RBA Making Strides in South Africa with Second Community of Practice Meeting

The following article was generously contributed to us by the following individuals: Ken Fullerton (writer) of PlaNet Finance, Charlotte Tervit (editor) of eTeach Youth Projects and Laureen Rwatirera (editor) of Acccelerate Performance.

The second Results Based Accountability (RBA) South African Community of Practice meeting took place on Friday 20 February at the Accelerate Performance office board room in Johannesburg, South Africa. This followed hot on the heels of the recent, yet exciting, news from Clear Impact and Accelerate Performance that another South African RBA conference will be taking place in late 2015 in addition to another Australian RBA conference.

Discussing her thoughts and ideas with the group: Mrs Charlotte Tervit of eTeach Youth Projects.

Sharing a joke. Mrs Bianca Clarke of Accelerate Performance and Mr Ken Fullerton of PlaNet Finance.

Present at the meeting were 9 people, representing 6 different organisations. Some of the key expectations for the meeting included how best to learn from the successes and failures of organisations using RBA, how best to continue building the momentum of the 2014 RBA conference, how to get more traction and impact in the public sector and outside of the non-profit sector and to learn about Accelerate Performance’s recent RBA initiatives and developments.

By its very nature RBA is meant to be simple, easy to understand and is designed so that people can learn how it can be implemented and then do so themselves without the need for ongoing advisory support at great expense. It is also highly relevant as a tool for many of the socio-economic and developmental challenges that South Africa and other African countries are trying to overcome.

Central to these discussions was the idea of how best to showcase local and African RBA pilot examples and success stories at the 2015 RBA South African conference. On this subject the Community of Practice group discussed ideas around how best to approach and work with donors, how to engage many different stakeholders in a particular community or related to a particular developmental challenge (e.g. healthcare), how to organise a forum or dialogue to express and learn about different issues, how to transcend party, political and/or ideological beliefs and how best to measure impact of a particular project or initiative.

It was interesting to learn of Accelerate Performance’s RBA work and initiatives with organisations such as New Jerusalem Children’s Home, the Rivers Foundation, the Department of Social Development and the Learning Trust all in South Africa, the Higher Life Foundation in South Africa and Zimbabwe, the IDM Business School in Botswana as well as with different United Nations bodies at a more global level. Potential, but exciting, RBA implementation and partnership opportunities involving Mamas for Children in Africa also arose out of the meeting.

The next such Community of Practice meeting is scheduled to take place on Friday 17 April. The venue is yet to be determined. An RBA Train the Trainer event led by Mrs Deitre Epps of Clear Impact is also scheduled to take place on 17 and 18 March in Johannesburg. It is not too late to sign up to and participate in either of these events.

Discussing RBA and how it can be implemented and used in the South African and African business context and environment.

For anyone interested in learning more about RBA, how it can be implemented in your business or line of work or if you are interested in learning more or attending the next Community of Practice meeting please contact either Mrs Laureen Rwatirera of Accelerate Performance at laureen@accelerateperformance.co.za or Mrs Charlotte Tervit of eTeach Youth Projects at charlotte@eteach.co.za. You can also refer to the RBA website (http://rba-africa.com/) or follow RBA Africa on Facebook and Twitter.