Community Action and the Test of Time: A Summary of the Retrospective Study of Community Mobilization and Community Feedback

This 30-page review, published by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and prepared by the Africa’s Health in 2010 project managed by Agency for Educational Development (AED), assesses mobilisation programmes in Malawi and Zambia to support orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), especially in the context of HIV. According to the report, mobilising community action is an increasingly common component of many programmes designed to address the safety, well-being, and development of OVC. In Malawi from 1995 to 2000, USAID’s Displaced Children and Orphans’ Fund (DCOF) supported the Community Options for Protection and Empowerment (COPE) programme, implemented by Save the Children/US through USAID/Malawi. In Zambia, DCOF supported a similar community mobilisation approach from 1997 to 2002. This document combines the reports of a two-phase study undertaken by two consultants to record lessons learned from the two community mobilisation activities in Zambia and Malawi, four years after direct funding from DCOF had ended. The document suggests that community mobilisation has a strong role to play in supporting OVC.

To test the original assumption that community mobilisation can lead to long-term and self-sustaining activities, the consultants developed four hypotheses around which they based their research:

1. The mobilisation processes in Malawi and Zambia were effective in catalysing genuine "ownership" - the sense among those involved that the problems identified are theirs and that they hold primary responsibility for addressing them. Ownership in turn generated high levels of participation within the wider community.
2. Community-led action occurred because of genuine ownership.
3. Where community ownership was present, committees were able to sustain activities to benefit orphans and vulnerable children.
4. Through ownership of decision making and activities, communities could ensure that vulnerable children benefit from the support they mobilise internally or access externally.

In terms of ownership, the findings suggest the following:

• The participatory processes initiated in Malawi and in Zambia enabled communities to analyse the impacts of HIV/AIDS, which in turn generated a sense of urgency among community members to respond.
• Community members and their leaders came to see it as their responsibility to act using whatever resources they had; the mobilisation process galvanised and empowered them to act collectively to address the impact of HIV/AIDS.
• Sharing the results of the analysis of initial participation stimulated a sense of ownership of problems and action beyond the leadership and committee members to the wider community.

The research also confirmed the hypothesis that where community ownership was present, committees were able to sustain their activities over the long term to benefit especially vulnerable children. The team concluded that community ownership was an essential ingredient for initiating community action. Their findings suggest the following:

• The initial mobilisation processes in both countries were rooted in sound principles and tools of participatory development.
• Capacity building workshops that followed the initial mobilisation were critical in helping committee members learn how to develop their own common vision, share it with the wider community, and then turn it into an action plan.
• The involvement of a supportive intermediary committee (at health catchment and/or district level) proved invaluable in linking grassroots-level committees with a wider pool of resources and in representing the community in policy decisions at the district and higher levels.
• While external resources did not form the core of committees’ staying power, they did supplement and extend what committees were able to do.

The final hypothesis that was confirmed was that communities that own the decision-making and action process ensure that vulnerable children benefit from the support that they are able to mobilise internally or access externally. The team also concluded that committees are generally in a better position than external organisations to manage efforts to meet the needs of especially vulnerable children.

Based on the mobilisation experience in Malawi and Zambia, the report offers a number of suggestions related to mobilising communities. It states that organisations seeking to develop ongoing action plans for the care and support of OVC should use a mobilisation strategy that helps communities:

• analyse their situation and discuss the implications;
• identify internal community resources and knowledge, individual skills, and talents;
• identify priority needs;
• develop a strategy to address the priority needs, and;
• plan activities needed to execute their strategy using internal resources initially.

According to the findings, these steps help communities build on the innate sense of compassion and responsibility for children, create a sense of unity, develop a common vision, and elicit broad community participation. Outside organisations should serve as catalysts, not leaders or managers, helping community members to work through these steps at their own pace.

Furthermore, the study suggests that it is important to encourage committees to actively facilitate the participation of the wider community in implementing activities, rather than trying to act on behalf of the community. Opportunities to explore differences in child and adult perceptions should be deliberately included in training, technical assistance, or other capacity building activities in order to ensure that the voices of children and youth are heard and that their views are considered. It is also important to follow through to help the resulting group to increase its capacity to function effectively and achieve its aims. External agencies should think in terms of both community mobilisation and capacity building. Where communities have mobilised themselves, the agency’s role should be limited to the latter.