Despite its staggering successes – including helping put 3.3 million people on Aids treatment, 8.6 million on anti-tuberculosis treatment and providing 230m insecticide-treated nets for the prevention of malaria – the fund’s recent troubles had threatened to overshadow its accomplishments as it prepared to mark a decade as the world’s main financier of programmes to fight these three global epidemics.

The fund hopes that Gate’s pledge, a show of faith that provided more than just a much-needed cash boost, coupled with the departure of its executive director, Michel Kazatchkine, and the commissioning of an independent review that recommended an overhaul of its grant management and financial practices, will help re-establish its reputation as it steps into its second decade.

While all of this is clearly good news for the beleaguered fund, some frontline agencies are still reluctant to join in the celebrations.

Sir Richard Feachem, a founding executive of the fund in 2002 and now the director of the Global Health Group, says, “In the short-term, the main priority must be ensuring that the extraordinary progress in the fight against Aids, TB and malaria achieved in the past 10 years does not get reversed.”

Read the full article on The Guardian’s website. More news headlines can be found in our News archive.

Here is a list of the 11 articles our visitors read most in 2011:

1. AsgiSA’s quiet death – where to next for South Africa’s econmic policy?
2. Matric results – not good enough, must do better
3. Can South Africa really reduce its carbon footprint by 34%?
4. The five-minute sustainability brief for CEOs
5. Education starts before Grade R
6. All NPOs should be using social media. Well, maybe.
7. Social enterprise development in South Africa – creating a virtuous circle
8. You have a duty to know if your CSI works
9. CSI changes, but its lessons remain
10. South African education is doomed until teachers are taught
11. Lay councellors: the unheralded backbone of South Africa’s HCT programme

 Of course, reading all of these means that there are still at least another 70 fascinating articles to find, read and share.

To help you find the ones that interest you most, we restructured the Insights section at the end of last year so that all entries are conveniently archived into categories.You’ll see a list of those categories on the left hand side of each page in that section of the website.

Go visit the Insights archive today, browse around, and share your favourites using the social networking buttons at the bottom of each article. Or, leave a comment to start a conversation with your fellow readers. We look forward to hearing from you.

The problem described repeatedly was that funding was being strangled by an uncaring bureaucracy at the department of social development. NGOs are asked to present business plans, and then never hear from the department again. If they do receive funding, it isn’t nearly enough.

The coordinator of forum, Jackie Loffell, said the problem was organisations couldn’t budget properly or even function on budget money being given out on a yearly basis. “The government delegates most of social service responsibilities to NGOs,” she said. “There has to be a system where funding is reliable, instead of the discretionary system there is now. That is our call to the department: we need a reliable system.”

What these organisations want is simple: funding on a longer-term basis so that their day-to-day needs will be covered. This will allow them to approach the private sector for funding when they need to upscale or embark on new projects. The uncertainty created by being given too little money on an irregular basis will eventually erode the safety net created by NGOs for some of South Africa’s most vulnerable people.

Read the full article at The Daily Maverick, then share your views in our Comments section below. More news headlines can be found in our News archive.

This week, we chat to research manager Lucy Holborn about our society’s most up-to-date trends.

Listen to the podcast by clicking the ‘play’ icon below:

All episodes of Challenging Change are archived in our audio gallery. Listen to Challenging Change on Mondays at 18:30 on Radio Today at 1485 AM or on DSTV audio channel 169, repeated on Thursdays at 19:20.

At the 2012 Serious Social Investing workshop, you will gain a deeper practical understanding of what first class corporate social investment looks like, and how to carry it out.

Now in its third year, this two-day workshop includes interactive learning, case studies and practical advice, access to experienced and established experts and constructive networking.

Whether your priority development area is education, health, sustainable livelihoods, or any other, this hands-on learning event will help you to make better decisions on how to spend scarce CSI resources in an increasingly competitive market.

Date: 14 and 15 March 2012
Venue: Gordon Institute of Business Science, Illovo, Johannesburg
Cost: R 4800.00 for a two-day workshop – all materials, lunch, teas included as well as a six-month subscription to the Financial Mail magazine.

Limited to just 100 participants, those attending should be prepared to be challenged and to engage in problem solving and collective learning. To book your seat, please contact Belinda on 011 467 3341 or email belinda@creativespacemedia.co.za.

The 2012 Serious Social Investing workshop is brought to you by Tshikululu Social Investments and the Gordon Institute of Business Science, in association with Anglo American and Financial Mail magazine.

The two studies will provide a comprehensive assessment of the health, behaviour, HIV, and nutritional status of the people of South Africa – information crucial to understanding the health of South Africans to date and to guide future strategies and programmes.

The first study, funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the USA, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the United Nations Children’s Fund, is the fourth South African National HIV, Behaviour and Health Survey conducted since 2002, repeated in 2005 and 2008. These studies have provided critical information on the course of the HIV epidemic in South Africa.

The focus of the 2012 survey has been expanded to include a wide range of health information including the health of infants and mothers, child health, and emerging interventions such as male circumcision. It also addresses issues such as psychological health and behavioural risk, for example, alcohol abuse and drug use.

The second survey, the South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (SANHANES), funded by the Department of Health and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, is the first of its kind conducted in South Africa, and is similar to health and nutrition examination surveys carried out on a regular basis in countries like the United States, Japan, China, Canada and countries in Europe. SANHANES is designed to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children. The survey is unique in that it combines interviews in households with physical examinations in mobile clinics and blood analysis in laboratories.

By conducting these two surveys, South Africa will, for the first time, have a comprehensive understanding of the health profile of the population. It will provide data on communicable and non-communicable diseases at national and provincial levels, information that is vital for public health planning and programme implementation.

As with similar national studies, a random sample of households is chosen from communities throughout South Africa to ensure the results are representative of the population.

The HSRC team and their partners appeal to the public to support the two surveys, as the results will have significant implications for the country’s future health policy and appropriate response mechanisms to current health challenges.

Download the HSRC’s factsheets on the South African National HIV, Behaviour and Health Survey or the South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

The exact content of the new global sustainable development goals (SDGs) will be decided by governments before the Rio meeting and will not be introduced until 2015. However, they are expected to cover “priority” areas such as oceans, food, energy, water, consumption and sustainable cities. They will also be asked to negotiate a new agreement to approve an annual state of the planet report, set up a major world agency for the environment, and appoint a global “ombudsperson”, or high commissioner, for future generations.

These goals would complement the poverty-reduction Millenium Development Goals set by 192 countries in 2000, due to hit their deadline in 2015.

A just-released summit draft is being met with a mixed welcome from environment and development groups.

It reflects extensive investigative work that Human Rights Watch staff has undertaken during the year, often in close partnership with domestic human rights activists.

Unsurprisingly, events in the Middle East and North Africa receive much investigation and analysis in this edition, in addition to: violations of the laws of war in Libya and Afghanistan; the plight of political prisoners in Vietnam and Eritrea; the silencing of dissent in China and Cuba; internet crackdowns in Iran and Thailand; killings by security forces in India and Mexico; election-related problems in Russia and the Democratic Republic of Congo; mistreatment of migrants in Western Europe; neglectful maternal health policies in Haiti and South Africa; the suppression of religious freedom in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia; torture in Pakistan and Uzbekistan; discrimination against people with disabilities in Nepal and Peru; and detention without trial in Malaysia and by the United States.

The South African overview also reports on issues of freedom of expression, vulnerable workers, women’s rights, sexual orientation and gender identity, refugee rights and our international role.

You can download the full report on the Human Rights Watch website, and the South African chater here.

There are some fledgling schemes that could help to raise this cash – for instance, the United Nations-backed system called Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), which uses carbon trading to generate cash to preserve trees – but so far they are small in scale.

The benefits of safeguarding these habitats, such as providing valuable services from food, medicines and clean water to absorbing carbon dioxide from the air, are more than triple the costs of conserving them, the researchers found.

Will Turner, vice–president of Conservation International and lead author of the study, said that preserving areas of highest biodiversity should be the priority. “What the research clearly tells us is that conserving the world’s remaining biodiversity isn’t just a moral imperative – it is a necessary investment for lasting economic development. But in many places where the poor depend on these natural services, we are dangerously close to exhausting them, resulting in lasting poverty.”

Read the full article on The Guardian’s website. More news headlines can be found in our News archive.

This article was first published by Business Day on 20 January 2012.

When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, we anticipated an immediate and significant negative effect on South Africa’s non profit sector, that vital part of community development. Yet, while a few nonprofit organisations (NPOs) immediately felt the effects of diminished funding, many have weathered the storm over the past two years, often by dipping into reserves carefully built up over many years, and by scaling back their work.

The wolf is now much closer to the door and in the past year we noted a significant increase in the financial distress of NPOs, increasing retrenchments and even closures. So while the 2008 recession has in some ways been slow to show its full effect, it has now hit home and in all likelihood will continue to hamper growth in developmental education, healthcare and welfare this year as the world economy braces for a longer and deeper recession.

Many NPOs have therefore been considering their sustainability options over the past few years. These have ranged from new fundraising ventures and expanding the scope of services being offered, to focusing on new areas such as enterprise development. Many expansion plans have been curtailed.

What remains evident is that funding is tight, from both local and international donors, and that it cannot be business as usual. One thing not considered often enough is that of NPO mergers and acquisitions (M&As), an idea whose time has surely come.

Indeed, the idea of collaboration in the nonprofit sector has been a topic of discussion for many years. Some organisations have succeeded in sharing knowledge and best practice, although brand identity, funding relationships and intellectual property are often jealously guarded

Now, the option of M&As needs to be considered not only in response to financial constraints but, more importantly, as a way to harness scarce resources and decades of institutional knowledge and leadership to collectively advance the needs of society

Ordinarily, M&As are often only considered when economies of scale create a compelling business case, or when organisations are facing tough economic conditions, as is the case now. However, looking beyond the numbers, M&As also provide a real opportunity for organisations operating in the same sector to come together and to strengthen and expand their areas of expertise in ways that increase their overall effect.

Mergers are, of course, not walks in the park, nor always the panacea to financial woes. They require careful consideration by the boards of NPOs, including discussions about organisational philosophy, reputation, operating efficiency and governance structures. Often the biggest challenges of M&As are the merging of organisational cultures and personalities, never mind leadership challenges. However, in a sector that has scarce skills and where the pursuit of leadership expertise is continuing, M&As provide an opportunity to strengthen and keep talent in the nonprofit sector

M&As should not only be considered at the level of individual organisations but also in the interest of society at large and in view of corporate SA’s real desire to support effective social interventions to scale.

As such, when faced with NPO M&As, corporate funders need to become heavily engaged, even considering funding to facilitate effective M&As during the planning phase and after the merge.

How NPOs can further their visions, missions and values must be at the heart of any M&A discussion, to the ultimate benefit of their beneficiaries. While difficult discussions about staffing, brand identity and leadership cannot be avoided, the alternative of NPO closures should concentrate the mind like little else.