South Asia Regional Workshop
07/20/2010
51 participants representing 25 NGO partner organisations from India, Bangladesh and Germany gathered at the Karl Kübel Institute for Development (Coimbatore) on June 30-July 2 and shared, assessed and synthesised their experiences in the application of the NGO-IDEAs Toolbox for outcome and impact monitoring in different sectors.
The workshop highlights:
16 NGO-IDEAs partners actively participated in application/testing of the NGO-IDEAs Toolbox in 328 villages in India and Bangladesh in various sectors such as Savings and Credit, Health, Education, Disability, and Agriculture and shared their inspiring experiences during the workshop.
Different approaches to Participatory Well- Being Ranking were presented; a comparison study on Wealth Ranking and Well-Being Ranking applied in the same community group, presented by one partner from India, showed that these tools had led to different results. The distinction between PWR (wealth) and PWbR (well-being) was taken up. PWbR was widely accepted by the participants.
SAGE (Situation Analysis and Goal Establishment) was generally reported to be very appropriate for the specific context of partners. However, some options were presented and discussed:
First step SAGE Tools for Health, Disability/Human Rights and Education Sectors were introduced and discussed. These tools integrate the cross cutting issues of Poverty, Gender and Inclusion and allow for a differentiated analyses of the respective outcomes and impacts. Integrating these cross cutting issues – including other social issues – across all sectors was widely accepted by the participants.
In PAG (Performance Assessment of Group), the method of scoring with different colours was experienced as good practice as it facilitates the communities’ easy understanding and active participation.
The concept of Community Based Action Plan which guides NGOs and community steering of impact oriented planning and implementation was introduced, discussed and accepted. One of the partners shared the experience on the importance of this concept.
PIAR (Participatory Impact Assessment and Reflection) was presented in a completely new structure, focussing aggregation and disaggregation, and thus on its linkage with the software application (Excel or GrafStat). It includes then the qualitative analysis of data with the help of several questions, and also the critical analysis of the quality (validity) of the data collected. A more detailed presentation shall be displayed soon on the internal NGO-IDEAs platform.
The GrafStat software (which is being tested by 3 partners) indicates more hopes for user friendly software for data analysis.
The NGO-IDEAs concept/tools received increased recognition and acceptance at NGOs and community level.
There is a gradual increase in knowledge and skills of NGOs up to field level staff in participatory outcome and impact monitoring.
Participants found it inspiring to hear some voices from partners that the NGO-IDEAs experiences have guided them to adapt their program approaches to become more effective. Some statements from South Asian partners:
“We shift our program delivery approach from “General approach to Pro-poor approach””.
“The project proposal development got a shift from “top level perspectives to grassroots level perspectives.”
“Our staff review meeting approach is now changed, its focus is not only activity/target focused but also inclusive of the process of outcome and impact monitoring and management decisions are taken accordingly.”
“NGO-IDEAs helps to guide our project management and preparation of activity plan for the staff.”
Philippine mid-year sharing
07/20/2010
On July 1, the Philippine NGO-IDEAs partners met on the island of Bohol to share their progress in the application of the NGO-IDEAs tools. They drew many insights from that.
Tools were applied in 36 groups, of these were 7 children groups, and in 22 tribal clans. In total, members of an estimated 700-900 households were involved in applying at least one of PWR (Participatory Well-Being Ranking), SAGE (Goal establishment and assessment by groups for individuals and households) or PAG (Goal establishment and assessment by community groups). Most used more than one tool.
According to participants, the tools helped NGOs to get to a better understanding of the processes and changes within the communities they work with. The communities or groups increased their awareness of development and some decided to take action on issues that they raised during discussions. For one NGO, the question what was group and what was individual goals could not easily be decided so that they facilitated the establishment of goals first and then had the community decide which was for PAG and which for SAGE.
The Tiny Tool LifeLine was applied by people who are involved in NGO-IDEAs, but they used it in programmes outside. One organisation used SAGE and PAG as central information for their internal evaluation. Three organisations are about to be ready for using the data as an instrument in a differentiated analysis of performance and impact of their projects (PIAR).
Steering Group in July
07/20/2010
On July 16, the NGO-IDEAs Steering Group met in Bonn and discussed the progress of implementing the NGO-IDEAs toolbox. It expressed appreciation for a practice in which the applications of the tools led to an increased steering of development activities by grassroots people. It took note of cases where people said: “We have set a goal as a group that all group members should participate actively, and so I have started talking in group meetings, too.” A group that had planted trees for at least a decade said. “We have set the goal that the trees should protect our houses. When we monitored the goal, we realised that some of the tree species did not grow well and could not contribute to our goal. So we have decided to plant different species.”
The tools can also activate people to reduce poverty discrepancies, like in the case of one group that realised through Participatory Wealth Ranking that it had two particularly poor members amongst it. Now, members from these two families get preference when it comes to allocating paid community jobs, and they are encouraged by group members to make better use of the agricultural opportunities available.
The Steering Group appreciated where NGO-IDEAs stands now, the strong participation and commitment of partners, and that Southern NGOs started adapting their approaches to the aspirations of grassroots as they emerge in the application of the tools.
The next challenge for NGO-IDEAs is to aggregate the data within one NGO beyond the level of individual groups. The use of the software GrafStat has proved to be helpful in this. A symposium is planned for April 2011 in which experiences of partners in NGO-IDEAs will be discussed with experts on M&E. The question how much it costs to introduce NGO-IDEAs tools will be explored further. Training for staff of German NGOs on the NGO-IDEAs tools will be offered. The German partner workshop in September will be an opportunity to discuss this.
Conference on Evaluation
06/12/2010
NGO-IDEAs was presented at a conference "Evaluation Revisited" on May 20-21 in Utrecht. A number of lessons could be drawn. There is internationally an intensive discussion on how to have better monitoring and evaluations, and there are better alternatives to random control trials. Many alternatives are currently being developed. NGO-IDEAs is in this context seen as a "rigorous evaluative practice that embraces complexity" under a number of conditions. Sometimes it is better to work with retrospective questions than with baselines. More on this and a number of other lessons can be found in the attached document.
Download the .pdf on the conference
Steering Group Meeting
04/13/2010
The NGO-IDEAs Steering Group met on March 26 in Bonn. It revised the budget to give more time for the accompaniment of partners. It decided to leave open for more consultation the question whether NGO-IDEAs should have in 2011 a final workshop of all regions in India, or three regional workshops. It also agreed to have a system of information in which all partners, North and South, inform each other on their activities within NGO-IDEAs. Partners will soon be approached to provide such information.
First Tools developed
04/13/2010
First tools have been developed to measure inclusion of persons with disabilities (PWD) learned a meeting of the German NGO-IDEAs partners in the Disability & Inclusive Development sector on March 23 in Bensheim. George Cottina, from NGO-IDEAs East Africa on a visit to Germany, shared the experiences of East African partners in developing group goals with groups of PWD: What do they want to achieve in overcoming discrimination and promoting inclusion? Goals ranged from being treated equally as business partners and getting adequate access to health stations to gaining leadership positions in the community. These exercises made the groups resolve that they undertake new activities for more improvements.
The participants also discussed how they can cooperate to develop tools for the disability sector. German NGO-IDEAs partners will be involved in further discussions and look forward to the East Africa Workshop on October 6-8.
German Partners' Workshop discussed progress
03/10/2010
Representatives of the 14 German NGO-IDEAs Partners met on February 3 to discuss the progress of the programme. They appreciated highly the work done by Southern Partners and the Regional Coordinators, in view of the big task to introduce the new tools for impact monitoring.
They showed their understanding that the adaption and testing of new tools needs intensive accompanying, and is a search process with ups and downs. Participants emphasised that the tools need to be introduced in a participatory way, and they they need to be designed so that they genuinely benefit the grassroots.
The German partners expressed concern about the "digital divide": in some Southern NGOs staff members have difficulties getting access to the internet. This makes their experience sharing and participation difficult, specifically in the sector working groups, but also on the internal internet platform in general where experiences with the tools are being shared (e.g. FAQ). They requested the German consultants and the Regional Coordinators to improve the avenues for communication with persons on the ground involved in NGO-IDEAs. German partners expressed great interest in concrete reports on the application of the NGO-IDEAs tools, and promised to share examples from their partners.
Participants expressed appreciation for the training courses on impact monitoring and NGO-IDEAs that took place in January and February for staff of German NGOs.
Tiny Tools overview online
03/10/2010
An overview over simple, "tiny" tools to assess change is now publicly available on the NGO-IDEAs homepage. You find it under "publications and articles", together with a guide to use Lifeline, one of the Tiny Tools.
NGO-IDEAs will in the further process develop more guides for other Tiny Tools - depending on where there is demand for practical use. It will also make examples of application public.
Regional Workshop East Africa
11/18/2009
NGOs in these sectors will work out lists of sector-specific goals that can be suggested to community groups who intend to measure change around them. The sector disability & inclusive development particularly sees the need to intensively work on new goals and tools. Development of tools is mostly planned for the first quarter 2010. Finalised results will be shared on this website.
The NGOs from the three sectors have reflected not only on NGO-IDEAs. They have also thought about what else they have in common and what they could do together. That created a special bond.
Regional Workshop Philippines
11/18/2009
Participants worked out action plans how they will implement the NGO-IDEAs tools over the next year. They agreed on cooperation in sectors, will cooperate in training their staff on the tools and will develop sector-specific goals together.
Participants discussed a guide for Lifeline, a PRA tool revised so that a community reflects about the change brought about by development organisations, but also other factors.
Participants agreed to use this tool to reflect overall change in communities they work with.
New Impact Toolbox version online
11/18/2009
The version 1.1 of 2007 is completely revised, the tools are described in more details and in a more "generic", internationally acceptable version. Previous drafts were discussed by international experts, the international NGO-IDEAs workshop in September
2009 in Coimbatore, India, and the regional workshop East Africa in October in Mombasa, Kenya.
Participation Guidelines
10/15/2009
Participants at the International NGO-IDEAs Workshop in Coimbatore agreed on Sept 30 on participation guidelines. They commit themselves to involve communities in the development of impact monitoring tools, explain their purpose, use them only upon mutual agreement and seek feedback on the application of the toolbox. The tools themselves shall be used for the benefit of the people, not just for the benefit of NGOs or for reporting to funders. All NGO-IDEAs tools should lead to reflection by the communities. And communities should be empowered to use monitoring tools on their own, without help from external NGOs.
The NGO-IDEAs participation guidelines were accepted by the participants as something that will guide their action during the development and application for tools of participatory monitoring of change that has been brought about by development interventions. All NGO- IDEAs tools are designed for the empowerment of people who will take more control of their lives when they get the chance to reflect on changes they experience.
Download Participation Guidelines
Website Re-launch
07/28/2009
The new NGO-IDEAs.net is online. With a new design, the website now offers an internal area for NGO-IDEAs partners with discussion board, a download area, and contact addresses of partners involved.
Two persons per partner organisation will get access to the internal area to share their experience with participatory impact assessment and discuss issues. documents for discussion will be made available and every partner is invited to share tools and examples of their practice.
The public part of NGO-IDEAs.net will contain the newly developed version of the toolbox, many different tools for impact assessment and guidelines for implementation that will be region and sector specific. These resources will be added over time.