Network Capacity Analysis - Rapid Assessment Guide: A Toolkit for Assessing and Building Capacities for High Quality Responses to HIV

The International HIV/AIDS Alliance (the Alliance) works with its civil society partners to ensure that they have the skills and strategies needed to make effective contributions to national HIV efforts as implementers and supporters of community-based action. This toolkit is part of a series designed to build the organisational, technical, and policy capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) to plan and deliver high-quality responses to HIV.

The toolkit - which is one part of a 2-part set (please see "Related Summaries" below to access the other) - can be used by networks to help identify their capacity-building needs, plan technical support interventions, and monitor and evaluate the impact of capacity-building. It provides a structured approach to generating both quantitative and qualitative information about the situation of the organisation at the time of analysis. The resulting outcomes can also be used to track progress when developing capacity. As a "rapid guide", the toolkit is intended to help networks plan, steer, and collect outcomes of a meeting or teleconference where, due to specific needs or limited resources, the aim is to do a more rapid capacity analysis.

The toolkit emphasises the value of a variety of factors contributing to capacity, identifying six key areas that are particularly important to civil society networks engaged in HIV programming and policy work: involvement and accountability; leadership; knowledge and skills; internal communication; advocacy, policy, and external communication; and management and finance. Each area of capacity as explored in the toolkit begins with an open-ended question, followed by more detailed questions. Participants are asked to give their network a score based on the listed indicators. At the end of each area of capacity there are two discussion questions to help the network plan improvements in any weak areas and find out what resources are needed.

The toolkit was field-tested with the Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (APN+) in Thailand and the Indian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (INP+) in India, and the Association of Female Sex Workers of Argentina (AMMAR) in Argentina.