As the Partners in Population and Development Africa Regional Office (PPD ARO) is a hub of communication among member countries and partner organization, the organization has an important role to share good practices, good models and expertise among alliance partners. To promote new and innovative programmes for population, development and reproductive health across the African continent, the PPD ARO produces reports, hosts study tours and shares reports produced by the PCCs to share these good practices with both policymakers and technical staff in government ministries and NGOs.The goal of sharing good practices is to enable PPD Africa member countries to learn from each other and non-governmental organizations and improve reproductive health programmes through transfer of these practices, expertise and technologies.
The PPD ARO uses the following definition of a good practice: “PPD Africa prefers the term ‘good practices’ over ‘best practices,’ as the term ‘best practices’ necessitates rigorous evaluation, demonstrated success and impact and capacity for replication, which require a standard that very few, if any programmes can prove. PPD uses the UN Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality definition of a ‘good practice’ as ‘one that meets at least two of the following criteria: leads to an actual change, has an impact on the policy environment, demonstrates an innovative or replicable approach, or demonstrates sustainability.’ ‘Good practices’ also emphasize the contextual nature of relevant knowledge for development, over a universal model that is wholly abstract and non-sustainable in terms of local capacity.”
Thus, the information given on a good practice should not only include technical information, but also the relationship between the program and the cultural and social environment. “Good practices” are not necessarily perfectly successful (although practices can serve as models), but good practices do have take-away lessons to be learned and replicated.