Capturing the evidence and potential of our approach in 2 pages

[Gaston]

Dear friends,

All around the world we see AIDS and Malaria Competence spreading. The approach is being applied to many other issues. It is time to consolidate evidence and potential in a short concept note. I gave a first try. What do you think?

[Ricardo Walters]

Hey Gaston,

Thanks for your work, and for the invitation to contribute to the thinking.

A few comments that, hopefully, will find resonance with others:

1. The paper describes well the ACP product. But, I wondered whether that was true to the title of the paper: 'Community responses to drive sustainable growth'

2. I would be interested to see the concepts of 'community capacity for response' and the dimensions of 'local response' analysed in more detail. Action and planning may be catalysed by the ACP self-assessment tool, but it doesn't lead automatically to sustained local responses for care, change and transfer.

3. I think it's very important to articulate the facilitation team culture so that the concept of facilitation is not lost, or the understanding of the term assumed based on the experience of the reader. The action and integrity of a facilitation approach - as opposed to training or project management - is quite distinctive, even though 'facilitator' has become a popular, generic used term that could mean just about anything. If Facilitation Teams at multiple levels are the key to scale, then we need to define them better.

4. I don't think that a page of very specific lessons learned would be out of place. There have been huge lessons learned through GLIA, for instance. Or the ADB-work. Or PNG. Or Handicap International. Lessons about local response, about organisational life and development, about achieving scale, etc.

What do you think?

Talk soon,
Ricardo

[Gaston]

Thanks for these valuable comments Ricardo. You address some very important issues. The way of working and the specific facilitation deserves some more attention. The challenge remains to keep it short.

An in-depth consolidation of lessons learnt is a good suggestion (even if not added to this doc, we need to do this).

The doc is adapted from a concept note I wrote for a partner, focused on their strategy and issues. That explains the focus of the title, which indeed might be changed for the generic concept note.

Thanks again.

[Rituu B. Nanda]

Dear Gaston,

Ricardo has made some pertinent points. We often use terms like facilitation team, learning event etc which are not clear to those new to ACP. Maybe a footer like you have done for SALT could help.

You may add the link to documentation on ACP in Karnataka and Mizoram which was supported by Solution Exchange India. Its available on http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/aids/resource/res-01-270208-0...

Regards,

Rituu

[Gaston]

Hi Rituu,

2 good tips. The footer and in the current version I already added an extract of the SE India study.

Thanks