The Intersectional Community Scorecard

Step 1: Understanding and preparing for the context

Before conducting an ICSC process (see details on page 15 of the main Intersectional Community Scorecard guide), you need to carefully plan and prepare. The five exercises will give you a greater understanding of the context. We would advise you to use all the exercises if this process is new to you.

Exercise 1: Problem/solution tree

This exercise generates the key areas of focus that the ICSC approach should target.

Creating the problem tree:

• Before setting out to roll out the ICSC process you need to do a country/operational setting context analysis that examines at least how young people are affected by socio-cultural exclusion and gender (in)equality as well as the historical, political and economic situation.^[1]
• Refer to the problems identified in your context analysis.
• Pick out the most relevant problems for the ICSC, based on the target group, facility and capacity, to tackle the problem.
• Note down why the problems you selected are important and what caused the problems in the first place.
• Identify and note down examples and illustrations that show how the problems are noticeable (e.g., minoritised young people avoid going to their local public health facility because it doesn’t have a youth-friendly centre).
• Identify and note down all possible effects of the problem on minoritised young people (e.g., contraceptives and SRHR information are not available and so there are many teenage pregnancies among this group).
• Use the problem tree to distinguish
  • the main causes of the problem (the roots: e.g., the government is not investing anything or enough in SRH services for youth)
  • … from how it becomes apparent (the trunk: e.g., lack of a youth-friendly centre at a health facility)
  • … and its immediate effects (the branch: e.g., lack of contraceptives and SRHR information for all youth)
  • … and its end results (the fruit: e.g., increased teenage pregnancies among minoritised young people).

• Ensure that the causes, trunk, branch and fruit are as clearly stated as possible.
• Turn the problem tree into a solution tree:
  • the root causes become the main solutions (e.g., increased government investment in SRH services for all youth)
  • the trunk becomes the main intervention needed to solve the problem (e.g., establish youth-friendly centres that provide contraception and SRHR information for all youth in health facilities)
  • and the fruit is the main outcome of the solution (e.g. reduced teenage pregnancies among minoritised young people).
• Use the ‘trunk’ (establish youth-friendly centres in health facilities that provide contraception and SRHR information for all youth) as the main objective of the ICSC approach – the basis for the rest of the analysis and planning.

Example of a Make Way problem tree

Note: When you do your analysis of root causes you should pay attention to how the roots grow out of the structural or systemic social, cultural, political and economic factors you identified in your context analysis; e.g., there is low spending on SRH services because investment in the health sector is weak due to a national economic model based in extracting natural resources, a state of affairs inherited from colonialism. This more holistic understanding of the root causes can help you develop actions that produce deeper, more sustainable change. And when you decide to use the ICSC findings for advocacy it will help you to be strategic in building alliances or act in solidarity with organisations working on broader issues, e.g., fighting for a fair, ecologically sound economic model that serves all citizens equally.

Exercise 2: Stakeholder power analysis

This exercise helps you identify key stakeholders you need to engage and convince and others who should be part of the ICSC problem-solving approach. It also helps you understand who you need to manage or control to mitigate risks to achieving your objective.

To do:

• Map out everyone with an interest and influence on the issue identified as the main objective of the ICSC process (by using your county/setting context analysis).
• Describe the interest each identified stakeholder has in the objective, rating this as high, medium or low.
• Describe the power/influence each identified stakeholder exercises over the objective and rate this high, medium or low.
• Plot the stakeholders on a template that indicates both their interest and influence on the objective.

A point to remember when doing a stakeholder analysis: everyone concerned should be defined as clearly as possible, to establish exactly who they are. This particularly applies to big entities such as government, where you need to refer to each specific government agency involved.

Example of a stakeholder power analysis

Note, this is the simplest matrix for a stakeholder power analysis. There are several different types that categorise stakeholders differently, e.g., some include “bystanders” and “abstainers”, as well as include more categories.

As you do this exercise reflect upon and make a note of how different stakeholders can have different effects on the SRHR and access to SRH services of different groups of young people with multiple, overlapping identities. For example, due to their ideas of morality, some religious leaders vocal in the community or active on a community health board may be influential in preventing young sex workers, young drugs users or young gay men from seeking or obtaining fertility and family planning services. They may not have such an effect on young people born with HIV, whom they might view as ‘innocent’. Reflect on and register if and how the level of influence changes if these young people have additional identities assigned to them, such as being transgendered or having a disability. Also, take into account the power dynamics between influential stakeholders. For example, a health facility ‘in-charge’ may do the bidding of an older community leader even though the in-charge is the decision-maker on the health facility work floor. How does that kind of shift in power affect if and how young people will access SRH services?

Exercise 3: Safety and security analysis

You should identify the harms and risks that could result from applying the ICSC approach. Everything possible should be done to ensure the safety of vulnerable or marginalised young people and to prevent re-traumatising them.

To do:

• Establish whether there are any potential risks that could expose your ICSC participants, by asking questions like: 1. Does the problem tree indicate solutions which would expose ICSC participants to harm from people or organisations opposed to the SRH rights of minoritized youth? 2. Does the stakeholder analysis bring on board stakeholders that could potentially cause more harm than good, and who should be handled carefully? 3. Are there entrenched cultural and religious practices that would make the approach unacceptable in certain communities? 4. Is there a legal risk for the participants? 5. Is there a risk to maintaining the anonymity or privacy of participants?
• Make a list of all the risks that have been identified.
• Make a list of measures that are needed to reduce the risks you have listed. Link appropriate action(s) to each risk.
• Once both the risks and the activities to reduce them have been finalised, the document should be used as the ICSC’s Safety and Security framework. It should guide all ICSC activities in subsequent steps of the ICSC process.
• Working with vulnerable people means making sure you can support them if need be. Prepare to be able to refer a participant in need to agencies or organisations that can provide medical, legal, and/or psycho-social support. Do this only if they consent to it.

Exercise 4: Mobilisation of key stakeholders

This exercise helps you to mobilise stakeholders, make them more aware of the importance of an intersectional CSC approach, and get them to agree to participate in the process.

To do:

• Identify key youth gatekeepers in groups of minoritised youth who would be important when you are mobilising these young people to participate in the ICSC process.
• Visit targeted groups of minoritised youth together with the gatekeepers to invite them to take part in the process.
• Introduce the ICSC approach to the target groups, responding to any questions they have.
• Ask the groups for their commitment to be part of the approach.
• Agree on dates and venues for meetings to start Step 2 in the ICSC process.
• Clarify expectations and outcomes from the process.
• Identify key officials and leaders among the duty bearers responsible for SRH service provision who would be critical in mobilising other duty bearers for the process.
• Visit the targeted duty bearers and introduce them to the process.
• Get the duty bearers to agree to the process.
• Agree on dates and venues for Step 3 of the ICSC process.
• Clarify expected outcomes and manage the duty bearers’ expectations.