Blog: Self-sustainability
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...
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...
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...
It’s not just Me, it’s We
It's not just Me, it's We Many of us want to be of service. That's why we go into international development, government, and many other fields. We hope our words and deeds help make others' lives better. For 25 years I've written...
IEG Blog Series Part II: Theory vs. Practice at the World Bank
IEG Blog Series Part II: Theory vs. Practice at the World Bank In Part I of this blog series, I described my research process for identifying the level to which the World Bank (WB) is conducting participatory post project sustainability...
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...
Learning from the Past… for Future Sustainability
Learning from the Past... for Future Sustainability Heading up Food Security for Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was my first international development job in 1995-1999 and I have watched this organization grow in its commitment to program quality and learning/...
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...
What should projects accomplish… and for whom?
What should projects accomplish... and for whom? An unnamed international non-profit client contacted me to evaluate their resilience project mid-stream, to gauge prospects for sustainable handover. EUREKA, I thought! After email discussions with them I...
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...
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.