The main aim of this counselling handbook is to strengthen counselling and communication skills of health providers including skilled birth attendants, helping them to effectively discuss with women, their husbands/partners and families and communities the important issues surrounding pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, postnatal and post-abortion care. The handbook relies on a self-directed learning approach. Although it is designed to be used by groups of health workers with the help of a facilitator, it can also be used by an individual. All topical sessions contain specific aims and objectives, clearly outlining the skills that will be developed and corresponding learning outcomes. Practical activities have been designed to encourage reflection, provoke discussions, build skills and ensure the local relevance of information. There is a review at the end of each session to ensure that the learner has understood the key points before progressing to subsequent sessions.
Useful Resources
Civil society organisations (CSOs) are facing increasing pressure to demonstrate their accountability, legitimacy and effectiveness. In response, a growing number are coming together at national, regional and international level, to define common standards and promote good practice through codes of conduct, certification schemes, reporting frameworks, directories and awards. This project provides the first comprehensive inventory of civil society self-regulatory initiatives worldwide. What does the database offer? The map and initiative search pages provide information on each initiative. Available information includes summaries, contact information, lists of participating organisations, full texts of initiatives, analysis of compliance mechanisms, similar initiatives, and assessments of the role of many initiatives within the CSO sector. Users can filter their search according to their particular needs, using criteria such as the location, type, and areas addressed of the initiative.
This training manual on mainstreaming gender into Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programmes is an integrated approach to both gender and WASH issues. It aims to provide participatory gender-sensitive training to water professionals at the policy, project and administrative levels through building their capacity for mainstreaming gender into WASH programmes. The authors hope this manual will be useful to other public, private and civil society training institutions and agencies, both in Rwanda (where this manual was written) and in other countries around the world. The manual aims to provide participatory gender-sensitive training to water professionals at the policy, project and administrative levels and promote an understanding of and commitment to the importance of participation of both women and men in sustainability of these programmes. It is divided into three modules, which cover WASH programmes, theoretical concepts of gender, gender mainstreaming and analysis tools, and gender-sensitive indicators and a log-frame for WASH programmes.
Social issues should be addressed socially and in multi-stakeholder mode, not by private interest and experts alone in processes of knowledge production, planning and decision-making. This guide is an important step in the creation and mobilisation of practical, authentic knowledge for social change. The guide has been divided into two parts. Part 1 outlines the concepts and skillful means needed to support multi-stakeholder dialogue. It also provides detailed instructions on how to integrate and ground collaborative inquiry in the projects, plans, evaluations and activities of multiple stakeholders. Part 2 highlights a selection of techniques and learning for collaborative inquiry and examples of real life applications in South Asia and Latin America. Examples focus on a range of issues including land tenure, local economic development, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and organisational development. Techniques include using Action Research Training (ART), problem tree, force fields, CLIP social analysis (collaboration, conflict, legitimacy, interests and power).
Originally developed for Gendernet, this online guide is intended to support the design and delivery of gender training. As a resource, the guide provides ‘building blocks’ that facilitators can use to design customised training workshops and has been designed with the assumption that potential learners have little or basic understanding of gender and development concepts. Training modules cover topics like gender inequity and poverty, gender analysis and planning, gender-aware designing, planning, monitoring and evaluation in terms of gender, gender mainstreaming and organisational change, including policy approaches to addressing gender and equality in development and developing advocacy strategies. Facilitators’ tools include ice-breakers and energisers. There are also suggested workshop plans that provide ideas for how this guide can be used to design workshop outlines.
The latest edition of Eldis OnDisc is out now and focuses on Manuals and Toolkits. It contains over 400 full-text publications from 150 development organisations. Eldis OnDisc is freely available to subscribers with poor internet connection who struggle to access the full Eldis online services. Designed with the busy development professional and researcher in mind, publications on this CD-Rom have been categorised into key subject and skills areas for quick reference. There is also an easy-to-use Search function, helping you get right to the publication you need and each publication is accompanied by a short abstract. To receive your copy of Eldis OnDisc Manuals and Toolkits edition, please complete the registration form at the website address given here. If you are experiencing problems with this form, you can request a Word version at the email address provided.
The new EU online platform, Capacity4Dev, is part of the European Commission’s ambitious ‘Backbone Strategy’ to reform technical cooperation. The Commission envisions the new portal as an essential tool in reforming technical cooperation programmes that support capacity development, public sector reform and other themes. The site, which will be developed through 2009, provides a forum for all Commission staff, partner countries, other donors, academics and civil society representatives to share ideas and expertise. By joining Capacity4Dev, you get access to useful capacity development tools, feature articles on current topics of interest and academic papers. Registration is free.
Under a new initiative, international donors are backing Africa-based policy research to improve local decision-making on complex global issues with potentially enormous humanitarian consequences like food security and climate change. Led by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and funded by IDRC, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation, the Think Tank Initiative will provide core funding for 24 African think tanks over 10 years. About US$30 million has been made available for the initial five years. Retaining top quality staff is a challenge, according to Jean Mensa, executive director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a Ghanaian think tank and a grant recipient. Many of the best and brightest researchers look for employment abroad or in international development projects that offer better conditions and more job security. But if African think tanks are to be effective, Mensa said, long-term investment is essential.
Many development interventions appear to leave no trace of sustained positive change after they have been terminated. This guidance document was developed by the Network of Networks on Impact Evaluation to support its focus on sharing methods and learning-by-doing to promote the practice of impact evaluation. It shows you how to identify the type and scope of the intervention by agreeing on the objectives of the intervention that are valued, articulating the theories linking interventions to outcomes, addressing the issue of attribution and building on existing knowledge relevant to the impact intervention. It also shows you how to manage impact evalulations by determining the feasibility of impact evaluation, gathering data and conducting front-end planning. It puts forward the idea that rigorous impact evaluation is not merely about specific methods and designs, but also about addressing the issues given above, in particular the core methodological and conceptual issues.
This training manual, published by the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance II (FANTA-2) Project, recognises that nutrition interventions are an important component of comprehensive care and support for people living with HIV. They help to manage symptoms, promote response to treatment and improving functioning and quality of life. The authors argue that equipping nurses, who in many settings play a critical role in HIV care, with nutrition and HIV knowledge and skills enables them to provide effective nutrition care and support. The manual is organised into three parts: Part I includes introductory sessions with basic information about HIV, Part II aims to build technical knowledge and Part III provides guidance on nutrition care for different clients living with HIV. This training manual is designed to be used for pre-service training, but it can also be used or adapted for in-service training – an advantage considering the fact that nursing school curricula in the East, Central and Southern Africa region often includes little or no information on the subject.