SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (FPATT) is in dan­ger of los­ing its in­ter­na­tion­al ac­cred­i­ta­tion if it doesn’t take steps in key ac­tion ar­eas to strength­en its gov­er­nance op­er­a­tions, strate­gic plan­ning and hu­man re­sources de­vel­op­ment.

As it stands, the FPATT failed to main­tain 11 stan­dards in an In­ter­na­tion­al Planned Par­ent­hood Fed­er­a­tion (IPPF) 2024 re­view.

FPATT’s ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Jill De Bourg, in re­sponse to ques­tions by the Sun­day Guardian about the as­so­ci­a­tion’s falling short on some of IPPF’s stan­dards, said this was due to doc­u­ments be­ing de­stroyed dur­ing the up­grade and roof re­place­ment of their of­fice in 2023. She said the of­fice was tem­porar­i­ly re­lo­cat­ed dur­ing this pe­ri­od and some phys­i­cal doc­u­ments were dam­aged.

In 2024, its of­fice re­turned to its re­fur­bished lo­ca­tion.

“FPATT’S abil­i­ty to demon­strate com­pli­ance with cer­tain stan­dards in this cur­rent re­view cy­cle has been af­fect­ed by the ab­sence of some doc­u­men­ta­tion,” De Bourg ex­plained.

She said FPATT has been giv­en ad­e­quate time to pro­duce the re­quired doc­u­ments to demon­strate com­pli­ance.

“The cur­rent ac­cred­i­ta­tion process which be­gan in March 2024, re­mains on­go­ing. It is im­por­tant to note that ac­cred­i­ta­tion is a dy­nam­ic process, aimed at strength­en­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty, not a fi­nal judge­ment on com­pli­ance.”

De Bourg said FPATT con­tin­ues to ac­tive­ly en­gage with IPPF to en­sure align­ment with evolv­ing best prac­tices and view the ac­cred­i­ta­tion process as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­fine and eval­u­ate its struc­ture.

“We have ini­ti­at­ed sev­er­al key ac­tions to strength­en gov­er­nance, op­er­a­tions and hu­man re­sources.”

The re­port came on the heels of a fast turnover of ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tors (ED) and staff at FPATT in the last few months.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that last May 27, then-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor (ED) Ava Ram­per­sad, a pub­lic health prac­ti­tion­er, un­ex­pect­ed­ly re­signed af­ter man­ag­ing the po­si­tion for three years.

With­in 24 hours of Ram­per­sad’s de­par­ture, FPATT an­nounced the re­turn of Don­na Da Cos­ta Mar­tinez (a for­mer ED), who had served in the top po­si­tion for six weeks.

An­gelie Choto­lal, clin­ic co­or­di­na­tor, took over from Da Cos­ta Mar­tinez for a six-week stint. It wasn’t un­til Oc­to­ber, five months lat­er, that FPATT ap­point­ed De Bourg as its ED.

The po­si­tion of deputy ED al­so re­mained va­cant for sev­er­al months un­til it was filled last Sep­tem­ber by Stacey Rocke-Man­ick, a for­mer pro­grammes co­or­di­na­tor at FPATT.

A source told Guardian Me­dia that while Rocke-Man­ick’s ap­point­ment of­fered some sta­bil­i­ty, the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s broad­er gov­er­nance and op­er­a­tional chal­lenges re­main un­re­solved.

De Bourg was asked about the rapid at­tri­tion rate at FPATT.

She said as with many or­gan­i­sa­tions, tran­si­tions in lead­er­ship and staffing are part of an on­go­ing process of strength­en­ing and evo­lu­tion.

“Over the past two years, staff changes have large­ly been due to re­tire­ment, com­ple­tion of con­trac­tu­al agree­ments and strate­gic re­struc­tur­ing aimed at build­ing long-term sta­bil­i­ty.”

The ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor as­sured that FPATT re­mains com­mit­ted to in­vest­ing in its work­force, sup­port­ing staff well-be­ing and at­tract­ing top-tier tal­ent to ad­vance its mis­sion.

IPPF Non-Com­pli­ance

Dur­ing a pre­lim­i­nary re­view last year, IPPF found FPATT non-com­pli­ant with some of its stan­dards.

FPATT, T&T’s longest-stand­ing NGO with over 65 years of ser­vice, is a mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tion (MA) of IPPF.

IPPF, a glob­al health­care provider and lead­ing ad­vo­cate of sex­u­al re­pro­duc­tive health (SRH) and rights for all pro­vides core grants to its 150 MAs and col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ners an­nu­al­ly.

The MAs work in coun­tries to pro­vide help, ad­vice and sup­plies re­lat­ing to SRH.

IPPF’s an­nu­al bud­get of over US$125 mil­lion is dis­trib­uted to MAs and de­vot­ed to spe­cif­ic projects and cam­paigns.

FPATT’s fail­ure to com­ply with IPPF’s guide­lines was raised in an Oc­to­ber 30, 2024, 14-page ac­cred­i­ta­tion on­line in­ter­views “de­brief sum­ma­ry re­port” by IPPF which Guardian Me­dia ob­tained.

The IPPF’s ac­cred­i­ta­tion process is con­duct­ed every four years as part of a col­lab­o­ra­tive and de­vel­op­men­tal ex­er­cise de­signed to sup­port on­go­ing im­prove­ments in gov­er­nance, strate­gic plan­ning and ser­vice de­liv­ery of MAs.

The re­port analysed FPATT’s work by a re­view team of IPPF’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“The re­view find­ings were 22 stan­dards in com­pli­ance, 11 stan­dards in non-com­pli­ance and stan­dards which were not ap­plic­a­ble and 13 rec­om­men­da­tions,” the re­port stat­ed.

It al­so stat­ed, “the stan­dards in which the as­so­ci­a­tion needs fur­ther ac­tion to meet the IPPF mem­ber­ship re­quire­ments are re­lat­ed to ar­eas of gov­er­nance, strate­gic plan­ning and man­age­ment, hu­man re­sources, fi­nance and mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion.”

The re­port point­ed out that the re­view team made rec­om­men­da­tions that are not re­quired for com­pli­ance but pro­vide sup­port and strength­en the as­so­ci­a­tion’s process.

“The rec­om­men­da­tion will not be part of a for­mal fol­low-up plan,” the re­port stat­ed.

FPATT has un­til Oc­to­ber 27 to com­ply with the stan­dards.

It was rec­om­mend­ed that FPATT es­tab­lish an in­de­pen­dent fi­nance, au­dit and risk com­mit­tee to strength­en over­sight and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

An­oth­er rec­om­men­da­tion was that FPATT should fi­nalise and adopt an­ti-fraud, fi­nan­cial crime and whistle­blow­ing poli­cies to up­hold eth­i­cal and trans­par­ent prac­tices.

The re­port stat­ed that poli­cies re­lat­ed to an­ti-fraud, fi­nan­cial crime and whistle­blow­ing re­main in draft form and need to be fi­nalised to pro­mote trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

The re­view team high­light­ed that the as­so­ci­a­tion is high­ly ef­fec­tive at build­ing and main­tain­ing ro­bust, long-term re­la­tion­ships with donors and part­ners, dri­ven by a com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and shared val­ues.