The importance of costs per unit for Civil Society

In more than two decades of the National Response to HIV/AIDS, we have not made great inroads into defining the costs per unit of the interventions of civil society. The World Bank (with its ASAP Programme) UNAIDS, the Global Fund and the International Alliance began a process to increase the knowledge of civil society organisations by active participation in the development of the National Strategic Plans (through ASAP) and the determination of costs per unit.

But why is it important to know the specific costs per unit? For the last few years, national strategic plans have begun to develop that are costly. However, these plans lack the calculation of the costs of the interventions of civil society. Hence, the national accounts are exclusively governmental.

The important of having and applying tools to define these costs can by summarised in: The opportunity to group together the interventions into service packages so that civil society organisations can know the specific actual costs and by this route they can develop projects and adjusted proposals to implement programmes in their role as sub-recipients of the Global Fund.

It is also a resource for political advocacy, it can demonstrate the economic contribution in this sector and it can reclaim a higher investment, based on evidence, in these proven programmes and better access to the vulnerable population.

For example, when a Gay/MSM organisation through a peer intervention deliver a condom to a person on the ground, normally the error lies in financing the cost of only the condom, a leaflet and the time spent by the person who did the peer work.

Behind this activity exists a variety of direct costs (travel expenses, snacks or administration and stock management for the condoms) and indirect costs (expenditures for maintenance of the organisation, training the peer workers and fees for other officials of the organisation.

As a consequence, many times the organisation underestimates the actual final costs in their budget and therefore may confront serious difficulties in meeting the goals set by the Principal Recipient which include covering the budgetary differences from their own coffers.

Starting next year, the first workshop will be organised to adjust and validate a tool which will be distributed to national workshops in a limited number of countries in 2010.

The civil society organisations cannot continue working in situations of semi-exploitation with precarious working conditions and ending up looking for resources from their limited reserves to cover budgetary gaps. This is a topic of greater effectiveness, efficacy and equity which has nothing to do with the commitment of this sector to the national responses.

By Javier Hourcade Bellocq
Key Correspondent Team – Asuncion, 11/12/09

Key points in the World Bank’s AIDS Strategy Action Plan

Representatives of the World Bank’s AIDS Strategy Action Plan presented the objectives of the programme and developed some key points to strengthen the participation of civil society in the preparation of proposals and in defining the costs per unit.

Rosalia Rodriguez Garcia, Manager of the AIDS Strategy Action Plan (ASAP) together with Eric Gallard, who works on the planning of this strategy for Haiti, presented the advantages of this programme, promoted by UNAIDS and managed by the World Bank.

They want to make the training and necessary tools available to civil society so that the strategies are based on actual results of the work carried out by each sector.

“As Soon As Possible” is the meaning of the acronym of this programme and that is exactly the timeframe it hopes to achieve. “It was created to respond strategically to the epidemic and to make sure the resources were utilised effectively", explained Rodriguez Garcia.

We are not talking about a funding programme since there are no direct subsidies granted. What it does offer is technical service, measures to increase capacities and the development of tools.

“Many times, activities in the community sector do not appear in the budgets. We do not know what is an actual expense so there are many estimates” affirms Rodriguez Garcia.

“The international organisations do not know how much is spent on community interventions. You have this information”, he added, “Therefore, the objective of this strategy is to provide civil society with the opportunity to participate in the process at all times".

In turn, Eric Gallard explained in detail how to estimate the costs per unit of the community interventions carried out by the members of the networks and organisations, including the direct and indirect costs.

In many cases, this work is not accurately reflected in the budgets so the purpose of this strategy is to train each sector in calculating the actual costs that the sectors incur and not estimates that generally end up penalising them.

The representatives of civil society who attended the workshop acknowledged this weakness so they asked the persons in charge of the strategy to inform the networks and the organisations of the steps of the process and that this information reaches beyond the national programmes of each country and is shared with others.

By Mirta Ruiz and Alejandra Ruffo
Key Correspondent Team – Asuncion, 11/12/09