Sustainability

 

Sustainability is an important but often poorly understood program concept. At times, civil society organisations struggle with the idea, often opting for approaches to sustainability that are resource focused (either money or people) and not considering how their ideas and practices could be sustained or propagated over time. While human and financial resources are important, the less tangible aspects of programming such as ideas, messages, behaviour changes, etc, are seldom considered.

 

This thematic area is designed to challenge current understandings of programme sustainability and encourage discussion around alternative ways of looking at the issue. While a significant amount of the event’s programme is dedicated to some of the material aspects of sustainability, the significant question: ‘How do we sustain goodpractice over time?’ will be the major focus of these sessions.

 

Denise Hunt

Monday 26th October 10:30 - 12:30 Venue 3

Sharing, learning and finding support from our peers are important components of our sustainability as they allow us to engage with new ideas, share learning and experiences and build cooperative relations for the furthering of our ambitions. ‘Networking’ is a much used term, but poorly practiced action. What value does networking add to our work? How can we network better and build better networks?

To view some of the session notes, click here.

 

Rebecca Freeth

Monday 26th October 13:30 - 15:30 Venue 5

Managing change takes skill, patience and courage. How do we create organisations that are able to deal more effectively with change? What could an alternative civil society leadership model look like?

 

Pooven Moodley

Tuesday 27th October 8:00 - 10:00 Venue 1

Reflecting on the change that is happening in and around programmes makes it possible for organisations to adapt and remain relevant to the constituencies they serve. Too often organisations are caught up in delivery and as a result do not take time to reflect on their practice and on the changing environment. How do our planning, reflection and learning processes connect? What value could there be in spending time ‘navel gazing’? How do we create the time and space for reflection and what do we do with what we learn?

 

Margaret Roper

Tuesday 27th October 10:30 - 12:30 Venue 2

Developing program or project baselines is a fundamental part of programming yet very few organisations actually do this. Why is this so? How can we develop simple, easy to use baselines that are relevant to our organisation’s information needs? How do we use baselines to better reflect the successes, challenges and opportunities our work presents?