Our ActionAreas

The HR&S method is composed of a set of ActionAreas that combined makes a shift of paradigm possible. It is necessary to address aspects at different levels.

1. Management strategies.
   The HR&S Founder has developed a management strategy with which the challenges of the partner is identified and a road-map is developed to address the challenges. Thereby, HR&S does not propose the how implement development, but the local stakeholders do, with the support from HR&S. HR&S ensures to address the challenges that previously hindered the local stakeholders to achieve their goals, develop a road-map and coach until goals are met and procedures has become sustainable. Our management strategies is composed of six components, our Strategy ActionAreas; principles for international development collaboration (TAct); cross-cultural awareness & respect (CROSS); trust, trust, transparency and accountability (TRUST); real-time outcome evaluation planning (ROPE); testing the strength of evidence (TestE); and a narrative of the above (SfC).
   1. TAct, the Ten Actions. Principles for international development collaboration.
      Action ONE Needs and user driven and Action xx Equal partnership. It is our local partners in Sub-Sahara African countries that identify and implement the local solutions. At the same time our partners work in equal partnership with the international community. Thereby our operations are needs and user driven while being framed by international state-of-the art knowledge.
   2. CROSS, cross-cultural awareness & respect.
      • Local presence; Local Branches & RISE Support Centres
      • Monthly ActionTalks
   3. TRUST, transparency and accountability in governance and finance.
      We implement accountability strategies.
   4. ROPE, Real-time outcome evaluation planning.
      While HR&S offers empowerment services and products, we test evidence for impact, learn lessons, and take informed decisions in order to improve our empowerment procedures.
   5. TestE, Testing the strength of evidence. 
      We learn our lessons from measuring progress not only targeting the social enterprises themselves but more importantly the impact it has on our target partners, the company clients in the under-served communities. We have developed our own unique evidence based procedures for measuring impact (Testing the Strength of Evidence, TestE) that uses scientific evaluation methods. With TestE, we distinguish between output, outcome and sustainable impact. Outputs are quantified results from the HR&S own activities, outcomes are initiatives taken by our partners (Programme Management Partners (PMP) the empowered social entrepreneurs and Target partners (TP) the clients of the social enterprise) as a result of the outputs, and sustainable impact is when structures have become sustainable in a way that direct support from HR&S is no longer needed. We usually remain partners and previously supporters entrepreneurs becomes members of our networks.
   6. SfC
2. Empower scientific research institutions & advanced laboratories
   HR&S offers empowerment opportunities for scientific researchers. Empowering scientific includes support the access of advanced scientific equipment. We understand; i) the discipline itself, ii) the realities on the ground, iii) the ambitions and the challenges of our partners iv) how to coach our partners to reach their goals, and v) how to measure evidence based impact. We target natural sciences, rather than social sciences or health sciences.
3. Empower social entrepreneurs and serving under-served communities.
   HR&S offers empowerment opportunities for social entrepreneurs in Sub-Sahara African countries who can provide employment opportunities and/or products and/or services requested for by under-served communities. We understand; i) the discipline itself, ii) the realities on the ground, iii) the ambitions and the challenges of our partners iv) how to coach our partners to reach their goals, and v) how to measure evidence based impact. We target the delivery of social good while benefiting from a sustainable economy. This is an sustainable alternative to the aid approach to support development. The types of social enterprises that we support varies widely. This is due to that we seek local entrepreneurs who are in charge of generating an idea, develop, implement and maintain the idea. Thus HR&S does not ave to be an expert, in case our partners need expert advice we will call on our team of experts.
4. Addressing the realities on the ground
   Besides having professional capacity within our four areas of expertise, do we have a deep understanding of the realities on the ground, in relation to our four formal areas of expertise. This capacity is a result of i) HR&S  Sweden 15 years of interventions in SSA, on ground, inside the communities and in close collaboration with local stakeholders, in conjunction with a ii) solid team of local stakeholders, the HR&S local branches, our partner social entrepreneurs, researchers and technicians, and the clients to our social entrepreneurs. , thus the local communities and iii) HR&S operates in an innovative manner, sometimes we do the right ring but sometimes we fail, either way we improve our procedures as we have implemented firm methods to learn our lessons and take informed decision.
5. Development stakeholder coordination.
   We implement our activities though our own alternative method and we offer to share about our methods with the aid industry. We also target international sustainable development by creating practical road maps for development stakeholders to reach their development goals while testing the evidence of impact. Our partners benefit from our own innovative and unique management strategies, our other resources and network through training and coaching. We reach out to local authorities, aid institutions, CSR programmes, suppliers from Europe, and the civil society. We also aim for synergies among the different stakeholders.
   • Local authorities. HR&S addresses the outcome challenges presented by local authorities and other local development stakeholders in SSA, while benefiting from our own management strategies addressing international development and investment in a manner that generate evidence based sustainable impact. We seek local tenders where where we can support local authorities or matters identified by them. 
     
   • Aid institutions. It can be concluded from 60 years of aid that “Help” as a mode of operation is biased, and suffer from volatility. The charity, help, aid sector is rich of money, but not effective and/or efficient enough. We reach out to aid institutions for knowledge sharing and we seek grants for the implementation of HR&S programmes.
   • Corporate social responasblity (CSR). We collaborate around Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) ensuring social impact while generating benefits for the CSR company. We tailor-make CSR support packages, benefitting from the HR&S expetise and services that are directly related to the company’s mission. We aim to engage the partner company´s employees,customers, suppliers, and shareholders.
   • Agreed suppliers. We offer tailor-made programmes to facilitate sales for European Suppliers. Especially do we target manufacturers of advanced scientific equipment and their local suppliers. We have the capacity to coach the establishment of a functioning and accredited laboratory with advanced equipment managed with a sustainable economy.
   • Civil society. We reach out to organisations and individuals with interest in international development and offer seminars, workshops, and webinars where we share from our 15 years of lessons learned. We also offer cross-cultural awareness raising activities.
     Supporters: Many want to be involved and to contribute, in their own small capacity, maybe by donating or by doing volunteer work. HR&S proposes volunteer driven crowd-funding platforms that are linked to professional operations in the under-served communities. The mode of operation must be based on intrinsic motivation, it must be efficient, effective, respectful, transparent and accountable to all stakeholders; the receivers, the partners and the givers. The administration cost must be low, below 5%. HR&S has created Action10 for this purpose. Action10 is a volunteer driven organisation that raises money for business loans to local entrepreneurs. The administration costs are 3 %.