Uganda
WOMEN LEAD IN EMERGENCIES Global Learning Evaluation Report
CARE’s Women Lead in Emergencies (Women Lead) model has been developed to operationalise CARE’s commitment to women’s leadership as one of our four focal areas for Gender in Emergencies.1 Women Lead supports women within communities at the frontline of conflict, natural and climate-related hazards, pandemics and other crises to claim their right to a say over the issues that affect them, and to participate in emergency preparedness, response and recovery.
The Women Lead model looks to address fundamental gaps in humanitarian response that result in the exclusion of women from meaningful participation and leadership in the decisions that affect their lives.
Since 2018, CARE has piloted Women Lead in 15 locations in Colombia, Mali, Niger, the Philippines, Tonga and Uganda. In 2020, Women Lead worked directly with 804 women’s groups. Through piloting this approach in diverse locations and within different types of humanitarian crisis, Women Lead has sought to understand challenges, barriers and enablers regarding this kind of programming in different contexts.
Women’s confidence, knowledge and self-efficacy: The evaluation identifies considerable qualitative evidence of increases in confidence, knowledge and capacities. Participants identified the Women Lead model as being relevant to their needs and accessible to them. We can see evidence of women identifying Women Lead as an important enabler of collective action – supporting women to raise their voice, advocate for their needs and engage more effectively with stakeholders. Quantitative surveys support these findings. In Niger, 88% of Women Lead participants feel confident in their knowledge of their rights compared with 58% of non-participants. In Uganda, 58% of Women Lead participants reported ‘confidence in accessing services’ compared with 40% of non-participant women who said the same.
2. Women’s presence and meaningful participation in decision-making: The evaluation finds that Women Lead increases women’s presence, regularity of attendance, and meaningful and effective participation in decision-making community settings. In Niger, 91% of women who participated in Women Lead had attended formal community meetings and almost 60% said they had attended these meetings regularly compared with only 34% of non-Women Lead participants. This had occurred despite men in the community previously challenging women’s presence at these meetings. The Women Lead model appears to normalise women’s presence in decision-making spaces, and we see some evidence of women forming their own decision-making forums and creating opportunities for themselves to make decisions, take action or hold leaders to account. In Uganda, the South Sudanese Refugee Women’s Association has formally registered to become the first recognised women's community-based organisation in Omugo settlement. We also see the incorporation of Women Lead groups in Colombia, where groups have formally registered and started to offer services to other women.
3. Women’s informal and formal leadership: We see strong evidence of women feeling empowered to take up leadership positions within their community, both formally and informally. In Niger, women are significantly more likely to be leaders in their communities than non-participants (31% of Women Lead participants compared with 9% of non-participants). In Uganda, 22% of Women Lead participants hold leadership positions in their communities compared with 14% of non-participants. In Colombia, for which we have pre- and post-comparison data available for this indicator, before Women Lead 21% of members held leadership positions within their community. This had increased to 40% by the time of this evaluation. However, there is scope to enhance this work further and for there to be more consistent promotion of women’s leadership through work around political representation, leadership style and horizontal/inclusive decision-making processes.
September 2022 – Global Evaluation Report vii
4. Women take collective action: The Women Lead approach both helps empower women and serves to address complex barriers to their meaningful participation. Women Lead action plans are a useful tool to mobilise women for collective action to advocate for women’s needs and wants, organise peer support and solidarity activities, and improve their communities by engaging power-holders. Action has also frequently been taken to tackle the preconditions for participation and, in the action plans available for analysis, 42% of actions related to livelihood and income generation. This highlights the importance of women being free to prioritise according to their needs, to ensure they can tackle the preconditions of participation where necessary. We can also see clear qualitative evidence of women taking collective action to make change within their communities. This includes:
• Influencing humanitarian actors and local authorities to address the needs of women and the community: In Uganda, group members successfully advocated for humanitarian response actors to move the food distribution site closer.
• Advocating to address an injustice: In Niger, women had difficulty accessing maternity services owing to high costs. The Women Lead groups advocated to the district medical officer and the head of the hospital – and achieved a considerable reduction in the cost of accessing hospital services.
• Connecting and complementing community actors: In Uganda, Women Lead groups took a lead in addressing community tensions. For instance, when there were tensions around access to land and firewood, women worked with leaders from different communities to put in place agreements on the use of natural resources.
• Direct delivery and problem-solving: We see examples of women working to respond directly to the needs of their peers. In the Read More...
The Women Lead model looks to address fundamental gaps in humanitarian response that result in the exclusion of women from meaningful participation and leadership in the decisions that affect their lives.
Since 2018, CARE has piloted Women Lead in 15 locations in Colombia, Mali, Niger, the Philippines, Tonga and Uganda. In 2020, Women Lead worked directly with 804 women’s groups. Through piloting this approach in diverse locations and within different types of humanitarian crisis, Women Lead has sought to understand challenges, barriers and enablers regarding this kind of programming in different contexts.
Women’s confidence, knowledge and self-efficacy: The evaluation identifies considerable qualitative evidence of increases in confidence, knowledge and capacities. Participants identified the Women Lead model as being relevant to their needs and accessible to them. We can see evidence of women identifying Women Lead as an important enabler of collective action – supporting women to raise their voice, advocate for their needs and engage more effectively with stakeholders. Quantitative surveys support these findings. In Niger, 88% of Women Lead participants feel confident in their knowledge of their rights compared with 58% of non-participants. In Uganda, 58% of Women Lead participants reported ‘confidence in accessing services’ compared with 40% of non-participant women who said the same.
2. Women’s presence and meaningful participation in decision-making: The evaluation finds that Women Lead increases women’s presence, regularity of attendance, and meaningful and effective participation in decision-making community settings. In Niger, 91% of women who participated in Women Lead had attended formal community meetings and almost 60% said they had attended these meetings regularly compared with only 34% of non-Women Lead participants. This had occurred despite men in the community previously challenging women’s presence at these meetings. The Women Lead model appears to normalise women’s presence in decision-making spaces, and we see some evidence of women forming their own decision-making forums and creating opportunities for themselves to make decisions, take action or hold leaders to account. In Uganda, the South Sudanese Refugee Women’s Association has formally registered to become the first recognised women's community-based organisation in Omugo settlement. We also see the incorporation of Women Lead groups in Colombia, where groups have formally registered and started to offer services to other women.
3. Women’s informal and formal leadership: We see strong evidence of women feeling empowered to take up leadership positions within their community, both formally and informally. In Niger, women are significantly more likely to be leaders in their communities than non-participants (31% of Women Lead participants compared with 9% of non-participants). In Uganda, 22% of Women Lead participants hold leadership positions in their communities compared with 14% of non-participants. In Colombia, for which we have pre- and post-comparison data available for this indicator, before Women Lead 21% of members held leadership positions within their community. This had increased to 40% by the time of this evaluation. However, there is scope to enhance this work further and for there to be more consistent promotion of women’s leadership through work around political representation, leadership style and horizontal/inclusive decision-making processes.
September 2022 – Global Evaluation Report vii
4. Women take collective action: The Women Lead approach both helps empower women and serves to address complex barriers to their meaningful participation. Women Lead action plans are a useful tool to mobilise women for collective action to advocate for women’s needs and wants, organise peer support and solidarity activities, and improve their communities by engaging power-holders. Action has also frequently been taken to tackle the preconditions for participation and, in the action plans available for analysis, 42% of actions related to livelihood and income generation. This highlights the importance of women being free to prioritise according to their needs, to ensure they can tackle the preconditions of participation where necessary. We can also see clear qualitative evidence of women taking collective action to make change within their communities. This includes:
• Influencing humanitarian actors and local authorities to address the needs of women and the community: In Uganda, group members successfully advocated for humanitarian response actors to move the food distribution site closer.
• Advocating to address an injustice: In Niger, women had difficulty accessing maternity services owing to high costs. The Women Lead groups advocated to the district medical officer and the head of the hospital – and achieved a considerable reduction in the cost of accessing hospital services.
• Connecting and complementing community actors: In Uganda, Women Lead groups took a lead in addressing community tensions. For instance, when there were tensions around access to land and firewood, women worked with leaders from different communities to put in place agreements on the use of natural resources.
• Direct delivery and problem-solving: We see examples of women working to respond directly to the needs of their peers. In the Read More...
Evaluating systems-level change and impact in CARE’s programming in Ecuador, Ethiopia, Nepal and Uganda: A global report
This report provides a detailed analysis and review of the evaluations of four CARE systems-level change projects - from Ecuador, Ethiopia, Nepal and Uganda exploring the extent to which their actions influenced systems change and led to impacts in people’s lives. It represents what is understood as the first time CARE has undertaken a deep dive evaluation into its systems-level approaches. The report begins with an overview of these projects and the Outcome Harvest evaluation methodology used across these countries to measure systems change, including the adaptations made to apply Outcome Harvesting to a systems-level project rather than standard CARE programming. Read More...
Evaluating Systems-level change and impact Findings from the evaluation of the National Policy Regulatory Program Support (NPRPS) program in Uganda
CARE’s ten-year strategy, Vision 2030, seeks to deepen the organizational focus on systems-level change and impact, recognizing that this is essential to expanding CARE’s reach and fulfilling our mission to save lives, defeat poverty and achieve social justice. To support this, CARE launched a systems-level impact initiative to measure the effect of our programs that have influenced or changed systems, and the impact of this systems-change on people’s lives. The initiative also increased capacity across the CARE confederation to design, finance, and implement high-quality systems change programs, and to strengthen the focus on systems-level change within our Country Office organizational frameworks and strategies. Four CARE Country Offices were selected to evaluate a project or program and to synthesize the results for national and global learning. Read More...
Uganda: Refugees and Host Communities in Yumbe and Terego Districts Rapid Gender Analysis
The conflict in South Sudan expanded to the southern parts of the country in July 2016, which led to an influx of refugees in Northern Uganda. Uganda hosts 1.5 mill. refugees in total, many live in refugee settlements. The four largest settlements in West Nile are Bidi Bidi, Palorinya, Rhino and Imvepi, with numbers of refugees ranging from 60,000 to more than 240,000. According to a report of the World bank and Uganda Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) on gender-based violence (GBV) in Uganda from 2020, more than 80 % of the refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda are women and children. During the conflict, violence against women and girls such as the abduction of girls and the use of rape as a weapon of war was used. Women and girls fleeing to Uganda reported sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) “to have taken place throughout the route of migration within South Sudan itself as well as when crossing the border." Read More...
ON THE FRONTLINE: Lessons on health worker empowerment through the COVID-19 pandemic response
Around the world,frontline and community health workers serve to connecthealth services, commodities, and informationwiththose who need them. Equippedwith the relevant skills and community trust, theycanstrengthen health systems by bridginggeographic and financial accessibility gaps for rural, hard-to-reach, and vulnerable populations through last-mile health delivery. When integrated into national and local healthcare systems, community health workers can additionally help patients navigate complex systems of care and ensure care continuity across services. Historically during times of health crises, global governments and organizations have often relied on community health workforces as frontline responders to deliver life-saving care to disproportionate l y affected populations. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic was no exception, with many countries mobilizing their existing community health worker programs or initiating new ones to assist with pandemic response . Leveraging lessons learned through its decades long support and implementation of frontline and community health worker initiatives across 60 countries, CARE developed guidelines for community-level pandemic response and disease prevention during this time. In June 2020, CARE partnered with Abbott to launch a one-year in-depth primary care response to the COVID-19 pandemic Read More...
Access Protection Empowerment Accountability and Leadership (APEAL) II project Endline Evaluation
The APEAL II project was a follow on project to APEAL I. The purpose of APEAL 2020 was to Enhance multi-sectoral responses by providing targeted life- saving protection, mental health, Psychosocial support and inclusive services to Congolese refugees and vulnerable host communities in Kyangwali and Kyaka II settlements. APEAL II deferred from APEAL I by; increasing the Consortium members from six (6) to nine (9) after incorporating three (3) organizations, programme scope included changes from GBV to SGBV, disability and Inclusion Services and strengthening the capacity of community structures. The community structures were strengthened to identify, respond, support and refer persons in need of MHPSS, comprehensive rehabilitation, disability and inclusion, protection and SGBV services. The Project operated in a COVID 19 environment which was not present in APEAL 1. As such, the project embedded a specific focus on COVID 19 response.
The European Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) funded the Project with Euro3,462,889.15 spanning from May 01, 2020 to April 30, 2021.
The project targeted 40,000 beneficiaries split between Kyaka II and Kyangwali refugee settlements and distributed support to 20% of surrounding Host communities and 80% of Refugees. The APEAL II intended to achieve: Enhanced access to timely protection, SGBV, MHPSS and disability and inclusion services, Improved protection mainstreaming and strengthen the capacity of community structures, duty bearers and stakeholders, provide extra capacity in nutrition screening for young children, pregnant and lactating mothers and supportive advocacy for standards setting, and harmonized approaches to refugee protection and MHPSS at the national level.
The APEAL II project end line evaluation was conducted to assess change and impact by comparing data from before and after for APEAL Project implementation. The end line evaluation was constructed on a cross-sectional assessment of intervention focus area, the individual refugees and host community members. Qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were applied with the former utilized to obtain information on project relevance, effectiveness and outcomes from Project key stakeholders including beneficiaries through key informant interviews and focus group discussions. Read More...
The European Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) funded the Project with Euro3,462,889.15 spanning from May 01, 2020 to April 30, 2021.
The project targeted 40,000 beneficiaries split between Kyaka II and Kyangwali refugee settlements and distributed support to 20% of surrounding Host communities and 80% of Refugees. The APEAL II intended to achieve: Enhanced access to timely protection, SGBV, MHPSS and disability and inclusion services, Improved protection mainstreaming and strengthen the capacity of community structures, duty bearers and stakeholders, provide extra capacity in nutrition screening for young children, pregnant and lactating mothers and supportive advocacy for standards setting, and harmonized approaches to refugee protection and MHPSS at the national level.
The APEAL II project end line evaluation was conducted to assess change and impact by comparing data from before and after for APEAL Project implementation. The end line evaluation was constructed on a cross-sectional assessment of intervention focus area, the individual refugees and host community members. Qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were applied with the former utilized to obtain information on project relevance, effectiveness and outcomes from Project key stakeholders including beneficiaries through key informant interviews and focus group discussions. Read More...
Gender Analysis Uganda – Rhino Refugee Settlement – Omugo Extension and Ariaze
Since the last decade, conflict in South Sudan (SS) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has led to an influx of refugees to Uganda. Across the West Nile region of Uganda, the refuge influx has increased the strain on a chronically overburdened health system and other services.
CARE is working in a consortium of partners1 led by MSI Reproductive Choices (MSI) on a multi-country programme across Uganda, Niger and Madagascar named the ASPIRE Project to identify, test and develop innovative, sustainable and scalable approaches with the aim of reaching some of the world’s most marginalised groups with comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
To inform key programme design decisions, CARE conducted a gender analysis to understand the gendered dynamics around sexual and reproductive health, including barriers that women, girls, men and boys face with respect to accessing SRHR information, services and products, and present findings to the consortium.
This gender analysis provides information about the different needs, capacities and coping strategies of women, men, boys and girls in a crisis and how the crisis has impacted gender roles, relations and norms. The focus was on refugee women, men, boys and girls currently settled in Rhino Refugee Settlement in the West Nile Region of Uganda. Specifically, the study participants were from Omugo Extension Village 6 and Ariaze B. Read More...
CARE is working in a consortium of partners1 led by MSI Reproductive Choices (MSI) on a multi-country programme across Uganda, Niger and Madagascar named the ASPIRE Project to identify, test and develop innovative, sustainable and scalable approaches with the aim of reaching some of the world’s most marginalised groups with comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
To inform key programme design decisions, CARE conducted a gender analysis to understand the gendered dynamics around sexual and reproductive health, including barriers that women, girls, men and boys face with respect to accessing SRHR information, services and products, and present findings to the consortium.
This gender analysis provides information about the different needs, capacities and coping strategies of women, men, boys and girls in a crisis and how the crisis has impacted gender roles, relations and norms. The focus was on refugee women, men, boys and girls currently settled in Rhino Refugee Settlement in the West Nile Region of Uganda. Specifically, the study participants were from Omugo Extension Village 6 and Ariaze B. Read More...
WOMEN LEAD IN EMERGENCIES IN UGANDA
Women have a human right to participate in public life and decision-making, including in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from natural disasters, conflict, and other crises. Yet, women directly affected by crises are still excluded from most humanitarian responses and from public decision-making more broadly. Women’s participation in community responses and recovery saves lives and increases gender equality. Conversely, when women’s voices are not heard, women’s rights and needs are often not adequately met, and emergency response can reinforce inequalities that perpetuate vulnerability, insecurity, and poverty. Women Lead in Emergencies is a CARE global program that supports local women’s groups to take a lead in responding to the crises that affect them and their communities. It is the first practical toolkit for frontline CARE staff and partners with guidance on how to promote the participation and leadership of women in communities at the forefront of crisis within humanitarian programming. Read More...