Government Capacity Building Support (GCBS) Programme Final Report by Mott MacDonald

The programme's overall aim was to reduce human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections and control the HIV epidemic. Mott MacDonald entered into a 5-year subcontract agreement with PACT in October 2013 to provide technical assistance to the GCBS programme. Mott MacDonald's responsibility was to contribute towards the GCBS programme's Strategic Objective 1: Strengthen coordination, management, and oversight of community care service structures that protect and care for the most vulnerable children. The company made this contribution as the lead for Component 3, which aimed to strengthen social and individual behaviour change to prevent HIV infection in children and youth, and as main partners for Component 5, which aimed to support and strengthen the child protection framework, and Component 6, which aimed to strengthen the management of the South African social service workforce serving children. The GCBS programme consisted of six separate components, each of which was closely interrelated and interdependent. Different component teams from PACT and Mott MacDonald worked together and jointly contributed towards the outputs of interrelated components. The main results and achievements of the GCBS programme have been included in Section B of the report. Component 3 focused on strengthening social and individual behaviour change to prevent HIV infection in children and youth. This component involved situational analysis of current HIV prevention priorities and response for Orphans, Vulnerable Children, and Youth (OVCY), operationalisation of the DSD Comprehensive HIV and AIDS, STI & TB Strategy, and specialised SBCC and HIV prevention programmes. The component also involved strengthening PSS well-being policies and guidelines. Component 5 aimed to support and strengthen the child protection framework. This component involved a child protection system review and policy, child protection capacity building policy, strengthening the CANE practice approach, foster care, prevention, early intervention, and therapeutic support, and therapeutic programme. The component also involved PSS services as key to DSD core package of services. Component 6 focused on strengthening the management of the South African social service workforce serving children. This component involved social service practitioner's policy, social work Indaba, demand and supply model, workload management and a customised performance management development system, supervision framework and programme, induction policy and programme, recruitment and retention, and successful methodologies and lessons learned. The GCBS programme achieved significant results, including a 27% increase in household income among programme participants compared to the control group, and food security indicators improved across all target communities. The programme also demonstrated successful methodologies, including the use of situational analysis, operationalisation of strategies, and strengthening of policies and guidelines. The programme's lessons learned highlighted the importance of interrelated and interdependent components, and the need for continued support and strengthening of the child protection framework and social service workforce.