Blog: Accountability
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) – where have your ex-post evaluations, and learning from them, gone?
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) - where have your ex-post evaluations, and learning from them, gone? A Linkedin colleague, Gillian Marcelle, Ph.D. recently asked me about ex-posts by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) as more Caribbean...
Sustainability of what and how do we know? Measuring projects, programs, policies…
On my way to present at the European Evaluation Society's annual conference, I wanted to close the loop on the Nordic and Netherlands ex-post analysis. The reason is, that we'll be discussing the intersection of different ways to evaluate 'sustainability' over the...
5 Ways to Foster Sustainability and Resilience to Climate Change
5 Ways to Foster Sustainability and Resilience to Climate Change by Omar Abdou, M.A. and Jindra Cekan/ova, Ph.D In the global climate change graphic, the blue are countries that contribute very few emissions to #climatechange. They are also those who suffer the most...
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Funding and Accountability for sustainable projects?
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Funding and Accountability for sustainable projects? What are Sustainable Development Goals? " the United Nations adopted the new post-2015 development agenda. The new proposals - to be achieved by 2030- set 17 new 'sustainable'...
Who is accountable for the ‘sustained development’ of those who suffer, and for how long? US/Czech and Kenyan Views
Who is accountable for the ‘sustained development’ of those who suffer, and for how long? Some of the rarely discussed myths of ‘sustainable development is that the aid we donors and implementers bring will help everyone, and that recipient governments can take...
Reblog Ex-post Eval Week: Measuring sustainability post-program –go in and stay for the learning! By Holta Trandafili
Ex-post Eval Week: Measuring sustainability post-program –go in and stay for the learning! By Holta Trandafili Reblog from AEA: https://aea365.org/blog/ex-post-eval-week-measuring-sustainability-post-program-go-in-and-stay-for-the-learning-by-holta-trandafili/ January...
Sustainability Ready: what it takes to support & measure lasting change webinar
On June 24th under GLocal's UNConference, "Co-creating our future stories of hope and action", Jindra Cekan, Holta Trandafili, and Isabella Jean presented their work on sustainability evaluations and exit strategies via local voices. We chaired a 2-hour discussion...
Setting a higher bar: Sustained Impacts are about All of us
Setting a higher bar: Sustained Impacts are about All of us Global development aid has a problem which may already affect impact investing as well. It is that we think it's really all about us (individuals, wealthy donors and INGO implementers) not all of us (you, me,...
Investing in Youth for Project Effectiveness and Sustainability
Investing in Youth for Project Effectiveness and Sustainability One out of every six people on earth is between the ages of 15-24, says the UN. That is 1.2 billion youth. As one young leader says, “if the world’s problems are to be solved, it’s not going to happen...
Reblog: The Name of the Game is “Sustainability” but Does the Last Player Count?
The Name of the Game is “Sustainability” but Does the Last Player Count? by John Lowrie, Reblog from https://www.scribd.com/document/11621086/The-Name-of-the-Game-is-Sustainability-but-Does-the-Last-Player-Count-by-John-Lowrie Today, it is obligatory to answer the...
Local Accountability and Transparency… During and Post Project?
Local Accountability and Transparency... During and Post Project? Local development partners? Check. Long-term transparent and accountable investments through them as “local solutions” partners? Not so much. While President Obama and former United States...
Living in a Well-meaning Lie: Valuing all Voices? – The Solutions Journal
Living in a Well-meaning Lie: Valuing all Voices? Volume 8 | Issue 3 | May 2017 By Jindra Cekan Solar panels in Cap Haitien, Haiti. Poor villagers like Edith, Aminata, Rituu, and Juan don’t appear much on the nightly news. You might never know they exist unless you...
Making up your mind. Prioritizing and making it happen
Making up your mind. Prioritizing and making it happen * As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness". ...
Maximizing what we’ve got… Time is now!
Maximizing what we've got... Time is now! We had a stirring conversation here in D.C. with someone very knowledgeable about sustainability; this person is a strong proponent of local ownership of all development. They also said...
What happens after the project ends? Lessons about Funding, Assumptions and Fears (Part 3)
What happens after the project ends? Lessons about Funding, Assumptions and Fears (Part 3) In part 1 and part 2 of this blog, we showcased 11 of the 18 organizations that have done post-project evaluations. While this was scratching the surface of all...
What happens after the project ends? Country-national ownership lessons from post-project sustained impacts evaluations (Part 2)
What happens after the project ends? Country-national ownership lessons from post-project sustained impacts evaluations (Part 2) In Part 1 of our blog on lessons learned from post-project evaluations, we explored: How we do it matters for great results...
Learning about Sustainability and Exit Strategies from USAID’s Food Assistance Projects
Learning about Sustainability and Exit Strategies from USAID’s Food Assistance Projects USAID overall and Food for Peace (FFP) specifically have become far more progressive in the Obama Administration and under Administrator Rajiv Shah, with a much...
The Disruptive Potential of Feedback (reblog from NonprofitChronicles.com)
The Disruptive Potential of Feedback by MARC GUNTHER, OCTOBER 18, 2015 ( reblogged http://nonprofitchronicles.com/2015/10/18/the-disruptive-potential-of-feedback/) Few institutions in the US are as undemocratic as endowed foundations. The executives in...
Sustainable Development Goals and Foreign Aid– How Sustainable and Accountable to Whom? Reposting Blog from LinkedIn Pulse
Sustainable Development Goals and Foreign Aid– How Sustainable and Accountable to Whom? Jindra Cekan, PhD of ValuingVoices World leaders will paint New York City red next week at the UN Summit adopting the new post-2015 development agenda. The agreed...
Face our fears! Learn from failure…
Face our fears! Learn from failure... Global Giving has a nice example of getting participant feedback success/failure of a project their fundraising funded. The organization failed, which was sorrowful to the players in West Africa and funders worldwide (I, too am a...
Altruistic Accountability… for Sustainability
Altruistic Accountability... for Sustainability Many of us in international development feel a sense of responsibility for others to be well, and for our work to improve their lives as well as for the work to be done in good stewardship of aid resources and optimizing...
When Funders Move On (Originally published by Stanford Social Innovation Review 03/15)
When Funders Move On: Donors and nonprofits need to learn more about how to help program participants keep progressing after the support ends. Imagine standing in Detroit or South-Central Los Angeles. A team of experts has come to help you out of grinding poverty....
Are We Done Yet?
Are We Done Yet? When are we off the hook, so to speak, for the well-being of the participants whom we said we'd make healthier, better fed, more educated, safer, etc? America’s Agency for International Development (USAID) is the main channel for...
A Missing Piece In Local Ownership: Evaluation Reblog from InterAction (US’ NGO Umbrella Organization)
A Missing Piece In Local Ownership: Evaluation (Reblog from http://www.interaction.org/blog/missing-piece-local-ownership-evaluation Grino and Levine) Ten years ago, ownership was established as a key principle of aid effectiveness. Although understanding...
Can development projects be sustainable? Reblog from www.evaluace.com…
Can development projects be sustainable? (Reblog http://www.evaluace.com by Inka Pibilova and Marie Korner) What remained of Mongolian kindergartens In 2012, we have ventured with my colleague Marie Koerner through steppes of Mongolia to learn what remained of...
IEG Blog Series Part I: Pick a term, any term…but stick to it!
Pick a term, any term...but stick to it! Valuing Voices is interested in identifying learning leaders in international development that are using participatory post-project evaluation methods to learn about the...
Listening better… for more sustainable impact
Listening better... for more sustainable impact Are we listening better? Maybe. As Irene Gujit states on Better Evaluation, Keystone’s work on ‘constituent voice’ enables a "shift [in] power dynamics and make...
Making money– is this a way to sustainable livelihoods? PACT’s Nepalese Lessons
Making money-- microenterprise-- is this a way to sustainable livelihoods? PACT's Nepalese Lessons Many Americans are steeped in the belief that we must 'pull ourselves up by our bootstraps', that hard work and especially faith in small businesses is the...
Czech it out! Great evaluation happening in the Czech Republic
Czech it out! Great evaluation happening in the Czech Republic One of the delights of living in another country is the surprises one encounters. For me, coming back to our second 'home', it was an evaluative surprise. For by connecting to the Czech Foreign...
What’s likely to ‘stand’ after we go? A new consideration in project design and evaluation
What's likely to 'stand' after we go? A new consideration in project design and evaluation This spring I had the opportunity to not only evaluate a food security project but also to use the knowledge gleaned for the follow-on project design. This Ethiopian Red Cross...
Data for whose good?
Data for whose good? Many of us work in international development because we are driven to serve, to make corners of the world better by improving the lives of those that live there. Many of us are driven by compassion to help directly through working...
Sustainability SPRINGing out all over the place… and Disrupting!
Sustainability SPRINGing out all over the place… and Disrupting So what is sustainability? You may think it's the climate's long-term wellbeing and how to gauge changes to that. You may think it's linked...
Youth Series Part III: The Role of ICT4D (Information and Communications Technology for Development) in Empowering Youth
Youth Series Part III: The Role of ICT4D (Information and Communications Technology for Development) in Empowering Youth Youth Series Part I here Factors Hindering Youth Participation in Development Youth Series Part II here How Technology Enables Youth Participation...
Pineapple, Apple- what differentiates Impact from Sustainability Evaluation?
Pineapple, Apple- what differentiates Impact from Sustainability Evaluation? There is great news. Impact Evaluation is getting attention and being funded to do excellent research, such as by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), by donors such as...
Transparency and Accountability via open [Cambodian] data that ValuesVoices
Transparency and Accountability via open [Cambodian] data that ValuesVoices My colleague pointed out this fascinating article about a new transparency program for garment factories, using data collected meticulously by the International Labor Organization (ILO) on...
Stepping up community self-sustainability, one [Ethiopian] step at a time
Stepping up community self-sustainability, one [Ethiopian] step at a time Having just come back from evaluation and design fieldwork for an Ethiopian Red Cross (ERCS)/ Swedish Red Cross/ Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent project, the power of...
Prospects for long-term sustainability…or lack thereof at the Macro Level (Part 2)
Prospects for long-term sustainability... or lack thereof at the Macro level (Part 2) During 2003-2004, the OECD conducted a very interesting Ex-Post Evaluation Sustainability Summary that synthesizes four separate Regional Rural Development (RRD) projects,...
Twigas (Participant self-sustainability) throughout ‘development time’- Design, Implementation, M&E and beyond
Twigas (Participant self-sustainability) throughout 'development time'- Design, Implementation, M&E and beyond What if we saw our true clients (sometimes vulnerable twigas) as our project participants and wanted the return on investment of...
‘Developing them’ fails. Long live country-led development!(?)
'Developing them' fails (Haiti). Long live country-led development! (?) I am tired of inefficiency and waste of tax dollars and human capacity and time. Some organizations use images of Africans, Asians, Latin Americans and Caribbean people...
Let’s start turning the oceanliner of development to dignified sustainability – today!
Let's start turning the oceanliner of development to dignified sustainability - today! No time like the present, our participants are waiting for dignified development to fully arrive. Dignity is the "quality or state of being worthy of esteem...
Development= A Jeep (motor optional).. Resilience? If within 5 years!
Development= A Jeep (motor optional).. Resilience? If within 5 years! Imagine being given a lovely new Jeep. You get a driver (remember driving school) to help you learn to steer it around the pothole-strewn, scantly lit roads. Eventually you take over the...
The ’causes and conditions’ are right for sustainable impact… $100 billion of funding needs it
The 'causes and conditions' are right for sustainable impact... $100 billion of funding in 2014 alone needs it! Many of us know that when the time is right, things click into place and manifest, but when they are not yet ripe for change, they...
Time is ripe for incentives to change….
Time is ripe for incentives to change…. There is so much promise now in returning international development to the hands of those who we mean to ‘develop’. Here are a few examples: •Accountability has been proposed as a core...
Accountability and Solidarity – what does it take?
Accountability and Solidarity- what does it take? Who are we accountable to? US agencies would say our taxpayers, international charities would say their donors, but what would ordinary folks like you and me say? Our consciences? My dear friend Peter...
“Free” resources? How many (no-comment) strings are attached?
"Free" resources? How many (no-comment) strings are attached? Is aid really free? We offer communities, households, individuals a lot -- training, in-kind resources such as seeds/ tools or clean water dispensers, etc. We also ask some in return, as...
Jindra Cekan, Ph.D. has used participatory methods for 30 years to connect with participants, ranging from villagers in Africa, Central/ Latin America and the Balkans to policy makers and Ministers around the world for her international clients. Their voices have informed the new Sustained and Emerging Impacts Evaluation, other M&E, stakeholder analysis, strategic planning, knowledge management and organizational learning.