A Program of CIFAL Atlanta
Hosted by Emory Rollins School of Public Health
Atlanta, GA, June 19-23, 2005
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Session 1: Discussion about Self Assessment Process in Cities

Delegations: Oakland and Durban

Bringing the relevant actors together

Oakland: Needed more time to carry out assessment.  It takes awhile to gather a good...

Durban: The first attempted meeting was not so successful.  We needed to bring in diverse community organizations- faith-based, university, business, etc.  The final workshop was quite successful, involving 28 organizations.  It was a good exercise on the whole.  We found that different organizations were at different levels, which made it difficult to arrive at consensus positions.  We had 3 weeks to a month to prepare for the conference.  (Oakland had less than a week.)  We had to convince other organizations to collaborate with us on the assessment.

Points of confusion, purpose of the assessment

Oakland: There was a problem with vague, generic statements on the assessment.  Some of the dimensions on the assessment did not seem relevant.   Why were we invited?  What was the purpose in the bigger picture?  Not explained well.  Why were we selected as a city?  I’m not sure why we’re here, maybe just to see what others are doing, look at best practices.  It seems that only small cities were chosen (Boston, Atlanta, Denver, Oakland, etc.)

Durban: We had prior experience with these types of conferences.  Cities were chosen based on size.  Oakland- But many big cities were not invited. 

Oakland: We often get a chance to see what goes on in other, larger cities through regional meetings

Durban: The difference here is that it is broader-based, not just public servants.

Difficulties in reaching consensus

Durban: Difficult to come to consensus. 

Oakland: We simply took an average of the varying viewpoints.  It would have taken an entire day to discuss these differences more carefully.

Durban: It was not easy to pick one category or another, sometimes we thought we lay somewhere in between.

Strengths of the self-assessment

Oakland: The meeting promoted increased awareness, the two different counties found themselves at different levels.  We’re struggling with those differences.

Durban: The exercise forces you to know who is who among the different organizations working on HIV/AIDS in your area.  It brought different groups together to collaborate, and enhanced the coordinating role of the local municipal govt.  Our municipality combines both urban areas and remote rural areas, and people working in either area were not that aware of each other before the self-assessment meeting.

Things to improve

Durban: It is better to have the municipality go out and visit the different organizations, rather than bring all the organizations together.

Oakland: disagree, we fund these organizations, and already know them.  We didn’t have enough time to bring in a broad base of people.  We couldn’t get the university, faith-based groups, etc.  We just brought together the groups with whom we already work.  Most of the people we serve are poor and can’t pay for services.  The assessment wouldn’t have made much difference for those that do have the money, because we don’t work with those populations.

Durban: Very few groups are funded by us, difficult to ask these organizations to use their scarce resources to come and visit us.  It is better if we go out and visit them.

Oakland: It is very different in US compared to abroad.  Here, it is easier to get people together, since we fund the organizations we work with, and transportation is easier.

Highlights

There are differences in how we engage our community partners in different environments.  The appropriate method may vary in different situations.  There should be different options for how to interact with local organizations.

Locally, there are differences in levels among different organizations, counties, etc.  This makes it difficult to come to consensus in the self-assessment.

River Diagram

Oakland: We identified 3 weaknesses, 1) measuring change, 2) adapting our response, 3) Addressing and identifying vulnerabilities

Durban: 3 weaknesses, 1) identifying and addressing vulnerability, 2) measuring change, 3) Linking care with prevention

Big difference in learning and transfer (OAK 4, DUR 2)

Stair Diagram

Produced stair diagrams for linking care with prevention, identifying and addressing vulnerability, and measuring change.