Tips
Module 2: Defining the Problem
The main stakeholders to involve are the program staff. But you may also want to meet with other stakeholders who know the influences that lead to the SRHR problem you are addressing.
If there are things you see as very important but you cannot work on, find ways to establish collaborations or dialogues with other agencies who are working on those issues. You may find that together you can be even more effective in achieving the longer-term goals.
- Find a university program that can provide students to gather the information you need while they gain experience and school credit.
- Find out if researchers at larger CSOs or at a university or research center have already collected data in the community you will be working in. They may not have asked all the questions you would have asked, but they may have insights that are useful for your program.
Integration of rights-based social justice considerations in your agency may require a long-term process but here are some questions to begin a conversation that can foster change within your agency:
Internal Consistency
- Does your agency operate in a way that is consistent with what it expects of its programs?
- Are there any inconsistencies that might be so great as to create difficulties in the M&E process and/or rejection of the findings?
Ask yourselves the following questions:
- Are the rights of staff and marginalized populations respected within the agency?
- Is there acceptance for diversity within the agency itself?
- Do women have an equitable role in decision-making and are the voices of young people on staff heard?
- Are efforts made to incorporate the voices of diverse populations in determining internal policies?
New program directions
- Will tensions likely arise if some programs go in a direction consistent with rights-based considerations and other programs go in different directions? For example, if one program focuses successfully on gender-based violence, but staff in other programs do not fully understand what gender-based violence is or why it is important to work on it, then they may be resentful if the program expands and assumes more and more resources of the agency.
Ask yourselves the following questions:
- Are rights-based considerations broadly integrated through the agency or confined to specific projects?
- Are there some programs that violate some rights-based considerations or resist them?
These sensitive issues often arise in SRHR programs that are in line with a rights-based social justice perspective.
- Abortion: Many people around the world are uncomfortable with the practice of abortion. If abortion is taboo in your community, or abortion laws have recently changed, or if your agency is beginning to work on abortion for the first time, you will probably want to do values clarification exercises and perhaps sensitization workshops.
- Contraception: If a program is trying to focus on the comprehensiveness of reproductive health services, then it may need to expand the options it offers in terms of contraceptives, i.e. introducing emergency contraception or natural family planning approaches. Staff may resist introducing new approaches if they consider them inappropriate or threatening. Focus on the importance of offering options from which clients can choose and educate staff on the pros and cons of all methods.
- Gender equity: Efforts to promote gender equity often require programs to work directly with men, to help them find new ways of defining their own masculinity and relating more equitably to women. Some program staff may think that by working with men they are diverting attention away from women, or they may just have very negative attitudes towards men as the “villains” or “perpetrators of violence”. It is necessary to help staff understand the importance of changing the way men and women relate and finding ways that staff can become comfortable including men in their programs and evaluation activities. More generally, you may need to ask staff to examine their own deeply ingrained beliefs about gender that impact gender equity.
- Gender-based violence (GBV): GBV is one of the most taboo topics in the SRHR field. Service providers, police, and other community leaders often feel that it is not their business to meddle in the affairs of a couple. It may be difficult to encourage your staff to see GBV as a community problem they can and should work on. Point out the many consequences GBV has on all SRHR problems and that it is something that can be overcome, in other words, it is not “natural” and does not need to be tolerated.
- Male involvement: Efforts to promote gender equity often require programs to work directly with men, to help them find new ways of defining their own masculinity and relating more equitably to women. Some program staff may think that by working with men they are diverting attention away from women, or they may just have very negative attitudes towards men as the “villains” or “perpetrators of violence”. It is necessary to help staff understand the importance of changing the way men and women relate and finding ways that staff can become comfortable including men in their programs and evaluation activities.
- Sexual identities: Homophobia is deeply seated in many cultural belief systems. Staff members may be unprepared or reluctant to deal with non-heterosexual clients and may have misconceptions about sexual identities. Training and sensitization are needed to provide appropriate and non-discriminatory services to all who need them in your community.
- Sexual practices: Some staff members may be unaware of or uncomfortable talking about sexual practices other than heterosexual vaginal intercourse. Education about different sexual practices and their associated health-related questions may reduce staff nervousness about discussing practices with which they are unfamiliar.
- Women’s empowerment: There are many ways that SRHR programs can incorporate greater attention to empowering women. Some staff may be uncomfortable making the kind of changes needed and might resist efforts to change procedures and approaches. For example, service providers may feel it is more efficient to make decisions for their female patients. An empowerment focus would make sure that women have the skills and information to make decisions for themselves. You may need to undertake sensitization workshops to help staff have an empowerment perspective.
- Work with marginalized and vulnerable groups: Even when programs have good intentions of reaching out to specific marginalized and/or vulnerable populations, staff may need training to understand the needs and cultural context of people for whom they are not familiar. There may be issues of prejudice and paternalism that also need to be addressed before expecting staff to provide services sensitively.
- Youth sexuality: if it is considered unacceptable for young or unmarried people to engage in sexual activity, your staff may be uncomfortable providing services to sexually active young people. In this case, holding a workshop with staff where young people talk about sexuality-related concerns and then holding a discussion about your agency’s social mission to serve all those in need might be effective.
- Call on audience members, stakeholders, or colleagues from other agencies or a local university to help build the capacity of your staff and/or to participate in key program planning and M&E conversations.
- In an ideal world, before beginning, programs will collect data on the problem to understand the nature, size, and contours of the problem. This is called a Needs Assessment, and it can be very useful to understanding the problem and how your program can help.
Conducting a full needs assessment:
- enables you to understand the nature and scope of need for the issues you are interested in
- helps you refine your program and M&E plan
- helps you create a program that is truly relevant to the population or issue you are most interested in impacting
- gives you an opportunity to consider factors that you might not have thought of
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