Transcript Making distinctive contributions - adaptation

United Nations Volunteers
Volunteerism for Development in the context of CBA
Adeline Aubry
CBA Volunteerism & Community Adaptation Specialist
United Nations Development Programme
June 2009
Dialogue
Suggestions
Support
Added-value
Success
UNV support to CBA
Is funded by the Japanese Trust Fund (1,000,000 USD)
and the UNV Special Voluntary Fund (552,909 USD).
Is providing highly motivated and skilled human resource in the
7 countries of partnership.
Is fully integrated into the UNDP-GEF CBA project
(mainstreaming vs. parallel).
Is strengthening existing project in terms of :
 communities’ mobilization, voluntary contribution and ownership
 partners’ capacity building
Outcome 1, output1.2/1.3 and Outcome 2, output 2.2
UNV-supported activities
to strengthen CBA implementation
Enhance communities’ mobilization, voluntary contribution and ownership.
Support participation and inclusion of the most vulnerable people in CBA
project.
Facilitate capacity building of NGOs, CBOs, VIOs partners.
Promote, give visibility and measure voluntary contribution to adaptation.
1. Enhance communities’
mobilization, voluntary contribution & ownership
Volunteerism has the potential
to move disadvantaged populations
away from being passive victims of climate impacts
towards becoming engaged actors
in adapting their lives and livelihoods.
Enhance communities’ mobilization,
voluntary contribution & ownership
UNV volunteers can be an added-value by:
Taking time to go in the field to build a cultural understanding/respect with
the communities.
Listening to community instead of “informing and deciding for people”.
Explaining with patience, accessible and culturally adapted words the
reasons of our partnership and simplify the technical information.
Building bridge between all stakeholders: clarify respective expectations;
ensure quality and relevance of information/trainings, etc.
Motivate, mobilize, encourage and inspire.
Communities will mobilize themselves
 when there is trust and confidence
 when they understand and see benefits emerging from the process
Enhance communities’ mobilization,
voluntary contribution & ownership
UNV can support you
to assess the main factors
that can facilitate or prevent people
from engaging themselves in voluntary activities
for the good of their community.
2. Support
participation & inclusion of vulnerable people
What is externally perceived as a community might in fact be an entity with
many sub-groups with varied opinions and facing various issues.
A community might be inclusive and protective of its members; but it might
also be socially controlling, making it difficult for sub-groups to express their
opinions and claim their rights.
Without broad participation, only a few will decide for all, and those few
might control information and resources; this can lead to abuse of power.
support participation & inclusion of vulnerable people
To promote inclusive participation, following tasks can be accomplished
by UNV volunteers with my support:
Preparatory work to understand the composition of the community and
identify marginalized groups.
Identify community leaders and convince them to lead the inclusive action.
Implement awareness raising sessions on human rights and inclusive
approach: outline the benefits of inclusiveness for the whole community.
Ensure that the whole community is represented in all project activities..
Meaningful participation will often require special efforts to ensure that
those traditionally marginalized groups are given support and specific
opportunities to contribute: trainings have to be tailored in accordance to
needs linked to the marginalization.
Document and disseminate success stories.
3. Facilitate capacity building
of our partner NGOs, CBOs, VIOs
Barriers to adaptative capacities of communities
can be of technical or institutional nature (e.g. community organization).
UNV suggests to facilitate the capacity building of CBA partners in:
 community mobilization and volunteer management
 organizational development
UNV’s expertise is complementary to UNDP’s expertise in adaptation and
climate change.
CBA projects are short in time for implementation, therefore capacity
building is challenging, but also even more crucial for sustainability.
Facilitate capacity building of our partner
UNV’s suggestion for a capacity building strategy:
1. Training Needs Analysis (TNA) of partners.
2. Training plan & generic Training-of-Trainers
3. National-level training events,
local-level workshops,
short awareness-raising sessions,
provision of material support,
exchanging information and good trainers.
4. Continuous on-the-job training and
needs-based tailored refresher trainings.
4. Promote, give visibility and measure
voluntary contribution to adaptation
Understand added-value and contribution of volunteerism in terms of
adaptation to climate change:
Capture lessons learned and best practices on voluntary aspects in
CBA (e.g. how to engage communities in adaptation practices).
Development of a methodology to measure communities’ voluntary
contributions to adaptation.
What do we want to measure?
To what extent are community
volunteers playing a role
in supporting adaptation
to climate change
To what extent this voluntary
engagement of community
members has an impact on
their adaptation practices and
their level of success
Windows of opportunity to assess the
contribution of volunteerism to CBA
• During preparation of the
concept note
• During proposal preparation,
implementation, monitoring
and evaluation, including VRA
Within the project
cycle
Within the country
programme cycle
• During preparation of national
results framework
• During implementation, monitoring
and evaluation of CBA at national
level
thank you
Adeline Aubry
CBA Volunteerism & Community Adaptation Specialist
United Nations Development Programme
June 2009