Blog: Results
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...
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...
Times are a Changin’ in those who Fund Listening, then Doing
Times are a Changin' in those who Fund Listening... then Doing So you've been helped by an organization. You think it has a good mission and have actively participated in its activities yet one day (somewhat arbitrarily in your view), it takes you off its...
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...
Pineapple, Apple- what differentiates Impact from self-Sustainability Evaluation?
Pineapple, Apple- what differentiates Impact from self-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...
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...
Aminata and I both want to be proud…
Aminata and I both want to be proud... I met Aminata in Mali in 1990 during my doctoral research. She was a Bambara farmer and an impressive woman, with pride in her community. She was a helpful informant during my research on how communities cope with...
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,...
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...
Partners For Democratic Change: Promote Capacity Building to Achieve Self-Sustainability!
Catalyst organizations are those whose focus is on implementing programs with community level involvement during projects and local feedback loops to inform post-project evaluations for impact self-sustainability. An excellent example of this is Partners for...
What can we learn from Ex-Post (Post-Project) Evaluations?
What can we learn from Ex-Post Evaluations? In trying to learn more about sustainable development solutions, the first place to look for information is in ex-post evaluations, also commonly called post-project evaluations, which are conducted by either...
How do we define Sustainability?
How do we define Sustainability? Sustainability is a key success outcome for which a project is assessed, one of the five OECD DAC Criteria for Evaluating Development Assistance, which also includes relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and impact....
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...
Is Development Doomed? No! Youth and community input are key to sustainability
Is Development Doomed? No! Youth and community input are key to sustainability Paul Theroux has a deeply depressing, if quite realistic, view of how development has failed Africa. "Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo calls aid a "debilitating...
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...
The need to return.. and learn post-project close-out: Plan Int’l
The need to return...and learn post-project close-out: Plan Int'l It's like leaving the screening of a documentary; don't you too want to know how things work out after the movie makers leave? I do. And most of all I long to learn from it... I long to see...
What do we know… about international development, ourselves, ‘them’ and the intersection?
What could we know... about international development, ourselves, 'them' and the intersection? How would international development look from the eyes of the participants? What works best? What fails? Who decides what success and failure is, and how much...
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.