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The No Longer Vulnerable (NLV) program set out to enable change at a community level through

programming that was informed by guiding principles and activities relating to government

accountability, the disjuncture between policy and implementation, and establishing an enabling

environment for active citizenship. NLV was driven by Oxfam Australia (OAU) in South Africa, and ran

from July 2012 to June 2015, with an extension until March 2016.

The overarching vision of the program was “less vulnerable people living and working in South Africa”

particularly within the communities in which the OAU partners worked, as a result of the effective

implementation of the program.

Three main objectives were identified for the program:

1. Improved health outcomes relating to HIV and AIDS, TB and water-related infections and

diseases;

2. Increased and sustained food security and livelihoods options available to households; and

3. Increased and upheld access to social protection and rights.

Two crosscutting issues, which were crucial for attaining these objectives, were also identified:

Firstly, the programs undertaken would employ sound power analyses that promoted women’s

leadership; worked towards a broad awareness and promotion of women’s rights; and

addressed the gendered impact of HIV, food security and climate change on women.

Secondly, active citizenship, in which the broader population of the country would be enabled to

hold duty-bearers to account for the delivery of quality social services, would be promoted.

A key aspect of NLV was the need for multiple, overlapping issues facing communities to be addressed

holistically, rather than through silos.

The success of the NLV program was achieved in two ways. Firstly, the support provided to partners

enabled them to achieve their own objectives, which were aligned to that of NLV. Secondly, the theory

of change significantly resonated with the ways partners operated in reality; changing consciousness at

Learning Note:

Oxfam Australia’s No Longer

Vulnerable program

May 2016

introduction

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different levels to build individual and collective action to take on the structural underpinnings of

vulnerability.

There are many lessons that can be taken from NLV but some of the most significant are contained in

this learning note. They are grouped according to the following themes: the theory of change,

partnerships, active citizenship, inclusivity, changing consciousness, integration, capacity building, and

sustainability. It was within these highly interconnected aspects that some understanding of this

complex and unique program emerges.

The NLV theory of change and the integral framework were crucial for the action and approaches

adopted1. NLV was largely targeted at strengthening local organisations to participate in change

processes and supporting opportunities to engage with change.

The use of the theory of change provided a key learning for NLV: Partners felt that the emphasis on

shifting mind-sets was reflected throughout their work and underscored the relevance of the theory of

change.

Partners also suggested a more conscious use of the framework could have had more benefit by further

strengthening their strategies, particularly in identifying what was missing to elicit change.

The theory of change highlighted the value of partnerships, which is detailed more fully below. It was

discovered during NLV that the use of linkages across partners meant, for example, that in many

instances the change (individual and systemic, informal and formal) could be realised across the work of

several organisations.

Throughout NLV, partners recognised the power of networking and sharing. There were many key

learnings that emerged from the NLV program around various partnerships: partnerships between civil

society organisations (CSOs); partnerships between organisations and government; and donor-partner

relationships.

The value of partnerships emerged even more strongly as partners started to work towards the exiting

of OAU from South Africa at the end of NLV.

1 For more information on the theory of change and integral framework see Oxfam Australia’s No Longer

Vulnerable Program Framework, July 2012-June 2015 and the Midterm Review conducted in 2014.

The theory of change and the integral framework

partnerships

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Partnerships between CSOs

Throughout the NLV program organisations have recognised the value of collaboration. Organisations

found that partnerships bring advantages such as shared responsibility, solidarity, additional support

and greater potential opportunities.

Developing partnerships can be a challenge, particularly if organisations are competitive and territorial.

Civil society is not well organised which can make it difficult for potential partners to be identified and

relationships to develop. Working in partnerships can also be a challenge because there are different

ways of operating and different areas of focus for different partners. However, organisations have

learned through NLV that collaboration is critical to achieve widespread sustainable changes.

Link and Learn events

Over the years, OAU’s Link and Learn events have provided an opportunity for partnerships to

develop between organisations. This aspect was even more of a focus as NLV was drawing to a

close.

Three Re-Vision Link and Learn events, held in November 2015, provided opportunities, amongst

other things, to celebrate the partnerships that had been created, and enhance relationship-

building and learning for future collaboration and innovation.

One of the platforms where OAU regarded partnerships as particularly valuable is around providing a

space for reflection and adaptation to enable programming to be responsive. There is a recognition of

the value of partnerships for learning to take place.

Relationships with government

A key learning during NLV has been that there is more impact if things are done collectively with

government. As a result, it is important for CSOs to build relationships with government. However, it is

acknowledged that this is difficult and, at times, contradictory. Furthermore, it is recognised that, while

creating formal partnerships on specific issues is important, CSOs also need to hold government to

account. As a result, the roles that need to be played by CSOs are diverse.

The complexities of working with, and influencing, government are further evident in the role CSOs have

in supporting active citizenship, which is discussed below.

Donor-partner relationships

A deeper understanding of the donor-partner relationship and how donors and partners can work

together better to support the efficient delivery of a program was critical for NLV.

The approach of OAU in South Africa has had a clear focus on non-judgemental support, the

development of a positive and open relationship, and building mutual respect and trust between

partners and OAU. In this, interpersonal relationships were given specific attention recognising that it is

ultimately through people (within organisations and contexts) that change happens.

Feedback from partners, informally during monitoring visits, for example, and more formally through

evaluations, has often included comment on the strong and respectful relationship between OAU and

partners, as well as the benefits of this positive partnership.

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The role of partnerships is evident in some of the other areas in which key learnings have taken place

during NLV. Where partnerships play a role in active citizenship, changing consciousness and

sustainability, this is described in more detail below.

There have been some key learnings during NLV around community ownership and active citizenship.

For programs to succeed, they require participatory approaches that are characterised by social

learning, community ownership and a grassroots approach that builds on people’s capabilities and

passions. Building the capacity of civil society and communities to champion their own development has

been a key focus of the activities that OAU has supported, through its partners.

The purpose of NLV was to support beneficiaries to raise their own voices around the many issues that

affect them, as well as the communities in which they live. A key lesson was that the creation of

participatory spaces allows communities to express disagreements, contest power and outcomes, and

reach decisions. The communication that takes place in those participatory spaces needs to be

structured in a manner that expands dialogue and enables new solutions to be created. In this way,

contestation could contribute substantially to building the resilience of a community. As the partnership

developed a deeper understanding of the role of contestation in planning processes, this enabled

greater insight into how to develop people’s capacity to build resilience through collective action.

However, the NLV program also stressed the importance of recognising the incoherence of communities

during planning processes. Communities are complex, and this complexity must not be underestimated.

Furthermore, development is bound to be contentious and contested, particularly in South Africa where

a large section of the population is weakened by a daily preoccupation with the struggle for survival, and

there are high levels of inequality, poverty and unemployment. Despite this reality, however, ‘cookie

cutter’ interventions are often meted out when dealing with service delivery and development across

these communities.

The building of community ownership and active citizenship requires some consciousness changing,

which is discussed below, but another key lesson was that people collectively organise themselves

around what is important to them. This may seem like an obvious statement, but in a development

sector often led by abstract theory and donor trends, it requires more emphasis.

NLV provided a valuable opportunity to support different ways of creating dialogue within communities

to build society.

How partnerships play a role

In many instances, government has good policies, but implementation is not done accordingly,

resulting in challenging foreseen and unforeseen implications. Termed the ‘implementation gap’,

the reality is that in South Africa, as elsewhere, policy and practice do not seem to meet.

Community ownership and active citizenship

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When CSOs are building relationships with government, they can play a role as intermediaries or

facilitators. This can enable the power of communities to be retained along with a solutions

orientation to problems.

With regard to the development of active citizenship, there is a clear linkage to securing the

rights of people. The engagement of partners with local politicians, such as ward councillors,

often serves as an initial link between communities and local government. Communities that are

mobilised can better hold local officials to account for the quality of service delivery. People are

also best at articulating their needs themselves.

The NLV experience reinforced the need for power to be challenged and privilege disrupted. This was

also a key part of the NLV theory of change.

This aspect emerged strongly during the Re-Vision Link and Learn event in November 2015 on hate

crimes. During discussions at this event, culture and religion were posed as systemic, structural drivers

of hate crimes, alongside and interconnecting with racism, patriarchy, poverty and inequality. Partners

identified the need to attend to the roots of hate crimes, saying the status quo must be challenged to

construct new ways of being and interacting.

Similarly, at the Re-Vision event on livelihoods, partners discussed the dramatic increase in access to

services since apartheid, but noted with concern that income distribution has remained unchanged.

They urged for consideration to be given to the role civil society can play with regards to poverty,

inequality and livelihood systems.

In these discussions, partners recognised a need to go back to a power analysis – the roots of the

problem – to create meaningful change. However, one of the challenges to this is that the addressing of

power issues tends to fall outside of funding cycles and of monitoring and evaluation systems.

Other challenges around changing collective and individual consciousness that emerged during the NLV

program was that partners recognised that when trying to enact change they are dealing with conditions

that, firstly, have been in place for many decades and which will take time to address. Secondly,

people’s priorities are for their immediate individual needs to be met before moving on to discuss larger

community concerns or larger ideologies. The initial demand is for current circumstances to be

alleviated.

How partnerships play a role

A key learning during NLV, and reflected, for example, at the Re-Vision event on hate crimes, was

that organisations need to work in partnership to address the complex reality we face. Those

affected by hate crimes need to be supported to self-organise to address these crimes and the

sociocultural systems which embed them. Government also needs to be challenged, which

requires partnerships, and institutions like the South African Human Rights Commission as well

as Parliament need to be lobbied for policy and ‘on the ground’ changes.

Changing consciousness

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The value of partnerships between organisations in facing the challenge of changing

consciousness is further emphasised when consideration is given to the different strengths and

goals of CSOs. Building partnerships across organisations can ensure a holistic approach is

facilitated.

A strong gender analysis within the NLV program enabled partners to develop skills to recognise and

respond to the need to place women more centrally as actors in development and primary beneficiaries

of the NLV program. This reflected the overarching concern of the program that unless the structural

roots of vulnerability are addressed, any change may be temporary and illusionary.

The important learning regarding gender was that women’s empowerment is often the key to

addressing vulnerability. This seemed to be increasingly accepted and recognised across programming

from WASH, food and nutrition security to smallholder farming and disaster risk reduction.

NLV worked towards ‘gender’ being a cross-cutting issue and actively ensured that women were

centrally placed within the program.

The overarching strategy used in the NLV program was to empower women through their participation

in groups that build community solidarity to address social issues. Group interaction included sharing

information, building trust and establishing alliances.

Partners and OAU engaged in in-depth discussions to deepen understandings of the complex issues

around gender, sexuality and identity. The aim of these was to recognise and integrate how sexual

orientation and gender identity could impact on the delivery of programs where ‘women’ and ‘gender’

were at the centre of the activities and reflections.

Funding also encouraged partners to engage critically with the issues of ‘child protection’ and ‘inclusion

of people with disabilities’. This allowed partners to improve their policies, uphold the rights of

vulnerable groups and learn more about inclusive programming. The model of providing technical input

from one specialist CSO (eg CREATE and RAPCAN) to others within the partnership over an extended

period of time was very successful.

The key learnings emerging from sessions by RAPCAN on child protection were around the importance

of a child rights’ orientation in gender programming. With disability as a key component of NLV from

inception, partners developed programs that were inclusive to people with disabilities. Partners made

structural changes to their buildings, changed the way data was collected and disaggregated, underwent

training to understand how to design more inclusive programs and trained home-based care workers on

disability to address issues of rights, stigma and discrimination.

Inclusive programming: gender, disability and child protection

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Prior to NLV, the work with OAU and partner organisations was focused on a specific area, for example,

WASH or food security through a particular funded program. This was an artificial separation of aspects

that were interconnected. As the work evolved, integration started to take place more and more. One of

the key aspects to the NLV program was around an increasingly overt approach to integration and the

need for a more comprehensive strategy to address vulnerability.

A key learning that emerged from NLV was that the integration of food security work with WASH,

livelihoods, HIV and DDR work, for example, resulted in OAU and partners developing a stronger

understanding of the interconnectedness of systems and processes. The evaluation of NLV found that

this increased the impact of the programs run by the partners.

The key lesson around the value of integration was that communities and organisations tend to

naturally operate in an integrated way. The integrated way of working in NLV reflected what was

already happening in communities and the way partners had been called on to address overlapping

issues in the areas where they worked. By embracing this complexity, NLV was able to allow for more

responsive and agile programming.

The design and delivery of capacity building programs that improved skills, knowledge and technical

competency of partner staff was identified as a key mechanism to enable change within NLV. This led

to the development of documentation that described this process, made use of the knowledge partners

gained or provided more detail on the work of organisations involved in NLV.

Oxfam staff have described the connection between documentation and capacity building as ‘two banks

of the same river’ because documents are sometimes produced as a result of capacity building

processes, while at other times, capacity building enables partners to tell their story, produce

documents and share information in different ways (for example, through social media).

With capacity building, a key focus for OAU was to ask partners what their capacity building needs were,

and where increased knowledge or skills would be beneficial. Over time OAU moved away from

prescriptive short term interventions to longer term, voluntary partner-led processes. Capacity building

was diverse and focused on areas including succession planning and leadership, financial processes,

fundraising, learning through exchange visits and ways of documenting such as the use of video

storytelling. It also happened in multiple ways – remotely using webinars, one-on-one and group

interventions with external consultants, partners and OAU staff learning from one another formally and

informally and so on.

As partners developed skills and confidence in their own abilities through the NLV program,

organisations started to be proactive in carrying out activities that revealed an understanding and

adoption of some of the lessons and values from OAU over the years. For example, partners organised

their own link and learn events. In this way, there was a strong peer learning component of NLV, which

strengthened interconnectedness between organisations.

integration

Capacity building and documenting

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Capacity building was not only directed at organisations, it also targeted beneficiaries through the

strengthened partners. For example, support was provided around trading for organisations involved in

livelihoods and crafts. Learning processes that focused on production, marketing and sales were

amongst those that proved valuable.

Documenting was a key aspect of NLV because of the recognition that there is value in sharing lessons

and raising awareness around issues that emerge during the program, as well as profiling partners’

work.

Different types of documentation processes were explored as part of the NLV program. These included

the development of a collection of short ‘snapshot’ articles, or vignettes, videos, research documents,

partner case studies, manuals, and the documenting of stories of change.

Amongst the learnings for organisations was the benefit of sharing human interest stories about people,

which brought theoretical processes and the need for change to life in an engaging way.

The concepts explored and shared in documentation produced as part of the program were vast,

ranging from stories on early childhood development to lessons on community consultation to

community videos on WASH and much more. In the exit phase, OAU staff were also called on to

document their work through learning papers produced on integration, vulnerability and gender, trust,

health and the integral framework as an analytical tool.

How capacity building links to sustainability

Capacity building was important throughout NLV, but focused on sustainability as the program

started to wind down. It was used further to underpin partner sustainability and included

capacity building on fundraising and resource mobilisation; using social media and digital

platforms to influence stakeholders, communities, other CSOs and government; and leadership

among others.

Capacity building can also help partners to strengthen their own internal systems, which

contributes to their sustainability. Capacity building on succession planning, for example,

entailed preparing staff to take over from leaders at the time, and focused on giving

organisations the space to engage with how they will function in the long-term.

The spotlight focused more intensely on sustainability of the work started during NLV as the program

started to draw to a close. Amongst some of the valuable lessons during this time were the need to

focus more on networking, marketing of the work of partners, updating of websites and the

development of fundraising strategies. These and the underlying emphasis on partnerships and

integration in the NLV approach were designed to enhance sustainability. The final Program Report for

January to March 2016 states though that sustainability is inherently complex:

sustainability

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“When having a discussion of this nature, it is important to recall that “...a strong argument was

made [by partners] about partners’ own responsibility for their sustainability”2. The agency for

change continues to rest with partners and communities. Having said this, the question of

continuity and sustainability cannot be answered with certainty; however, what can be said is

that Oxfam’s approach, and the nature of the partnership, gave partners the best possible

chance to adapt. This is because time was given for the closure, care was taken during the exit,

capacity building focused on relevant sustainability concerns, and the years of partnership with

other organisations allowed the possibility of collective responses.”

Partners have long been faced with the reality that donor funding is finite and have realised there is a

need to diversify programs to remain responsive to community needs and be resilient in the face of

funding cycles. This is especially the case in a smaller and more competitive funding market. In this final

close out phase, various partner adaptation strategies emerged.

Partners identified, for example, that some communities were developing a sense of ownership, which

would contribute to the sustainability of the work started in NLV. This was shown by the effort of certain

communities to contribute funds for interventions, rather than wait for supporting organisations to raise

these funds. Other efforts reported to continue the work included new funding avenues, further

integration, handing over the work to government, and partnerships with other CSOs.

Sustainability and partnerships

As NLV drew to a close and organisations were even more focused on sustainability than in the

past, the value of partnerships was evident in the joint funding proposals developed by partners

to ensure the continuation of their respective OAU-funded programs, in particular.

Networking between partner organisations also contributed towards the issue of program

sustainability beyond OAU funding with partners improving their capacity to network

independently, host theoretical or knowledge-based workshops, as well as fieldwork-based or

practical ones with peers, and find different ways to showcase their learning and best practice.

Sustainability is also about ensuring the long-term impact of the work being done by organisations. In

this regard, it is important to reemphasise that it takes time to change individual mindsets and to

deepen consciousness about change, elicit action and build collective action. Relationships between

beneficiaries and partner organisations need to be maintained for this impact to be sustained.

However, sustainability is also about strengthening livelihoods, whether directly through new skills, or

indirectly through social protection or rights, such that once the immediate interaction with the

partner has ended, people are less vulnerable. The further challenge is that more is required than just

supporting livelihoods: often people cannot live off the skills they have developed without some

fundamental shift in the structural underpinnings of their vulnerability.

2 Drimie, S. (2016). No Longer Vulnerable Program (July 2012-June 2015) Summative Evaluation, Oxfam Australia:

Durban.

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The overall vision of NLV was “less vulnerable people living and working in South Africa”. During the

course of the program, from July 2012 until March 2016, Oxfam Australia as a donor and partner

organisations learned lessons that will be valuable in future programming and activities.

The theory of change and the integral framework in NLV enabled organisations to focus on shifting

mind-sets and strengthened the way they supported opportunities to engage with change. They also

provided tools for the partners to participate more holistically in change processes.

A key area of learning was around partnerships: between partners, between government and

organisations, and between donors and partners. The role of partnerships also emerged strongly when

one looks at the areas of active citizenship, changing consciousness and sustainability. Partnerships add

value to organisational development and enable people’s knowledge to deepen and spaces for collective

understanding of development issues confronting communities to be created. Critical in creating good

partnerships is building trust, allowing contestation and focusing on people.

Participatory approaches were identified as key to ensuring that programs succeed. These approaches

encouraged community ownership, social learning and a grassroots approach that built on people’s

capabilities and passions.

NLV recognised the need for power issues to be addressed, power to be challenged and consideration to

be given to the role of civil society in addressing poverty, inequality and livelihood systems. Changing

consciousness at individual and collective levels is key to creating meaningful change.

In focusing on issues of inclusive programming, an aim was to ensure that women were centrally placed

within the NLV program. It was reinforced during the program that women’s empowerment is critical to

addressing vulnerability. OAU and partners also grappled with reaching a deeper understanding of

gender, sexuality and identity, which was an ongoing process given the complexity and the impact on

projects and programs.

The integrated approach of NLV mirrored the way communities and organisations tend to operate in an

integrated way and enabled partners to avoid an artificial separation that can be part of programming.

The needs of organisations, as identified by partners themselves, were addressed through capacity

building that formed part of the NLV program. This gave organisations tools, which in some cases were

used to document their work and share the stories of their organisation and their communities with a

wider audience.

Partnerships, community ownership, changing consciousness, inclusive programming, integration and

capacity building and documentation, all play a role in the sustainability of organisations and the

activities and work begun in the NLV program.

Addressing vulnerability, changing mindsets and deepening consciousness takes time. However, as many

organisations continue to do the work started during NLV, there is evidence of the resilient nature of

partners and the value of an integrated, people-centric, partnership-based approach which creates a

strong and engaging platform for partners and the long-term impact of their work.

conclusion