Networking & Capacity Building

NOVOC’s networking and capacity building program is designed to benefit our members, who work in local communities across Malawi.

By facilitating networking and capacity building:

• Our members are empowered to build and aim for best practice
  • learn from each other’s experiences
  • share their own experiences with each other
• We help ensure that the various services provided to OVCs by individual NOVOC members are incremental and complementary instead of being duplicative and isolated.

This information-sharing motivates service providers to raise the standard of their work and develop models they can share with their colleagues. This, in turn, will help them take part in forums where essential OVC issues are deliberated and their collective decisions feed into national OVC programs and policies.

This program will benefit all our members directly and help another 500 organizations manage themselves better.

Issues Statement

Government and donor partners regularly raise concerns about the lack of coordination and collaboration between OVC stakeholders who work with the same target groups. This has negatively affected the quality of services to OVCs. In addition, the majority of service providers have limited technical and organisational capacity to deliver services effectively.

The organisations who care for and support OVCs work in almost every corner of the country. Generally, they are not monitored. Monitoring is conducted by the District Social Welfare Office but is usually not adequate. This means that Malawi has no central authority with overall knowledge and information about the strengths and weaknesses of OVC service provision in the country.

Ideally, the Ministry of Children Affairs is responsible for overseeing and monitoring all interventions in the care and support for OVC in Malawi. The Ministry is taking steps towards better dealing with this role. Currently, it is practically impossible for the Ministry to successfully undertake this role, given its financial and systems capacity.

Networking and capacity building will assist our efforts to support and coordinate the work of organizations that care for Malawi’s OVCs. We will continue to work in partnership with the Ministry to ensure an excellent level of OVC service monitoring and coordination throughout the country.

Program Goal

• Build capacity of member organisations to more effectively support OVCs by linking them to, and assisting them better network with, other OVC stakeholders.
• Through this, enable OVCs to realize their fullest potential and to meaningfully contribute to national development.