Our Ten Actions

Our Ten Action Principles

Targeting international equal partnership for development.

The Action Principles are composed of the Ten Actions:

1. Needs & User-driven. 
2. Equal partnership.
3. Real-time outcome planning & evaluation.
4. Strategic partnership.
5. Sustainable economy.
6. Institutional capacity.
7. Quality values.
8. Resilience.
9. Knowledge sharing.
10. Visibility.

The purpose with our Ten Action Principles (TAct) is to offer a package of principles that shall facilitate international equal partnership for development. The partnership shall experience mutual benefit and generate a sustainable impact.

1. Needs & user-driven 
A needs & user-driven activity is here defined as an activity where it is the person(s) who shall benefit from the activity that is also bringing the idea, is designing and implementing, and is responsible for creating sustainability and impact.

2. Equal partnership
Equal partnership is here defined as a collaboration where the partners communicate well and share inputs, responsibilities, and benefits, equally.

3. Real-time Outcome Planning and Evaluation and Evidence base Impact Assessment
The work must be well planned, lessons must be learned, decisions informed and impact claims evidence-based. HR&S has developed an ambitious evaluation planning (ROPE, SfC) and survey management (TestE) management strategy that is targeting outcome and sustainable impact and is guiding each of our programmes. 

4. Strategic partnership.
Worldwide programmes require a network of actors, why it is key to share knowledge with stakeholders that have related missions. 

5. Sustainable economy.
All partners generate a sustainable income that cover their own running costs, as well as enables innovation and growth.

6. Institutional capacity.
Partners must have the the capacity to implement agreed on activities, thus cross-cultural understanding and respect, transparency and accountability in ethics and governance, intrinsic motivation and agency for change.

7. Quality values.
We target  and aim to ensure truth, trust, equity, and harmony.

8. Resilience.
Resilience is here defined as the capacity to stay strong for each other; being respectful, humble, flexible, focused; to listen carefully, never judge, and never give up. 

9. Knowledge sharing.
Knowledge-sharing shall be mutual, timely, honest, and professional. Annual programme, financial, audit and management reports shall be accurate and timely. Activities shall benefit for international state-of-the-art research.

10. Visibility
Our visibility includes public relations. We shall share in a clear and fair manner and include achievements, lack of achievements, challenges, unexpected results, lessons learned and informed decision. Branding and Public relations are key.

Action_ONE
Needs & User driven programmes

According to TAct, a Needs & User driven programme is a programme that meets a need defined by the person or persons who are expected to benefit from the change. This person or group of persons will also will be the one(s) that brings the idea, that designs the programme, that implements the activities in actual practice and that will make the programme sustainable long-term.

Operationally, the TAct strategy includes compiling the ambitions of the Target partners as well as the outcome challenges. As assessment is made whether it is possible to attract the tools necessary to overcome the challenges in order to fulfil the ambitions, and thus improve lives according to the choice and planning of the Target partner.

TAct operates at locations where opportunities are few and the partners bridge gaps and face challenges together. 

The HR&S / Action10 portfolio is broad and holistic, as a result of TAct definition of “needs driven” programmes. The TAct definition of needs driven programme is justified by that HR&S argues that it is the people who live under certain conditions who are best suited to know which activities that needs to be implemented to improve livelihood and who are also best suited to do the implementation in actual practice. Even the local Programme management partners cannot know the conditions among the vulnerable in detail.

Moreover, a programme must learn lessons and be adaptive. A programme must be flexible and change as the people involved changes. Such information can only be attracted and such deep understanding can only be achieved, if it is the people who experience the need that also drive the programme.

An HR&S and an Action10 programme must be efficient and effective. To achieve effectiveness one crucial aspect is to ensure needs driven programmes, thus having a local request to build on. Such local request ensures three aspects; i) identification of appropriate activities, ii) implementation procedures adapted to the local context, and iii) the evaluation planning based on outcome.  

Consequently, according to the TAct definition, a need cannot be defined by someone in another country, by someone in another city or even by someone in the same community, with the assumption that someone else shall take the responsibility for implementing the programme in actual practice.

At the macro-scale level, the TAct Needs driven programmes are addressing the needs presented by the Target country Government and local authorities. HR&S and Actio10 always seek ways of collaborating with the national and local authorities on the implementation of their National Development Plans (NDP). International agreements such as the UN documents on human rights and on children´s rights can help steer the programme.

Thus from the Programme management Partner point of view, the following applies:

  1. A need to be driven has to have external forces behind.
  2. The Programme management Partners have to understand exactly; what the need is and what the outcome challenges are. Thus, the situation has to be assessed very carefully.
  3. The Programme management partners have to develop a respectful and close relation with the Target partners and Action champions. If the Target partner / Action Champion is a local community, then the community structures and perceptions has to be addressed.
  4. The Programme management, the Target partners and Action Champions always develop the theory of change closely together.
  5. Programme management partners can offer guidance and support from their own tools and experiences and by external experts, if requested for by the Target partners. This then provides an opportunity for capacity strengthening among the target partners through the capturing of external knowledge. By doing so, the social capital is expected to be strengthen, which may lead to strengthening the local capacity to implement sustainable change.