Report on the first three years of a child survival mentoring partnership

Significant progress has been made in the 3 years of the project, with an emphasis on the transfer of technical skills at the field level early in the project, and a shift to relatively more managerial and administrative mentoring in the third year of the project. FOCAS field staff have censussed over 71,000 people, reaching them through rally posts, home visits, and clinic services. The Executive Director of FOCAS believes that FOCAS and its local NGO partners are at least a year and a half ahead in capacity building of where they would have been at this point had they received a "typical" entry-level child survival grant. A mentoring approach to implementing a child survival project brings an array of benefits, but also presents unique challenges. ARHC personnel have bolstered the skills of FOCAS personnel in the administrative and programmatic aspects of their work, and have worked directly with the implementing partner NGOs in Haiti. ARHC also has worked with FOCAS at the level of strategic planning, board of directors development, and financial management. ARHC too has received benefits from the relationship, gaining experience that will further its ability to provide supportive services to other NGOs and PVOs through a partnering approach. Constraints have sometimes arisen in the areas of personnel availability, communication gaps, and differences in fiscal procedures; these are detailed in the report. The project"s benefits of the partnership have greatly outweighed its constraints. Lessons learned to date are as follows: (1) The mentoring partnership should be based on shared philosophies and compatibility between partners, with realistic expectations and attitudes toward the relationship. (2) A mentoring relationship should start with a comprehensive assessment of organizational capacity of the "mentoree PVO", highlighting areas of need and resulting in a detailed plan of mentoring activities to address those needs over the life of the project. (3) Open communication and availability of personnel are key ingredients to maintaining a strong partnership. (4) A clear monitoring and evaluation strategy should be established to assess achievement of the mentoring objectives as well as overall program goals.