A Facilitators Guide to Developing OVC Program Sustainability and Transition Plans

In the first phase of OVC emergency funding by foreign donors such as the United States government, CRS assumed the primary responsibility for managing the OVC grants by monitoring program spending, activity planning, and conducting trainings for partner staff. A key assumption, however, was that sustainability would require a transition of roles and responsibilities for the OVC activities to indigenous structures that can galvanize the energies and resources of the entire community for this purpose.

Sustainability and transitioning planning are operationalized differently in each country; the design of the sustainability/transition plan varies according to the partner’s financial and management capacity at the onset of the planning process and the different funding opportunities available. To increase program sustainability, it is critical that the transition is conceptualized and designed with input from all the key stakeholders. CRS has designed this guide in order to facilitate the comprehensive and systematic review of existing structures and planning for strengthening of indigenous mechanisms for OVC.