Economic Strengthening for Orphans and Vulnerable Children Workshop

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has weakened the traditional support structures for children, and has jeopardized the well-being and development of many families. The problems are massive and urgent, and extensive efforts are required to identify, support, and implement the most appropriate responses. In sub-Saharan Africa, 12.3 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS. Moreover, in many southern African countries, the epidemic is predicted to peak around 2010-2020 and because orphans usually follow adult deaths by 8-10 years, the number of orphans will continue to increase dramatically until 2030. It is expected that in just six years (by 2010) there will be 20 million orphans living in Africa. The vast majority of the children orphaned or otherwise made vulnerable by AIDS are living either with a surviving parent or extended family members. Many of these households, already poor before they lost family members or took in additional children, have been pushed deeper into poverty by the impacts of AIDS.

One of the fundamental strategies for improving the safety and well-being of orphans and vulnerable children is to strengthen the social and economic capacities of their families and communities to protect them and provide for their needs. This is the most affordable and sustainable way to meet the children’s immediate needs and to accord them an opportunity to grow up in a caring and socially integrative environment. Recognizing this imperative, the USAID’s Bureau for Africa, working with AED’s SARA project, Enterprising Solutions Global Consulting, and the USAID’s Office of Displaced Children and Orphans Fund (DCOF), organized a workshop on microeconomic strengthening to benefit orphans and vulnerable children in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, June 14 -16, 2004. The workshop brought together a diverse group of 26 specialists with experience and expertise in the areas of economic strengthening and children’s programming to determine how appropriate interventions can be developed and implemented on a scale that matches that of the impacts of AIDS.

The workshop’s overall goal was “to identify specific ways to improve programming and increase ongoing, collaborative action among organizations and specialists with expertise in microeconomic/livelihood strengthening and those implementing programs in order to improve the well-being of children affected and infected by HIV/AIDS.” Its objectives were to:

• Identify and review a range of current interventions, promising practices, lessons learned and to explore avenues for scale up;
• Review existing guidance material on how to improve the economic circumstances of families and communities to benefit orphans and vulnerable children;
• Make recommendations regarding the development of guidance material and capacity building activities; and
• Recommend critical action and next steps for ongoing collaboration.

After reviewing the basic issues and challenges that brought them together, participants divided into three groups to explore in depth three primary safety nets for orphans and vulnerable children: their households, their communities, and themselves. Each of these safety-nets plays a vital role in protecting the child from becoming vulnerable or falling into destitution. It was observed that these safety nets are interrelated and often an intervention at any of the levels is bound to have implications (or impact) on the other levels.

Based on the small group and plenary discussions, workshop organizers identified six areas in which participants indicated that action is needed. For each of these areas, participants then identified priority actions needed to scale up microeconomic strengthening to benefit orphans and vulnerable children. The six areas for action are:

• Improved collaboration between those focused on orphans and vulnerable children and those whose expertise is in microeconomic strengthening;
• A critical review of existing tools and documents and dissemination of information;
• Action research to answer strategically important questions relevant to scaling up;
• Improved technical capacity within programs and organizations to implement effective interventions;
• Improved program design, monitoring and evaluation; and
• A comprehensive strategy for resource mobilization and disbursement, ensuring that resources get to those most deserving of the support.

The participants developed a vision for substantially advancing the scale and effectiveness of microeconomic strengthening programming to improve the well-being of orphans and vulnerable children. Workshop participants agreed that an ongoing “network” of working groups is needed for information exchange, to generate collaborative action, and to leverage resource for scaling up activities in these areas. The established “network” will work towards promoting the priority objectives defined by each of these groups.

For more information, please contact us at ovc-es@aed.org