A Decade of Investment. Six Countries. Countless Lessons.

For the past ten years, the Vital Faith Communities Challenge an initiative of Porticus Africa has worked to understand and strengthen how faith based organizations (FBOs) protect the most vulnerable members of their communities.

But after a decade of investment, important questions remained:

• What has actually worked?

• Where have the gaps persisted?

• How can the next ten years be more effective than the first?

To answer these questions, Porticus Africa commissioned Development Links Consult (DLC) to conduct an independent external review of their safeguarding work.

What the Review Explored

This was not a surface level assessment. DLC examined safeguarding adoption across a diverse and complex landscape, spanning:

• Uganda

• Kenya

• Tanzania

• Zimbabwe

• Malawi

• Ethiopia

The study focused on three critical dimensions:

1. Grant making approaches   How funding structures either enabled or hindered deep safeguarding integration.

2. Institutional impact  The measurable changes within partner organizations over time.

3. Safeguarding adoption within faith based organizations  The unique opportunities and challenges FBOs face when embedding protection systems into their existing structures, theology, and community trust.

Key Insights: What a Decade of Learning Taught Us

Some lessons can only be learned over time. After analyzing years of implementation across varied contexts, several powerful insights emerged:

1. Safeguarding requires long term investment

Short term projects produce short term results. The organizations that made the deepest, most lasting progress were those supported over multiple years not months. Quick wins exist, but cultural change takes time.

2. Context matters what works in one country may fail in another

A policy template from Kenya could not simply be translated and dropped into Ethiopia. Local laws, social norms, power dynamics, and even definitions of “harm” varied significantly. Effective safeguarding must be locally owned and contextually adapted not centrally imposed.

3. Faith based institutions play a critical, irreplaceable role in community protection

In many of the communities studied, the local church, mosque, or faith based school is the most trusted institution often more than government or international NGOs. This positions FBOs as uniquely powerful actors in safeguarding. However, it also carries weight: where trust is highest, the harm of betrayal is deepest. Strengthening FBO safeguarding is not just good practice; it is a moral imperative.

What Comes Next

This review was never meant to sit on a shelf.

The findings from DLC’s external evaluation are now actively shaping the next phase of Porticus Africa’s safeguarding programs. Specifically, future investments will be designed to be:

• More scalable Moving from pilot level success to systems level change.

• More practical  Reducing bureaucratic burden while increasing frontline protection.

• More impactful  Focusing resources on what the evidence shows actually works, not what feels good.

The lessons of the past decade are not an endpoint. They are a foundation.

Conclusion.

Want to learn what a decade of safeguarding investment can teach your organization? Whether you’re a donor, a faith based network, or a multi country implementer, DLC can help you review, learn, and build better.