Ownership of Local Capacity Development: Creating Tools to Close Capacity Gaps in Civil Society Organisations in Kenya

1. Enabling Kenyan Civil Society Organizations for Lasting Health Impact
Ownership of Local Capacity Development:
Creating Tools to Close Capacity Gaps in Civil
Society Organisations in Kenya
First Author: Henry Kilonzo
Second Author: Dr. Daraus Bukenya
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 1

2. About FANIKISHA (1)
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 2

3. About FANIKISHA (2)
Results:
1.Strengthened leadership, management and
governance for local CSOs
2.Increased access and use of quality CSO data for
decision making
3.Improved quality of institutional strengthening
for CSOs
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 3

4. Description of Context (1)
CSOs in Kenya
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New Constitution
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Declaration of HIV as national disaster
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 4

5. Description of Context (2)
• Kenya lacks widely accepted and used:
• standardized capacity assessment tools
Low Sustainability
• capacity building standards and indicators
• standardized methodology for CSO capacity assessment
• standardized methodology for measuring capacity
building
• Thus CSOs aren’t able to :
• identify, articulate or prioritize institutional strengthening
• drive their capacity development
• measure capacity building
• access or pay for quality technical assistance
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 5

6. Description of Context (3)
3 Kenyan CSOs
Thus:
1 Kenyan CSO
Top 100 large scale implementers
Top 25 NGOs
“Only 1 Kenyan CSO is ranked among the top 25 NGOs; and only
3 among the top 100 CSOs implementing large scale programs in
the Kenyan health sector” (Source: The Global Journal)
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 6

7. Key Interventions (1)
• CSO selection for mentored grants
Needs and Standards Driven
Needs and Standards Driven
• Development of OCAT
• Development of the rapid
organisational capacity
assessment tool (ROCAT)
• Development of capacity scoring
matrix
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 7

8. Click to edit Master
Interventions- Scoring Matrix (2)
title style
Score Level Definition
Score 1: The CSO does not have the relevant tool and/or function in
this subcategory
Score 2: The CSO has a tool and/or function but does not meet the
desired quality or it is incomplete – whether applied or not
Score 3: The CSO has the desired tool or function, is complete, is of
good quality but is not applied at all or consistently to
support the CSO institutional processes.
Score 4: The CSO has a tool or function, is complete, is of good quality
and is applied consistently to carry out the CSO institutional
processes. This is the desired standard for the subcategory
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 8

9. Approaches & Methodology
• Training of CSOs on the OCAT and ROCAT
Needs and Standards Driven
Needs and Standards Driven
• Training of CSOs on OCAT and ROCAT systems
review checklists
• Private sector engagement
• Rapid participatory CSO self assessment
• Systems review
• Focus group discussions
• Consensus workshops
• Real-time data analysis and presentation
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 9

10. Evidence of Success and
Achievements (1)
• OCAT and ROCAT facilitated CSOs self
capacity assessment
• ROCAT took shorter time compared to
OCAT
• ROCAT facilitated measuring CSO capacity
• ROCAT identified key capacity building gaps
• CSOs reviewed their mentorship plans
• Increased demand for capacity building
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 10

11. Evidenceto Success and
Click of edit Master
title style
Achievements (2)
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 11

12. Lessons Learnt
• Capacity building results are not based
on the complexity of a tool but on its:
• Ownership/buy-in by users
• Comprehensiveness
• User friendliness
• Flexibility in capacity building is critical
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 12

13. Challenges and Counter-strategies
employed
Challenge Counter-strategy
• Distilling OCAT to ROCAT • Joint review of tools with
risked omitting/ partners
combining some • Pretesting with CSOs
capacity building
subcategories
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 13

14. Conclusions
• The ROCAT
• Easily facilitates identification of
CSO capacity gaps
• Is cost effective
• Complements the OCAT
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 14

15. Recommendations:
• The ROCAT can be replicated in CSOs
with similar context
• Capacity building is dynamic hence the
need for continuous review
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 15

16. Enabling Kenyan Civil
Society Organizations for
Lasting Health Impact
Funding was provided by the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
(PEPFAR) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under
Cooperative Agreement AID-623-A-11-00029.
FANIKISHA Institutional Strengthening Project 16