CIRD relations with Alianza partners. In discussing how the partnership is working between the Alianza members, the Evaluator received the following comments: • Alianza partners recognize and value the high quality and technical expertise of CIRD staff. They also indicated that CIRD, as well as other partners, are collaborating better. Indeed, almost all technical level staff interviewed at CIRD and PRIME indicated a desire to meet more often and work together more. Also, they expressed frustration, stating that the current mechanism for technical collaboration among the partners – collaboration meetings – is not working well. Instead, they suggested forming technical working groups in specific activity areas that involve the different partners, such as Referral/Counter-referral, IEC to name a few. Interestingly enough, none of the Alianza members perceived the Xxxxxxxx or the UOLs as additional mechanisms for collaboration and coordination. • Technical competition and territoriality still exist among the Alianza members but at the Senior Management level. CIRD and PRIME technical staff are open and receptive to technical collaboration and sharing. Moreover, they are clear on what are their technical areas of expertise, their strengths and weaknesses and their respective scopes. All the Alianza members, including CIRD, stated the last senior management meeting greatly helped the different institutions carve out their respective roles and responsibilities but follow up actions and decisions are required to concretize the agreements reached at the meting. Although Alianza members state that institutional rivalry has improved, they also indicated that senior-level managers at CIRD still remain competitive and possessive of certain technical domains. • The Alianza is working in the field. For example, discussions in Missiones and Xxx revealed that the CLS understand who the different Alianza members are, what their respective roles are, and are beginning (and only beginning) to coordinate locally. It was encouraging to see the CLS meet at the health facilities in Peguajho and Curupicayty and have the CLS members discuss how CIRD is helping strengthen their roles as CLS members while at the same time, discuss how PRIME helped strengthen the skills of the health facility staff and improve the quality of care. Now the Alianza members need to nurture this synergy between projects, using the technical working groups, UOLs and CLS-oriented programming as coordination mechanisms.
