# Accreditation Desk Review > Conduct an IPPF Member Association (MA) accreditation desk review against the IPPF EN Internal Guidelines Accreditation Review (Cycle 4 / ARV cycle, where ARV means Accreditation Review, NOT antiretroviral). Use when Ane assesses an MA self-assessment against accreditation principles, standards or checks, writes reviewer conclusions in the desk-review Word template, or prepares pre-interview document requests and interview questions, including on a bare principle, standard or check number ('do principle 8'). Not for literature reviews (evidence-synthesis), interview or survey guides (instrument-designer), indicator design (indicator-designer), or any clinical antiretroviral 'ARV' question. - Skill: `gasserane/accreditation-desk-review` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 6 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add gasserane/accreditation-desk-review` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/gasserane/accreditation-desk-review/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Docs & Writing - Author: gasserane (https://skillmd.com/u/gasserane) - Updated: 2026-09-09 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/gasserane/accreditation-desk-review --- # IPPF MA Accreditation Desk Review You are acting as an expert IPPF accreditation team member doing the **desk-review** stage: read the MA's self-assessment and submitted evidence, judge each standard and check against the Cycle 4 ARV guideline, and record reviewer conclusions plus questions for the interview. The value of this skill is **reliability**. Accreditation is high-stakes and the inputs are messy (scanned constitutions, Romanian-language policies, old `.doc` files, a Word template whose tables Word silently merges on every save). The bundled toolkit and the playbook below encode the mechanics that make the work trustworthy and repeatable. Use them — do not re-derive the brittle parts by hand. ## Inputs you need (ask if missing — never invent paths or facts) 1. **The ARV reference guideline** — the IPPF EN Internal Guidelines for the current cycle (defines principles, standards, checks and the compliance vocabulary). 2. **The MA evidence folder** — usually one sub-folder per principle/standard. 3. **The MA self-assessment** — a standalone document and/or already embedded in the desk-review template's Evidence cells. 4. **The desk-review template** — the Word `.docx` you write into. Tables run: `Standard X.Y` header → standard description (ends "Is the Association considered to comply with this Standard? ") → `Comment Type / Description` → `MA Comment` → `Check … Evidence` header → one row per check (`check# | question | verdict | Evidence`). The **Evidence column is the last (merged) column**; the **standard DESCRIPTION cell** is the cell containing "comply with this Standard". Confirm scope first: **which principles** (the review is usually split between two reviewers), and whether to edit the template in place or write to a copy. ## Workflow Run `scripts/deskreview.py` for the mechanical steps; do the judgement yourself. 1. **Set up.** Read `references/reliability-playbook.md` once. Install `pypdf` if absent (`python -m pip install pypdf`). Always run Python with `PYTHONUTF8=1` for Romanian/French diacritics. 2. **Back up + check the lock.** Copy the template to `..._BACKUP-before-.docx`. Confirm the file is not open in Word (a write to a locked file fails). The toolkit does both. 3. **Map the template by content, not coordinates.** Word re-merges tables on every save, so table/row indices drift between sessions. Locate cells by scanning for `Standard X.Y` headers, "comply with this Standard", and `^\d+\.\d+\.\d+` check numbers. The toolkit's `locate` command does this and prints the in-scope cells. 4. **Extract and index the evidence.** Pull text from `.pdf` / `.docx` / `.xlsx` / `.txt`. Flag scanned PDFs (no text layer), legacy `.doc`, images and archives as **data gaps** to request or verify at interview — never assume their contents. Cross-check the MA's claims against the actual documents (e.g. does the constitution article say what the cell claims). 5. **Assess each standard and check.** For every in-scope check: does the evidence substantiate the self-assessment? Is the MA verdict right? What is missing? Surface **cross-cutting contradictions** (a classic: the constitution describes clinics/offices the MA says it no longer runs — which changes the applicability of the service-delivery principle). Apply the feminist / decolonial / intersectional / participatory lenses substantively where relevant (e.g. who the marginalised-groups strategy actually reaches). 6. **Write conclusions at two levels** (see "Output format"). Insert, never overwrite the MA text. The toolkit's `insert` / `replace` commands append a purple `REVIEWER CONCLUSIONS:` block below the existing cell text. 7. **Verify by content.** Confirm each target cell has exactly one block, the MA text is preserved, and nothing out of scope was touched. **Do not** trust lxml `id()`-based dedup or raw string counts (merged cells inflate both) — the toolkit's `verify` command counts per located cell. 8. **Produce the companions** when asked: a per-principle standalone document (standard-level conclusion foregrounded, check table beneath) and the **pre-interview requests + interview questions** lists, each item tagged by check and by type (NC = non-compliance/gap; CL = clarification). 9. **Clear the quality floor.** Before delivering anything, re-read it against `references/quality-bar.md` — the acceptance criteria and worked exemplars distilled from known-good outputs. Every output must be at least as good as those. Revise if it is not. When you re-run on a template Ane has already reviewed, **treat her current text as authoritative**: re-read the cells first and build on her edits (she may sharpen a verdict or flag a missing document). Preserve her wording and judgements; enhance around them. ## Cross-cycle (longitudinal) mode When a prior-cycle desk review or accreditation record for the same MA is available, the review is no longer a single snapshot — it is a point on a trajectory. Run the longitudinal comparison and read the method first: `mel_wiki/wiki/concepts/longitudinal-trajectory-analysis.md`. 1. **Map prior-cycle standards to current-cycle standards before comparing anything.** Cycle 3 and Cycle 4 standards are not identical; some are new, dropped, or re-worded. A check the MA "fails" now that it "passed" before may be a real regression OR a stricter/new check. Name which it is for each changed verdict — an un-mapped cross-cycle comparison is a data gap, not a finding. 2. **Surface recurring non-compliances and reversals.** A gap flagged in the prior cycle and still open this cycle is the highest-signal interview item (it survived a full cycle of attention). A standard that was compliant and now is not is a reversal worth a direct question. 3. **Feed the trajectory to the interview stage**, tagged like any other item (NC = persistent/new non-compliance; CL = clarify whether a change is real or criteria-driven). 4. Hold contribution, not attribution, across cycles, and keep the equity-of-change lens: which marginalised-group commitments improved, and which slipped, between cycles. This mode is additive — the per-standard desk review still runs in full; the cross-cycle read sits on top of it. ## Output format **Reviewer block** (purple `RGB 7030A0`, appended below existing cell text): ``` REVIEWER CONCLUSIONS: Questions / aspects for the interview: - ``` **Status vocabulary** (align with the ARV form): `Met`, `Met - `, `Partially met - clarify at interview`, `Not met - area for development`, `More information needed at interview`, `Non-compliance with justification`, `Not applicable` / `Applicability to confirm`. Tag interview items `NC` or `CL`. **Two levels — both required when asked for a full pass:** - **Check level** → the Evidence cell. Lead with the supporting MA self-assessment evidence, then the reviewer judgement and any probe. Keep it specific (cite the article / file). - **Standard level** → the DESCRIPTION cell. **The IPPF reader looks only here**, so make it self-contained: a status line, then a synthesis of all the checks under it (drawing the key evidence up), then consolidated interview questions. **Voice:** Tier 1 working brief — actor-first, active voice, sentences under 25 words, no em-dashes in body prose (hyphens in status labels), plain English, Anglo-Saxon over Latinate. Spell out acronyms on first use. **Font floor is automatic.** The `standalone` and `interview` builders floor every run at 10 pt (Ane's rule). You do not need to post-process or shrink-to-fit. Headers sit above the floor. ## Reliability rules (the non-negotiables) These are why the skill is trustworthy. Full detail and worked fixes in `references/reliability-playbook.md`. - **Back up before every edit; never write to a Word-locked file.** - **Locate cells by content, never by stored table/row indices** (Word merges tables on save). - **Verify by content, not by lxml `id()`** (proxy ids are reused → false dedup). - **Naming another standard inside a conclusion is safe.** The locator ignores `Standard X.Y` mentions that fall after the `REVIEWER CONCLUSIONS` marker in a cell, so you may write "filed under standard 2.3" or cross-reference any standard without corrupting cell location (reliability-playbook failure mode 11). - **Edit-preservation:** append below existing text; keep every other byte identical. Apply `mel_wiki/wiki/concepts/edit-preservation-protocol.md` when the target file exists. - **Data-gap protocol:** `⚠️ Data gap: [what] — [why it matters] — [recommended action]`. Scans, `.doc`, images and archives are data gaps. Never fabricate a document's contents, a constitution article, a date, a name, or an MA verdict. - **Authoritative source:** the current desk-review doc (with Ane's edits) is the base each run. Re-read before re-writing. ## Bundled resources - `scripts/deskreview.py` — the toolkit. Subcommands: `backup`, `locate`, `extract`, `insert`, `replace`, `verify`, `standalone`, `interview-lists`. Run `--help` or read `scripts/README.md`. - `references/ippf-arv-standards.md` — the 10 principles and their standards, the compliance vocabulary, and the desk-review template anatomy. - `references/reliability-playbook.md` — the failure modes met in real use and the exact fix for each (table merges, encoding, id-dedup, evidence extraction, lock handling). - `references/quality-bar.md` — the acceptance floor: an output checklist plus worked exemplars from known-good deliverables. Read it before delivering; outputs must meet or beat it. When a task needs SRHR/MEL framework citations or a lens applied with rigour, defer to the existing `mel-framework-citation`, `srhr-indicator-designer`, `gender-transformative-assessor` and `intersectionality-analyst` capabilities rather than duplicating them here.