Page 44 - OSISA Annual Report 2015-2018

is a milestone as results from our work is being replicated and used to support projects globally.
A notable success for sex worker’s movement-building is the registration of the Female Sex Workers Alliance as a legal entity in Malawi. Despite all the challenges and hurdles in the registration process, the organisation is finally registered. Regional (provincial) structures have been put in place to ensure the sex workers movement goes beyond the capital. The Female Sex Worker’s Association in Malawi and Rights Not Rescue in Namibia ensures they have functional systems and structures to implement projects on sex worker’s health rights.
In Mozambique, the project with NAMATI continues to make tremendous progress as national level advocacy on health rights has resulted in the development of compulsory pre-service training on the right to health for all health professionals. Therefore, the government is working with NAMATI and ITECH to develop the training package, which will be implemented in the next two years. The NAMATI citizen engagement intervention has also seen a rapid increase in community participation in health decision making. Citizens in target areas have influenced decisions around deployment of human resources and challenging corrupt practices, bribery and illegal payments in the health sector. For instance, communities living close to Eduardo Mondlane Health facility and Manchava Health Centre demanded accountability from health officials who were billing patients for accessing public health services. The issue resulted in the development of new administration systems at the clinic and also got attention from the ministry, which has commenced implementing the National Bribery and Anti-Corruption Policy to address the rampant corruption in the health sector.
Education Programme
The Education Programme will be presenting four projects to the third Board meeting covering DRC, Swaziland, Zambia and one that is regional. The Zambia and regional projects will be supported through the 2019 programme budget. Factoring in Board anticipated approvals for this quarter, the Programme’s overall projected core budget
spend will be at 100%. Key highlights of the Programme’s work for the past quarter are summarised below:
The Programme has successfully convened two important regional meetings – a seminar on the future of the teaching profession and the third iteration of the grantees’ workshop on children with special education needs (SEN) at the early childhood development (ECD) level. The former convening was hosted collaboratively with the Education Support Programme (ESP), Education International (EI) and the University of Johannesburg’s School of Education. It brought together a cross-section of education practitioners, teacher unions, policymakers from education ministries, academics, learners and education CSOs to discuss and explore themes on continuous teacher development in a rapidly transforming environment to advance quality and relevant education in the region and continentally. The seminar provided a robust platform for the cross-fertilisation of ideas, sharing of learner-centred pedagogies and the discussion of technology-based education and the future implications of teaching and learning from an OSF lens.
This seminar is part of a wider strategic movement to build a body of work that advances quality transformative education in the region. A full report is currently under review and will be shared once available.
The third SEN grantees’ workshop was successfully held in Swaziland, and its main focus was on sharpening grantees’ skills and capabilities for financial and resources mobilisation for sustainability. This gap was identified by the Programme and the Early Childhood Programme (ECP) as critically important to be addressed to ensure the institutional capacity of grantees to deliver effective ECD programmes. In addition, the platform concretised the community of practice on ECD, disability and SEN, building the technical skills needed and exploring lessons learnt in the field. To inform decisions regarding whether or not to extend this portfolio, OSISA and ECP will commission an evaluation of this work early in 2019.
Economic Justice Programme
The Economic Justice Programme will be presenting a total of 11 projects to the third board meeting. Half of these projects will be funded from the EJ budget, while
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OPEN SOCIETY INITIATIVE FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA – 2018 REPORT