Technologically Enhanced Agricultural Livelihoods (TEAL)
Publication Date: 2023/04/11
interviews, focus groups discussion with community women and men and relevant project stakeholders, and reflection with project team and partner. (2) Secondary sources included data from the desk review with the relevant project documents such as project reports, project MEL data, local reports, relevant policy and statistical data from the baseline study and MTR. The evaluation report is structured in three parts. Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Findings (Demographic characteristics of the survey sample are showed in Section 2.1. Section 2.2 demonstrates the project outreach. Sections 2.3 to 2.8 give the evaluation criteria. PwD participation is covered in
sections 2.9 and sections 2.10 discusses how the Project contributes to preventing gender-based violence (GBV)); and Chapter 3: Conclusion and recommendation. The findings in the final evaluation report (are presented in Chapter 2) are summarized here:
● Project Outreach: The TEAL project has realized the plan in reaching out to the intended beneficiaries, in terms of numbers. At the endline, the number of direct beneficiaries is significantly higher than the target. The same goes for the number of indirect beneficiaries.
● Relevance: (i) The TEAL project complies fully with the approaches of CARE's WEE Framework; (ii) The approaches of the TEAL Project are consistent with the long-term orientations of Son La and Dien Bien and are considered a leverage to achieve the provincial economic development objectives; (iii) The Project is suitable for the needs of ethnic minorities and the needs of people with disabilities in many respects; and (iv) The TEAL project has found every creative solution to meet the needs of people with disabilities in the project.
● Coherence is assessed high when the project's intervention is not overlapped/duplicated with other similar interventions that takes place in the same location, target the same beneficiaries and aims for the same impacts. Project coherence is also considered high when it is implemented as a complemented to other interventions in terms of resources and approaches
● Effectiveness: Almost indicators are achieved, even some of them have exceeded the plan. However, there are still a few limitations, such as: the design of VSLA has not significantly contributed to the achievement of expected outcome 3 - EM women in the Arabica coffee value chain are financially included
● Impacts: The changes in women's agency are generated by contribution from TEAL intervention. The project also builds women's relationships with other actors in the specialty arabica coffee value chain by supporting a lead processing actor who is committed to inclusive business. An unexpected positive impact of the Project is to build a culture of enjoying local specialty coffee among the coffee-growers community. Another unexpected positive effect was noted. The TEAL Project has contributed to building a sustainable relationship between processing groups and leading coffee experts in Vietnam.
● Sustainability: (i) Both male and female project beneficiaries are highly available and committed to continue project's activities; (ii) At the end of project evaluation, two women-led processing groups (Ara-Tay Cooperative and CFCE) were able to understand the concept of fixed asset depreciation and formulate a plan on using profits estimated from business operations to replace existing equipment by purchasing new machinery at the end of the depreciation period; (iii) The large investment of the Project for Ara-Tay Cooperative and CFCE while the number of their satellites remains low indicates a risk of distribution of the project benefits in the long run if these two processors are not proactive in extending links to new satellite farmers; and (iv) The project has done a good job when introducing processing solutions that have less impact on the environment .
● Engagement of PwD: The stories shared by the participants in the final evaluation strongly illustrate PwD's engagement in the TEAL Project.
● Gender-based Violence: In recent times, it has been observed that the number of quarrels between husband and wife has been a lot decreased. Men are more aware that forbidding their wives to engage in social activities is also a type of violence. The Pearson's Chi-squared test shows that the correlation between participation in discussions about gender and gender inequality held by the TEAL Project and the change in social norm about domestic violence was statistically significant.