ROLLING OUT PALS UNDER THE SNV COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMME (CEP)
SNV Netherlands Development Organization in partnership with 8 District Local Governments, UNICEF and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is implementing a 3 year Community Empowerment Programme (CEP). The programme has four major components;
(a) Water sanitation and Hygiene at school
(b) Community Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
(c) Gardens at School
(d) Civil society organization strengthening
Interface Consulting Ltd was contracted by SNV to enhance the capacity of five lead CSOs in advocacy and community mobilization to enable them lobby for evidence based policy change that will benefit the communities’ lives. It is as a result of this that the PALS approach was birthed.
We caught up with Graham Carrington, the Team Leader of this project at Interface to explain more about this approach.
WHAT IS THE PALS APPROACH IN SNV-CEP?
PALS is short for Policy Advocacy and Lobbying Strategic Plan aimed at building the capacities of the Local NGOs, who SNV call Local Capacity Builders (LCBs). The idea is that their capacity to undertake policy analysis and influencing related to their work on school and community water, sanitation and hygiene, and agriculture is built for each organization. They are supposed to identify issues
develop them into a small plan where they think of what needs to change to make the situation better, then describe what they are going to do in terms of advocacy work to try and lobby and influence stakeholders to bring about this change. There is an emphasis on developing evidence based analysis and proposals for influencing and advocacy.
WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES MET IN ITS IMPLEMENTATION?
It’s still too early to tell. However, one of the challenges is that we are working with five organisations based in diverse geographical locations that are facing different issues. Besides that, there is the challenge of helping people to learn new skills that build on their existing knowledge and experience. The opportunities are that we are working with groups of people who are community based and are committed to helping the people they work with find solutions to the development challenges that they face.