UN and Partners’ Alliance for

livelihood based social

protection for OVC

RENEWAL 3 workshop -
Johannesburg
14 March 2007

Josee Koch

Working Together for Greater UN Impact

 The Alliance - What is it?

– Strategic and operational

partnership amongst UN agencies,
Governments and NGOs

– Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia,

Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique and
Tanzania
 The Alliance; rationale
Why an Alliance between UN, NGOs and Government?

• Southern Africa: triple threat; a

humanitarian crisis
– Chronic food insecurity, recurrent natural
disasters
– HIV epidemic
– Weakened capacity for service delivery
– A deadly mix; putting millions of people in an
extremely vulnerable position

• Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)

– 2010: over 18 million children will have lost one
or both parents as a consequence of the HIV
 The Alliance; rationale
Why an Alliance between UN, NGOs and Government?

• In 2005 UNICEF commissioned study

on Social Protection and OVC
– education, cash transfers and public
works; the forth pillar of livelihood was not
included

• National Plans of Action (NPA) for OVC;

national response to the growing OVC
crisis.
– The response to support OVC to date
 The Alliance
Where are we going to?

• Purpose
– To strengthen and scale up the
implementation of livelihood opportunities and
outcomes for OVC through the National Plans
of Action for OVC and other key policy
instruments

• Objectives first year:

– Improved integration of appropriate OVC
livelihood actions within the NPAs
– Improved availability of replicable models for
implementation of livelihood interventions for
OVC
– Increased coordination & collaboration
between involved stakeholders
 The Alliance
two tracks

• Developing a common understanding

– Conceptual thinking around interface
between livelihoods and social protection
and scaling up  briefing papers
available

• Building a body of knowledge

– Promising interventions all over, but
boutique types, need to be able to
compare apples and oranges and build an
evidence base
 The Alliance
Catalogue of promising initiatives and the observatory

Catalogue and observatory of promising

initiatives
– Development of research methodology
(6/7 November 2006) together with
RHVP and RENEWAL unpicking issues
around impact, sustainability and cost-
effectiveness, gender sensitiveness and
comparability
– Country teams (social scientist +
Alliance member) finalized research and
tested methodology in the field (Dec –
 The Alliance
The Observatory

The case studies:

– The Neighbourhood Care Points in
Swaziland
– Strengthening the livelihood of OVC in
Malawi and Lesotho
– Basic Education Assistance Module
(BEAM) in Zimbabwe
– In partnership with RENEWAL: regional
study to assess the potential for scale-
up of the Junior Farmer Field and Life
 The Alliance
what is the next milestone?

• Alliance regional workshop 17/18 April

2007
– Focus on the way forward and future of
the Alliance at country and regional level
– Initial findings in the observatory on
scaling up livelihood based social
protection interventions for OVC
– Resource mobilisation “making the money
work”
– Advocacy, coordination and dissemination
of information
 The Alliance
what are the challenges?

• The usual suspects? Unsuccessful so

far to fully engage and leverage the
strengths of grassroots, indigenous
organisations
• Coordinating and finding synergies –
many groups, networks and initiatives
• Capacity available at regional and
global level, but capacity and financial
resources in countries to take this
initiative on board?
 The Alliance
what is your role?

Support is needed from all partners in

the following areas:

• Peer review of documents, papers and

research
• Advocacy for OVC, livelihoods, social
protection and the Alliance in global
fora
• Resource mobilization
 UN and Partners’ Alliance for
livelihood based social protection
for OVC

Thank you!

For more information: contact

Josee.Koch@fao.org

Working Together for Greater UN Impact