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, CA and Durban, South Africa

Suggested Outline format

I.      Main Point 1

a.     Supporting Information

b.     Supporting Information

II.     Main Point 2

a.     Etc.

Summary Main Points of Session Discussion

San Francisco: More time to do the self assessments would have been helpful, takes time to get a good cross-section of people to do self assessments. Should get a month to do them. Want a broad section of people. Had 8-9 people, not quite a cross-section of the people they are responsible for. Two counties in CA took a while to pull them together. It went quite well though, in the limited time they had. Had only less than a week to put together.

Durban: Limitation of time, difficult to pull people together, first attempt was not successful, work mostly with community organizations, community based organizations and faith based too. Businesses and universities too. Couldn’t get people because of prior commitments, got people from their agency and went to talk to orgs one on one. Workshop was successful because 28 orgs sat together and shared. All the orgs were at different levels.  Those who feel they are left behind- is a challenge to them, need to go back and help them out.

How much time given to prepare?

Durban: 3 weeks to a month, had to pull people together, important to sit down together collectivity

Oakland: Statements were also very vague /generic. Are they relevant? Are the statements really needed to be asked? Statements should probably be more specific.

Dimensions exist that were not reflected in the statements. Why were we invited and what was the purpose? Why were we selected as a city? Objectives not adequately explained.

Durban: they have done these things before.  Looking at the size of the cities, to try and choose which ones would come. In urban cities, solutions would have a bigger impact

Oakland: then if that is the thing, the big cities should be invited: LA, Chicago, NY; they actually invited all small cities.  May have had a history of using the model in these areas

Durban: Durban is diverse: has a balance of everything

Durban: Visa probe and people living with AIDS in Durban could not come too. Were not able to come.

Oakland: representatives from different levels planning, provider, government processes. Didn’t have faith based, university, but different levels of healthcare

Criteria for self-assessment?

Durban: statements were difficult to come to a consensus, ended up taking an average of opinions. People’s opinions differed on where they are located. Could take a long time in trying to decide where they are. 

Organizations thought that they were doing a bit of certain statements, and a bit of others on the self assessment. Hard to place themselves in one rectangle. When many organizations come together- hard to decide on one place to put them all.

Oakland: increased awareness of the different organizations; brought together orgs from same area- represent two counties.

Durban: this exercise forces you to know who’s who in the area, what the other orgs are doing. Brought people together, able to talk. Advantage: brought together state organizations.  Exercise enhance cooperatively

There may be a very good NGO that you didn’t know about, W/ very little resources, good to recognize and see these people. Exposure to these people.

Any things that we should do differently?

Durban: pulling together different organizations, better for the municipality (city health org) to bring the different orgs together, go out and talk to other orgs individual

Oakland: went to the people they give money to, and went to these people.  Cater to poor population; don’t have the money to pay for healthcare or services

Durban: don’t get the funds. Difficulty to tell them to use their money/ resources to come to us. 

Oakland: people don’t normally come, in Zimbabwe and other places. We have to go to them

Local processes vary depending on region.

Issues to highlight

1. How were the cities selected

2. Within the city how are funds brought in. –time and ability to plan, how to engage your partnersSelf assessment, trying to come to an agreement on self assessment, different focuses of different orgs to come together on a census- counties, orgs, and geographical areas

Constraints: need more time to do self assessments,

Questions: how did they choose the cities represented here?

GROUP DISCUSSION

• Things that were not on the self evaluation that the organization needed to improve i.e. expand the chart, options. Add some practices
• They do not have certain criteria. Criteria were not applicable for some places.
• Lack of linkage between local and national governments
• Who got the letter to come…hard to
• Need for very clear directions, who should be apart of this process
• Need to get a true reflection about what’s happening in the city.
• Also time to do their evaluation. Need private sector, university, other sectors
• A lot of things are happening on the national level, but communicating that to the local level is hard. Need reps from national level.
• None of the people got the instructions in time to get through the full process
• Services provider community, AIDS community, etc.
• Need to get a big group of people who can represent the population
• Limited time, very short notice
• Hard to get a broad view since time was limited
• Limited to a few AIDS providers, doesn’t accurately represent population
• Many had areas that they wanted to improve on
• Issue of vulnerability is not explained. How do we get a collective sense of this?
• Representation of certain sectors was poor while others were very strong
• Rephrase some of the statements to make it clearer, statements too vague
• All documentation needs to be able to access 6 months in advance- NGO’s, governments the more time the better to bring these organizations together
• More aggressive approach to this issue is needed
• Government, NGO’s, people living with AIDS were not represented
• Balance between access to treatment and prevention