South-to-South: Mentoring Toolkit for Key Populations

Although much knowledge has been transferred from the global South to the global South (S2S) and numerous guides have been produced about mentoring, few tools exist to guide mentors in how to best conduct S2S mentoring. In S2S mentoring, all organizations involved, including the mentors and mentees, are rooted in the global South and have direct experience operating in complex environments in low- and middle-income countries. Mentoring can be provided more regularly and more efficiently by organizations in the same or neighboring countries and is often more readily accepted when the mentor’s messages, approaches, experiences, and lessons learned come from a setting similar to that of the mentee's.

LINKAGES designed this toolkit to support and guide existing mentors from key-population-led organizations (KPOs) in the global South to enhance the quality of mentoring support available to other KPOs in the global South. Specifically, this toolkit aims to support mentors in the global South to understand what S2S mentoring is, their role in S2S mentoring, different S2S mentoring approaches and how to choose among them, and the technical skills needed to mentor effectively.