Annie, Many thanks, it’s overdue…
I too hope our great catalyst organizations, those that have done participatory post-project evaluations get kudos as well, see http://valuingvoices.com/catalysts-2/
Thank you Jindra. The numbers here speak volumes. Can we imagine a business whose investors did not know if a product or service worked? Of course development is not commerce, but that doesn’t mean it should not be accountable. Thanks also for pointing out that part of what we do not know is surely a good story. Development professionals might also think of studying locally initiated projects that work. There are many. Some examples: http://shrujan.org/about,shrujan.html http://www.umziwethu.org/about-us/the-model
Well said, Jindra. Having worked in development years ago, and teaching it now, many of the points that you make should be obvious… and yet, there is little evidence that practitioners or policy makers are listening to the communities ostensibly served, or being held accountable. This may account for why so many in Africa - the region of my focus - are turning to alternatives to development aid and looking to China, the private sector, and their own innovators.
Excellent points Barbara and Yoon, accountability for final results are key and our business needs to listen and learn, not from judgement but from genuine partnership. Thanks!
Such a sensible article! Local people know and listening to them, planning and designing with them is THE way to sustainable development. It always has been and will be if consultants can put aside their arrogance and listen to and work together with the local people. Thank goodness for VALUING VOICES!
Hello Jindra. Thank you for this great article. We had these discussions four years ago in Madagascar while implementing USAID-funded SALOHI program. We thought we could learn from previous development programs (MYAPs). Although we had great ideas, it was difficult to mobilize resources to conduct post-evaluations. As you recommend to “plan for transitioning to sustainability after projects close for any project that uses more than $1 million dollars”, I would also recommend donors and NGOs/project implementers to plan and budget for post-evaluations as we plan for baselines, mid-term and final evaluations.
Jean-Marie, I cannot agree more, it has to become standard practice and lessons learned need to feed into future designs. So simple yet until now elusive… I am so glad that Madagascar had the same thoughts, let’s hope donors like USAID listen; we all want sustainable development after all…
Have you or anyone else reading this blog heard of any post project evaluations for us to add to our repertoire?
Hi Jindra - I thought this article was fantastic, as you know, and very necessary.
I think if ex-post evaluations were carried out on a wide scale by donors - on all projects over a certain $ threshold - it could lead to a complete shift in the way we think about development programming. The emphasis would change from what works in the short-term to what will endure. I think it could result in more realistic objective setting, moving away from overly ambitious projects that presuppose a degree of government support or local resources that simply don’t exist, and so are set up to fail in the long-term. If this led to slightly less ambitious programs that still bore fruit 10 years down the line, that would be a good thing.
Oliver, thank you so much. You put this beautifully. Imagine participant-designed development projects…. May donors listen and our work bears expected (and unexpected 😊) fruit for decades!
Hello, I am from India, from a village . I have a school in the rural area. Open Innovation and sustainable development , is Greek to me. Can you suggest workable model where i can sustain and have also innovation for my organisation- specializing in education and village development.
Sylvia- So glad you wrote. We use fancy terms for simple hopes. If you got to SSIR, it’s clear you have brains, determination and resources for your organization.
For your school and its community, it’s jointly discussing questions that you surely already ask:
* What is so important that we want to sustain it (teaching, farming, __?)?
* What vision do we and our community have that we want to get to in 1, 5, 10 years?
* What do we already do best, how do we do more of it? What can we already do for ourselves?
* What do we need to do better, that we feel we need to innovate?
* What needs external help? Who can help us (Ministry of Education, our staff and other non-profits, parents, our children, other donors)? How do we reach out to them?
Wonderful non-profits abound. We have featured northwestern India’s Shrujan.org on our blog. Also Rituu Nanda oversees a participatory process called Community LIfe Competence from Delhi that you may also benefit from: http://www.communitylifecompetence.org/en/.
Am happy to talk with you by email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)). Warmly, Jindra
What I most appreciated was the call for significant participant input before the project is designed or implemented. It seems important to involve both individuals and relevant local organizations, and to build capacity as part of the project.
This is why its important to have a capacity building component in all projects so that the knowledge and skills are transferred from the project to the project participants.
How participants maintain sustainability is a difficult problem. Tips which was introduced in this article is useful to understand what should donors do to start to help people. I think that setting goals based on citizens’ requests and involving citizens from the beginning is most important.
Dear SSIR readers-
Sylvia (who has a school in India and wrote us earlier) wrote me and has been running New Song Community School for the past 11 years. She has insufficient resources for “growing salaries/payroll, need of a school building , and integrating technology… to give quality education so these poor rural students can become future doctors or engineers or leaders”.
Mitchell, I know your commitment to participation from your time in the field. Absolutely “significant participant input before the project… and to build capacity as part of the project”. Ideally we’ll be building capacity for folks to take over the project and design with sustainability in mind, including building capacity of communities, NGOs and governments to take over. Hopefully we can see this is the best way to viably handover ‘development’. Warmly!
HI Jindra, thanks so much for reminding us all of these truths. Any thoughts on how we can convince donors that post evaluations are a good investment? What have been the results for donors of these post evaluations in the past ?
Jennifer, many thanks for your kind words and a great question!
In addition to what seems common sense for sustained impact and exit, we can do fieldwork to discern what was self-sustained, design with this in mind, and compare results over the long-term. To date, so few have been done that there is a weak evidence base for donors or implementers on how such evaluations influenced design and better outcomes for all.
No time like the present to change that! You’ll be happy to hear that your terrific org, Catholic Relief Services has used private Innovation Funds to hire me to do post-project evaluation, and I am leaving to do one in Africa tomorrow. Will keep you all posted at http://www.valuingvoices.com
Warmly, Jindra
I thank you for your nice article. I happen to work in educational NGO with support of JICA for about a decade. I appraise them for their monitoring strategies that has increased the survival rate for this organisation. While the grass root community seems to appreciate and value what the programme is offering to the science and mathematics teachers , and ultimately to the children , some community leaders-who seem to be focusing on only how much the programme brings to their pockets are shaking the right direction of this programme for sustainability. Attitude of such leaders is a big threat despite the fact that they are policy makers- they have more power than the beneficiaries. They change leadership to fit their needs. I think donors should do something to this effect.
Makafu, thank you so much for writing. So glad JICA’s support has been good. Can I ask, what do you think we need to do (or donors should do) to manage such expectations of taking power and money for themselves? What can we help communities to do themselves to have more control?
Warmly, Jindra
First, I do appreciate. Many donors and governments have measures in place to control this , though more is needed. Good governance which have well-functioning anti-corruption systems is very essential. Our developing countries need to strengthen on this area. Secondly, we need to develop multi-monitoring strategies to advice and reduce this effect. We need leaders who are patriotic and can assess , advice, mentor and coach rather than those who wait for rights and wrongs. There is need for leaders across related partner organization to be open , transparent , cooperate and work together. And so on .......
Dear Mafaku Rogers, apologies for the delay… yes, and do you think that initiatives such as http://www.aidtransparency.net/ or http://ideas.makingallvoicescount.org/ make a difference in supporting government accountability? I completely agree we need monitoring from all angles - from community up to donors down to implementers over to…... I so agree we must partner as you said. Warm regards!
COMMENTS
BY Jindra Cekan
ON March 13, 2015 11:00 AM
Honoured to be published by SSIR!
See more research on post-project sustainability at http://www.valuingvoices.com. Thank you…
BY Annie Mahon
ON March 15, 2015 02:01 PM
Wonderful article, Jindra! I hope that this gets the attention it deserves!
BY Jindra Cekan
ON March 15, 2015 02:07 PM
Annie, Many thanks, it’s overdue…
I too hope our great catalyst organizations, those that have done participatory post-project evaluations get kudos as well, see http://valuingvoices.com/catalysts-2/
BY Barbara Geary Truan
ON March 15, 2015 11:31 PM
Thank you Jindra. The numbers here speak volumes. Can we imagine a business whose investors did not know if a product or service worked? Of course development is not commerce, but that doesn’t mean it should not be accountable. Thanks also for pointing out that part of what we do not know is surely a good story. Development professionals might also think of studying locally initiated projects that work. There are many. Some examples: http://shrujan.org/about,shrujan.html
http://www.umziwethu.org/about-us/the-model
BY Yoon Jung PARK, PhD
ON March 16, 2015 08:29 AM
Well said, Jindra. Having worked in development years ago, and teaching it now, many of the points that you make should be obvious… and yet, there is little evidence that practitioners or policy makers are listening to the communities ostensibly served, or being held accountable. This may account for why so many in Africa - the region of my focus - are turning to alternatives to development aid and looking to China, the private sector, and their own innovators.
BY Jindra Cekan
ON March 16, 2015 08:52 AM
Excellent points Barbara and Yoon, accountability for final results are key and our business needs to listen and learn, not from judgement but from genuine partnership. Thanks!
BY Susan Hadler, PhD
ON March 16, 2015 09:38 AM
Such a sensible article! Local people know and listening to them, planning and designing with them is THE way to sustainable development. It always has been and will be if consultants can put aside their arrogance and listen to and work together with the local people. Thank goodness for VALUING VOICES!
BY Jean-Marie Bihizi
ON March 16, 2015 10:53 PM
Hello Jindra. Thank you for this great article. We had these discussions four years ago in Madagascar while implementing USAID-funded SALOHI program. We thought we could learn from previous development programs (MYAPs). Although we had great ideas, it was difficult to mobilize resources to conduct post-evaluations. As you recommend to “plan for transitioning to sustainability after projects close for any project that uses more than $1 million dollars”, I would also recommend donors and NGOs/project implementers to plan and budget for post-evaluations as we plan for baselines, mid-term and final evaluations.
BY Jindra cekan
ON March 17, 2015 12:15 AM
Jean-Marie, I cannot agree more, it has to become standard practice and lessons learned need to feed into future designs. So simple yet until now elusive… I am so glad that Madagascar had the same thoughts, let’s hope donors like USAID listen; we all want sustainable development after all…
Have you or anyone else reading this blog heard of any post project evaluations for us to add to our repertoire?
BY Oliver Hughes
ON March 18, 2015 08:52 AM
Hi Jindra - I thought this article was fantastic, as you know, and very necessary.
I think if ex-post evaluations were carried out on a wide scale by donors - on all projects over a certain $ threshold - it could lead to a complete shift in the way we think about development programming. The emphasis would change from what works in the short-term to what will endure. I think it could result in more realistic objective setting, moving away from overly ambitious projects that presuppose a degree of government support or local resources that simply don’t exist, and so are set up to fail in the long-term. If this led to slightly less ambitious programs that still bore fruit 10 years down the line, that would be a good thing.
BY Jindra Cekan
ON March 18, 2015 01:49 PM
Oliver, thank you so much. You put this beautifully. Imagine participant-designed development projects…. May donors listen and our work bears expected (and unexpected 😊) fruit for decades!
BY Sylvia Jaideep
ON March 20, 2015 06:27 AM
Hello, I am from India, from a village . I have a school in the rural area. Open Innovation and sustainable development , is Greek to me. Can you suggest workable model where i can sustain and have also innovation for my organisation- specializing in education and village development.
BY Jindra Cekan
ON March 20, 2015 01:38 PM
Sylvia- So glad you wrote. We use fancy terms for simple hopes. If you got to SSIR, it’s clear you have brains, determination and resources for your organization.
For your school and its community, it’s jointly discussing questions that you surely already ask:
* What is so important that we want to sustain it (teaching, farming, __?)?
* What vision do we and our community have that we want to get to in 1, 5, 10 years?
* What do we already do best, how do we do more of it? What can we already do for ourselves?
* What do we need to do better, that we feel we need to innovate?
* What needs external help? Who can help us (Ministry of Education, our staff and other non-profits, parents, our children, other donors)? How do we reach out to them?
Wonderful non-profits abound. We have featured northwestern India’s Shrujan.org on our blog. Also Rituu Nanda oversees a participatory process called Community LIfe Competence from Delhi that you may also benefit from: http://www.communitylifecompetence.org/en/.
Am happy to talk with you by email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)). Warmly, Jindra
BY Mitchell Ratner, PhD
ON March 20, 2015 03:08 PM
Thanks for the article, Jindra.
What I most appreciated was the call for significant participant input before the project is designed or implemented. It seems important to involve both individuals and relevant local organizations, and to build capacity as part of the project.
Thank you for Valuing Voices.
BY Tsepo Joshua
ON March 20, 2015 08:16 PM
This is why its important to have a capacity building component in all projects so that the knowledge and skills are transferred from the project to the project participants.
BY Miki
ON March 21, 2015 12:00 AM
How participants maintain sustainability is a difficult problem. Tips which was introduced in this article is useful to understand what should donors do to start to help people. I think that setting goals based on citizens’ requests and involving citizens from the beginning is most important.
BY Jindra Cekan
ON March 23, 2015 04:47 AM
Dear SSIR readers-
Sylvia (who has a school in India and wrote us earlier) wrote me and has been running New Song Community School for the past 11 years. She has insufficient resources for “growing salaries/payroll, need of a school building , and integrating technology… to give quality education so these poor rural students can become future doctors or engineers or leaders”.
I’ve suggested to Sylvia that she consider crowdfunding at global giving (UK as India is a former colony) http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/ or Indegogo (US) https://learn.indiegogo.com/crowdfunding-on-indiegogo.
I am on the board of a nonprofit that has used these organizations for fundraising…
What other suggestions could you offer her?
Tsepo and Miki, many thanks for writing! Absolutely - we must Design for Sustainability with Citizen’s Voices as the starting point.
Has anyone seen projects that have done this successfully? Please let us know so we can celebrate them… Warmly, Jindra
BY Jindra Cekan
ON March 30, 2015 05:36 AM
Mitchell, I know your commitment to participation from your time in the field. Absolutely “significant participant input before the project… and to build capacity as part of the project”. Ideally we’ll be building capacity for folks to take over the project and design with sustainability in mind, including building capacity of communities, NGOs and governments to take over. Hopefully we can see this is the best way to viably handover ‘development’. Warmly!
BY Jennifer Nazaire
ON April 14, 2015 12:59 PM
HI Jindra, thanks so much for reminding us all of these truths. Any thoughts on how we can convince donors that post evaluations are a good investment? What have been the results for donors of these post evaluations in the past ?
BY Jindra Cekan
ON April 15, 2015 04:29 AM
Jennifer, many thanks for your kind words and a great question!
In addition to what seems common sense for sustained impact and exit, we can do fieldwork to discern what was self-sustained, design with this in mind, and compare results over the long-term. To date, so few have been done that there is a weak evidence base for donors or implementers on how such evaluations influenced design and better outcomes for all.
No time like the present to change that! You’ll be happy to hear that your terrific org, Catholic Relief Services has used private Innovation Funds to hire me to do post-project evaluation, and I am leaving to do one in Africa tomorrow. Will keep you all posted at http://www.valuingvoices.com
Warmly, Jindra
BY Makafu Rogers
ON May 21, 2015 01:58 AM
I thank you for your nice article. I happen to work in educational NGO with support of JICA for about a decade. I appraise them for their monitoring strategies that has increased the survival rate for this organisation. While the grass root community seems to appreciate and value what the programme is offering to the science and mathematics teachers , and ultimately to the children , some community leaders-who seem to be focusing on only how much the programme brings to their pockets are shaking the right direction of this programme for sustainability. Attitude of such leaders is a big threat despite the fact that they are policy makers- they have more power than the beneficiaries. They change leadership to fit their needs. I think donors should do something to this effect.
BY Jindra Cekan
ON May 21, 2015 05:45 AM
Makafu, thank you so much for writing. So glad JICA’s support has been good. Can I ask, what do you think we need to do (or donors should do) to manage such expectations of taking power and money for themselves? What can we help communities to do themselves to have more control?
Warmly, Jindra
BY Rogers
ON May 21, 2015 07:23 AM
Thank Jindra for your Appreciation,
First, I do appreciate. Many donors and governments have measures in place to control this , though more is needed. Good governance which have well-functioning anti-corruption systems is very essential. Our developing countries need to strengthen on this area. Secondly, we need to develop multi-monitoring strategies to advice and reduce this effect. We need leaders who are patriotic and can assess , advice, mentor and coach rather than those who wait for rights and wrongs. There is need for leaders across related partner organization to be open , transparent , cooperate and work together. And so on .......
With regards,
BY Jindra Cekan
ON June 4, 2015 12:45 PM
Dear Mafaku Rogers, apologies for the delay… yes, and do you think that initiatives such as http://www.aidtransparency.net/ or http://ideas.makingallvoicescount.org/ make a difference in supporting government accountability? I completely agree we need monitoring from all angles - from community up to donors down to implementers over to…... I so agree we must partner as you said. Warm regards!