support to governments, "harmonized" poverty reduction strategies and Sector-Wide Approaches (SWAps). Unfortunately, CSOs in the reproductive health sector have not been able to participate sufficiently in these new processes, jeopardizing funding for reproductive health services.
AHEAD aims to strengthen the capacity of southern Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) advocacy to ensure government funding is increased and resources are sufficiently available for reproductive health in the new aid environment.

AHEAD for Reproductive Health aims to strengthen the capacity of southern CSO advocacy to ensure government funding is increased and resources are sufficiently available for reproductive health in the new aid environment.

Activities

While coordinated by DSW Brussels, AHEAD for Reproductive Health builds on a partnership between four organisations with expert knowledge of the advocacy environments in their respective regions: Equilibres et Populations Burkina Faso, DSW Tanzania, AFPPD Thailand and DISVI Nepal.

DSW and its partners have conducted four regional workshops:

• East Africa region: in October 2009 in cooperation with DSW Tanzania
• South Asia region: in November 2009 in cooperation with DISVI Nepal.
• South East Asia region: in December 2009 in Thailand in cooperation with IFPPD.
• West Africa region: in January 2010 in Burkina Faso in cooperation with Equilibres et Populations.

The workshops built the technical and managerial competencies of CSOs working with sexual and reproductive health related to the design and implementation of innovative advocacy activities.



Each workshop built upon DSW’s proven methodology of applied advocacy capacity building. Under this methodology, workshop participants strengthened their advocacy skills through concrete “real-world” exercises, culminating in the development of advocacy action plans. These action plans had a heightened strategic focus resulting from new insights gained during the workshops about how the new aid environment affects RH funding.

The four regional workshops of AHEAD were tremendously successful. Project partners successfully trained staff from 69 CSOs from throughout the Global South. Workshop evaluation scores and pre/post knowledge test scores indicate that workshop participants not only gained significant insight into the new aid architecture (with increases ranging from 54% to 104% in knowledge in West Africa and South Asia, respectively), but that participants also valued the content and approach provided.

Advocacy Action Plans

A core component of the workshops was the development of advocacy action plans that could receive funding from DSW. During the regional workshops, participants developed a practical advocacy action plan and were provided with 2 additional weeks to revise and submit them. In January 2010, all submitted action plans were subjected to a rigorous review of technical and qualitative selection criteria. Four action plans--one each from Uganda, Burkina Faso, Bangladesh and the Philippines--were selected and subsequently awarded a subgrant to carry out advocacy activities in-country.

DSW will provide direct support to the four subgranted advocacy action plans through its regional partners, sin addition to ongoing technical assistance for advocacy and resource mobilization to workshop participants regardless of whether they were awarded a subgrant.

Contact

For more information on AHEAD, please contact:

Sabine Weber
Advocacy Officer

phone: +49 511 94373 30
email: sabine[dot]weber[at]dsw-hannover[dot]de