Blog: Sustainability
Localization and investing in what lasts: locally led development and ex-post learning
Localization and investing in what lasts: locally-led development and ex-post learning This year-end blog highlights learning from the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), IRC/ CARE, about what can work, what needs more resources, learning from what didn't, OCHA...
Sustain our planet: Sustained Impact, Return on Environment, Environmental Impact Continuum & MRV (M&E)
Sustain our planet: Sustained Impact, Return on Environment, Environmental Impact Continuum & MRV (M&E) I've been focusing on sustainability and reframing impact from the perspective of nature, thanks to lessons about the earth's carrying capacity and tipping...
Adaptive Sustainability lessons the Climate Investment Funds’ PPCR evaluation, including three ex-posts
Adaptive Sustainability lessons the Climate Investment Funds' PPCR evaluation, including three ex-posts I am excited to share our latest Climate Investment Funds (CIF) Adaptive Sustainability report including three ex-post evaluations conducted by our Valuing Voices...
NEW YEAR, NEW SUSTAINABLE US?
NEW YEAR, NEW SUSTAINABLE US? Happy 2025! (Image from: https://plumvillage.org/articles/can-the-new-year-really-be-new) How will we be new this New Year? It may seem funny as an ex-post sustainability evaluator to write...
Grow the .002% of all global development projects that are evaluated ex-post closure for sustainability
Grow the .002% of all global development projects that are evaluated ex-post closure for sustainability It seems like 'fake news' that after decades of global development so few evaluations would have peered back in time to see what was sustained. While I was...
Trust is both a belief and a bond: Why is Trust for outsiders declining in communities? (Reblog from APEA and Rituu Nanda)
Following on from the localization blog by PLAN, APEA has shared why trust is declining in local communities. Note the learn not give lesson 🙂 Reblog of Asia Pacific Evaluation Association apea-admin/ Rituu Nanda:...
Fostering Values-Driven Sustainability Through an Ex-Post Capacities Lens (reposting a book chapter)
We all want our project results to be sustained, but without doing ex-post sustainability evaluations, we don't know if they are. However, ex-post evaluations can also teach us how to fund, design, monitor, and evaluate projects before they close. They also require...
The EU and Sustainability
The EU and Sustainability At the Prague European Summit I was invited to last week, sustainability was on the program three times. The most relevant session was Towards a More Sustainable and Prosperous European and Global Economy through Trade and...
Evaluating global aid projects ex-post closure: Evaluability… and how-to via Sustainability (and Resilience) Evaluation training materials
Evaluating global aid projects ex-post closure: Evaluability, and how-to via Sustainability (and Resilience) Evaluation training materials: How do we evaluate projects ex-post, and are all projects evaluable after donors leave? How do we learn from project documents...
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...
Hard-wiring and Soft-wiring in Sustainability via health program examples
Hard-wiring and Soft-wiring in Sustainability via health program examples: by Laurence Desvignes and Jindra Cekan/ova Overview We all want things to last. Most of us joined the ‘sustainable development’ industry hoping our foreign aid projects not only do good while...
The Contentious Power of Evaluations, Guest Blog by Hanneke de Bode
THE CONTENTIOUS POWER OF EVALUATIONS or why sustainable results are so hard to come by…. A while ago, I reacted to a discussion among development aid/cooperation evaluators about why there are so few NGO evaluations available. It transpired that many people do...
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...
Can We Assume Sustained Impact? Verifying the Sustainability of Climate Change Mitigation Results (reposting a book chapter)
So excited to have our chapter verifying the 'sustainability' of the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund (GEF) funded projects through examining two tranches of evaluations. My co-writer colleague Susan Legro did a brilliant job pointing out GreenHouse Gasses (GHG)...
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...
Aid providers: More puzzle pieces, including unexpected outcomes; ours is not the whole picture
Aid providers: More puzzle pieces, including unexpected outcomes; ours is not the whole picture When we did our first ex-post evaluation/ delayed final evaluation in 2006 in Niger for Lutheran World Relief (LWR) funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (pg75...
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'...
Reblog Ex-post Eval Week: Exiting For Sustainability by Jindra Cekan
Ex-post Eval Week: Exiting For Sustainability by Jindra Cekan Reblogged from AEA: https://aea365.org/blog/ex-post-eval-week-exiting-for-sustainability-by-jindra-cekan-2/ January 22, 2021 Jindra Cekan Hello. My name is Jindra Cekan, and I am the Founder and Catalyst of...
ReBlog Ex-post Eval Week: Evaluating Peace for Sustainability by Peter Kimeu Ngui
Reblog Ex-post Eval Week: Evaluating Peace for Sustainability by Peter Kimeu Ngui Reblogged from https://aea365.org/blog/ex-post-eval-week-evaluating-peace-for-sustainability-by-peter-kimeu-ngui/ January 20, 2021 Peter Kimeu Ngui Peace is with you. My name is Peter...
Upcoming Jan Webinar: Lessons from Nordic / the Netherlands’ ex-post project evaluations: 14 Jan 2021
Upcoming Webinar: Lessons from Nordic / the Netherlands' ex-post project evaluations: 14 Jan 2021 In June-August 2020, Preston Stewart, our Valuing Voices intern, conducted through government databases of the four Nordic countries – Norway, Finland, Sweden, and...
Interview repost: Why Measure & Evaluate Corporate Sustainability Projects?
Interview repost: Why Measure & Evaluate Corporate Sustainability Projects? A CSR firm in Central Europe asked me to talk about sustainability, evaluation, and Corporate Social Responsibility. We had a terrific interview - please click thru to:...
Interactive Webinar: Sustained Exit? Prove it or Improve it! (Nov 6 2020)
Sustained Exit? Prove it or Improve it! (reposted from Medium https://jindracekan.medium.com/sustained-exit-prove-it-or-improve-it-702ac507e2a5) Do we exit global development projects knowing our impacts are sustained? We hope so. As Professor Bea Rogers of Tufts said...
Sustaining “Sustainable Development”
Sustaining "Sustainable Development"? As a global development industry, we have almost no evidence of how (un)sustained the outcomes or impacts of 99% of our projects because we have never returned to evaluate them. But from early indications based on...
Implementing, Scaling and Planning for Aid Exit and Sustainability
Reposted from: https://medium.com/@jindracekan/implementing-scaling-and-planning-for-aid-exit-and-sustainability-b1b92e70fb36?postPublishedType=initial Rarely do funders return to evaluate (ex-post) what lasts after aid projects end, but when they do, we can find...
Assuming Sustainability and Impact is Dangerous to Development (+ OECD/DAC evaluation criteria)
Assuming Sustainability and Impact is Dangerous to Development (+ OECD/ DAC evaluation criteria) We all do it; well, I used to do it too. I used to assume that if I helped my field staff and partners target and design funded projects well enough, and try...
Public and Private paths to Sustained Global Development Impacts
Public and Private paths to Sustained Global Development Impacts (Reposted from: https://medium.com/@jindracekan/public-and-private-paths-to-sustained-global-development-impacts-9b7523891fce) Six years. That’s how long ago I began researching proof of sustained...
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...
Building the Evidence Base for Post Project Evaluation: A report to the Faster Forward Fund
Building the Evidence Base for Post Project Evaluation: A report to the Faster Forward Fund We are delighted to share Valuing Voices' report on the value added of post-project evaluation, which compares findings from eight end-of-project and subsequent...
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...
Leading in Challenging Times: Sustained and Emerging Impacts Evaluation (SEIEs)- reposted from Medium.com
Leading in Challenging Times: Sustained and Emerging Impacts Evaluation (SEIEs) Some American organizations are retrenching, focusing more attention on domestic rather than international programming. Some are pulling back from critique of international...
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". ...
Embedding Sustainability Everywhere – All Five Slices Now
Embedding Sustainability Everywhere - All Five Slices Now It has been a tumultuous year, and next year does not look like we will have much stability as a respite. As domestic concerns grow larger in two huge economies, US and UK, the question of the...
Presenting Lessons on (post-project) Sustained and Emerging Impact Evaluations from the U.S. AEA Conference
Presenting Lessons on (post-project) Sustained and Emerging Impact Evaluations from the U.S. AEA Conference Dear readers, attached please find the Barking up a Better Tree: Lessons about SEIE Sustained and Emerging Impact Evaluation presentation we did...
Towards responsible donor exiting strategies and practices: Reblog from Tshikululu
I am delighted to repost the blog on Responsible Donor Exit from Tshikululu, a Social Investment advisory firm in South Africa that I met at the European Evaluation Society conference last week in Holland [1]. The short report outlines different choices of...
Sustaining projects during and after Implementation: Does gender count?
Sustaining projects during and after Implementation: Does gender count? Rutere Kagendo from Ronto Research and Valuing Voices Gender as a concept is one of the many kinds of indicators of change measured in development projects. However, like many others, its...
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...
PARTICIPATION BY ALL: The Key To Sustainability of CRS/ Niger’s Food Security Project
PARTICIPATION BY ALL: The Key To Sustainability of CRS/ Niger’s Food Security Project Valuing Voices is delighted to share our sustainability evaluation of Catholic Relief Service Niger’s PROSAN project [1]. This project that ran from 2006-2012 in Niger...
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...
What happens after the project ends? Lessons from post-project sustained impacts evaluations (Part 1)
What happens after the project ends? Lessons from post-project sustained impacts evaluations (Part 1) We talk a lot about impact of our interventions, but far less is analyzed about the sustained impact of our work in the years after projects close out....
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...
Sustained Impact post-project (ex-post)? Little proof at 3ie
Sustained Impact post-project (ex-post)? Little proof at 3ie Surely an organization that has received tens of millions of dollars of funding must track 'impact' as the actual long-term impact of projects. That is what I thought when I first began...
Who is responsible for sustaining development?
Whose responsibility is it to sustain project activities? Billions of dollars are pumped into development activities in developing countries all over the world. Communities getting involved in these projects have a clear objective, which is to have their lives...
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.