Blog: Bilateral Organizations
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...
Walking in our participants’ shoes, Doing Development Differently
Walking in our participants' shoes, Doing Development Differently You and I like to make informed decisions. We go to restaurants recommended by Yelp or Facebook friends. We refer to Consumer Reports' rankings before we buy appliances and read Amazon...
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...
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...
The lack of ex-post project evaluation at the World Bank: One has no power
The lack of ex-post project evaluation at the World Bank: One has no power The World Bank has a huge repository of 8,483 evaluation resources in its e-library database, so naturally Valuing Voices was very interested in investigating how many of those resources...
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...
What are the prospects for self-sustained impact at the Macro level? (Part 1)
What are the prospects for self-sustained impact at the Macro level? (Part 1) After studying various impact evaluations, it became clear that different development projects also have different scales, with multilaterally-funded macro-level being focused on higher...
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...
Sustainable Development… are we done yet?
Sustainable Development... are we done yet? The UN's Commission on Sustainable Development has just disbanded after 20 years. They have given their convening power and work to a High‐level Political Forum, saying "we...
The pitfalls of pushing development even faster… we need compassion for all
The pitfalls of pushing development ever faster... we need compassion for all There is great need for compassion in development, for all those pushed to perform. First, for the participants of development projects, who can have projects imposed on them...
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.