Blog: USAID
Reblog USAID’s Unpacking the Drivers of WASH Sustainability
Reblog Unpacking the Drivers of WASH Sustainability In Nov 2019 I highlighted several water/ sanitation/ hygiene ex-posts happening at USAID's E3 Water Bureau. They've just come up with a synthesis, which is important, both in learning and transparency for...
Sustainable Exit Strategies: USAID vs. EU
Sustainable Exit Strategies: USAID vs. EU Once malnutrition has decreased, students’ attendance has risen, or the number of small businesses has doubled, program implementers may be quick to pack their bags and leave. But the impact of their work may be...
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...
Learning from a river of ex-post project evaluations, tools and guidance… Thanks USAID!
Learning from a river of ex-post project evaluations and tools... Thanks USAID! Dear ex-post aficionados. It's raining ex-post project evaluations. Here's hoping learning from such evaluations in water/ sanitation, maternal/child health and even capacity building/...
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,...
Can’t wait to learn from post-project sustainability evaluation? If not why?
Can't wait to learn from post-project sustainability evaluation? If not why? A colleague who has been promoting ex-post sustainability evaluation in her organization questioned my claim that doing them had “benefits” for future programming. It was an...
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...
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? 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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.