English
Farmer Field Business Schools and Village Savings and Loan Associations for promoting climate-smart agriculture practices: Evidence from rural Tanzania
A quasi-experimental data collection was used in Iringa Tanzania to investigate the impact of a community based approach to promote the adoption of climate smart agriculture (CSA) practices. Based on two community-based organizations, Farmer Field Business Schools (FFBS) and Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), this approach combines interventions on farmer training, access to microfinance, and women’s empowerment in agriculture to introduce and enhance the adoption of the practices. We find a positive effect of the interventions on the adoption rates of CSA practices, including mulching, manure composting, crop rotation and rhizobium inoculation, and soybean production. This effect was more pronounced for farmers that participated in the trainings provided by the FFBSs and members of VSLAs. Farming households scoring high in terms of women’s empowerment are also more likely to adopt the introduced practices when compared to those scoring low. Soybean production results increased soybean sales and consumption, showing the contribution of the interventions to the incomes and nutrition levels of the farmers. These results show that FFBS and VSLA serve as promising community based platforms to introduce interventions on farmers training, microfinance, women’s empowerment to upscale the adoption of CSA practices. Read More...
RAPID GENDER ANALYS ON POWER AND PARTICIPATION Wau, CARE South Sudan
South Sudan has experienced cycles of conflict since before its independence in 2011. Since the start of the civil war, the country has faced displacement, violence, and high rates of sexual and gender-based violence. Despite the 2018 peace deal, South Sudan continues to face intermittent violence, political instability, climate shocks, and floods. The humanitarian situation is critical, with millions of people in need.
This Rapid Gender Analysis on Power and Participation is part of the Women Lead in Emergencies project in Wau, Wau County, Western Bahr el-Ghazal State. This project is funded by Global Affairs Canada. It aims to support crisis-affected women to participate more and in more meaningful ways in community and public life and in humanitarian response in South Sudan.
This is the first Rapid Gender Analysis on Power and Participation (RGA-P) conducted in Wau. It has three main objectives: (1) analysis of crisis-affected women’s access to, and influence within, decision-making of different kinds; (2) provide practical programming and operational recommendations to support crisis-affected women to participate more in decision-making, and in more meaningful ways; and (3) identify gaps for further assessment and analysis to build a more comprehensive understanding of women’s participation and leadership in Wau over time.
The RGA-P is composed of primary qualitative data collection and a secondary data review. Primary data collection took place between Dec 2nd and Dec 6th, 2022, in four locations across Wau. It included 20 focus group discussions, 14 key informant interviews, and 4 community mappings. A total of 249 people participated, including 133 women and 116 men. This data was supplemented a validation workshop with several women’s associations and leaders.
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This Rapid Gender Analysis on Power and Participation is part of the Women Lead in Emergencies project in Wau, Wau County, Western Bahr el-Ghazal State. This project is funded by Global Affairs Canada. It aims to support crisis-affected women to participate more and in more meaningful ways in community and public life and in humanitarian response in South Sudan.
This is the first Rapid Gender Analysis on Power and Participation (RGA-P) conducted in Wau. It has three main objectives: (1) analysis of crisis-affected women’s access to, and influence within, decision-making of different kinds; (2) provide practical programming and operational recommendations to support crisis-affected women to participate more in decision-making, and in more meaningful ways; and (3) identify gaps for further assessment and analysis to build a more comprehensive understanding of women’s participation and leadership in Wau over time.
The RGA-P is composed of primary qualitative data collection and a secondary data review. Primary data collection took place between Dec 2nd and Dec 6th, 2022, in four locations across Wau. It included 20 focus group discussions, 14 key informant interviews, and 4 community mappings. A total of 249 people participated, including 133 women and 116 men. This data was supplemented a validation workshop with several women’s associations and leaders.
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Technologically Enhanced Agricultural Livelihoods (TEAL)
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. Read More...
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. Read More...
ANCP WASH Endline Evaluation: Putting Women and Girls at the Center of Improving WASH and Health Chivi District, Zimbabwe
CARE International in Zimbabwe, with funding from the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) implemented a five-year Rural WASH project in Chivi District, Masvingo, Zimbabwe. The project commenced in July 2017 and is ending in June 2022. It was implemented in 10 wards. The Chivi ANCP WASH Project was being implemented in collaboration with Government Ministries and Departments through the District Water Supply and Sanitation sub-Committee (DWSSC) with CARE playing a facilitatory role in implementing field activities. The project aimed to improve the water, sanitation and hygiene services in 10 Wards in Chivi South, and targeted 1700 households (65 391 people-13609 men, 16456 women, 18394 girls and 16 932 boys). The project was implemented in two main phases, each phase covering 5 wards. Within those two phases, the needs and areas of interventions were annually reviewed together with DWSCC and new targets and their supporting budgets developed. The three thematic areas of the project were: rehabilitation of WASH Infrastructure; construction of girl child friendly, disability and gender sensitive toilets and demand led sanitation and hygiene. At the end of the project, CARE commissioned an End of Project Evaluation whose purpose was to assess progress made in the implementation of planned activities and in achieving the objectives and expected results as described in the project documents. A consultant was engaged who used internationally and widely used standard evaluation criteria of relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability. Read More...
Strategic Evaluation Report Education for Ethnic Minorities Program: Cambodia
Since 2002, CARE1 has worked in partnership with the Royal Government of Cambodia through the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) and other stakeholders such as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to develop and implement a multi-lingual education (MLE) model within the Education for Ethnic Minorities (EEM) program. The total amount of funding contributed to this Program since 2002 is AUD17.5million by 24 donors, not including donations from the Australian public.
The MLE model aims to increase ethnolinguistic minority children’s access to, and the quality of, primary and secondary education. Ethnolinguistic minorities (hereafter referred to as ethnic minorities) are groups of people who share a culture and/or ethnicity and/or language that distinguishes them from other groups of people and are either fewer in terms of number or less prestigious in terms of power than the dominant groups in the state. In Cambodia, ethnic minority groups are generally located in the five highland provinces of north-eastern Cambodia – Kratie, Mondul Kiri, Preah Vihear, Ratanak Kiri, and Stung Treng. There are 20 ethnic minority spoken languages across these five provinces. Brao, Bunong, Kavet, Kreung and Tampeun2 are used as the L1 of the MLE program in the relevant provinces, with Jarai and Kuy in the process of being adopted (Ball and Smith, 2018).
CARE’s mother tongue MLE model using ethnic minority languages and Khmer was piloted in Ratanak Kiri beginning in 2003 after a year’s preparations and has been expanded to four additional north-eastern provinces (Mondul Kiri, Stung Treng, Kratie, and Preah Vihear) under the government’s Multilingual Education National Action Plan (MENAP 2015-2018). In recent years, CARE shifted from its original role as direct implementer to that of a technical advisor to the Royal Government of Cambodia. The program is unprecedented internationally as having gone from a successful community-based initiative run by community school management committees and using community-selected teachers, to being institutionalized as part of government policy for improving access to and quality of education for ethnic minority learners. Read More...
The MLE model aims to increase ethnolinguistic minority children’s access to, and the quality of, primary and secondary education. Ethnolinguistic minorities (hereafter referred to as ethnic minorities) are groups of people who share a culture and/or ethnicity and/or language that distinguishes them from other groups of people and are either fewer in terms of number or less prestigious in terms of power than the dominant groups in the state. In Cambodia, ethnic minority groups are generally located in the five highland provinces of north-eastern Cambodia – Kratie, Mondul Kiri, Preah Vihear, Ratanak Kiri, and Stung Treng. There are 20 ethnic minority spoken languages across these five provinces. Brao, Bunong, Kavet, Kreung and Tampeun2 are used as the L1 of the MLE program in the relevant provinces, with Jarai and Kuy in the process of being adopted (Ball and Smith, 2018).
CARE’s mother tongue MLE model using ethnic minority languages and Khmer was piloted in Ratanak Kiri beginning in 2003 after a year’s preparations and has been expanded to four additional north-eastern provinces (Mondul Kiri, Stung Treng, Kratie, and Preah Vihear) under the government’s Multilingual Education National Action Plan (MENAP 2015-2018). In recent years, CARE shifted from its original role as direct implementer to that of a technical advisor to the Royal Government of Cambodia. The program is unprecedented internationally as having gone from a successful community-based initiative run by community school management committees and using community-selected teachers, to being institutionalized as part of government policy for improving access to and quality of education for ethnic minority learners. Read More...
HAMORIS Project (Hamenus Mortalidade no Risku ba Inan Sira)
This report is an end-stage evaluation of CARE International Timor-Leste’s HAMORIS project. The HAMORIS project aims at contributing to lasting reductions in maternal mortality and morbidity by increasing the number of women accessing quality Sexual Reproductive and Maternal Health Services (SRMHS).
There are four sets of conclusions drawn from the findings:
• There is increased access and utilization of improved quality SRMHS by women and men in the targeted communities of the HAMORIS project
• Normative changes towards acceptance of Gender Equality and less tolerance for GBV, have been produced as a consequence of the project
• There are unintended consequences for marginalised voices, including PWD
• Many of the recommendations of the MTR were followed but further time, resources needed to implement them all. Read More...
There are four sets of conclusions drawn from the findings:
• There is increased access and utilization of improved quality SRMHS by women and men in the targeted communities of the HAMORIS project
• Normative changes towards acceptance of Gender Equality and less tolerance for GBV, have been produced as a consequence of the project
• There are unintended consequences for marginalised voices, including PWD
• Many of the recommendations of the MTR were followed but further time, resources needed to implement them all. Read More...
KUKUA NI KUJIFUNZA (GROWING IS LEARNING) PROJECT
the knowledge and skills acquired by participating women farmers brought positive changes in their lives. About 72.5% and 61.87% of the female and male respondents respectively reported that the trainings were useful in their day to day lives while 27.5% and 37.35% respectively reported that the trainings were very useful. However, 0.78% of female respondents reported that the trainings were not useful. Enabling gender equality and empowering vulnerable and rural small-scale women farmers was an important aspect in the KnK project. Consequently, rural small-scale women farmers were the most targeted in the KnK project. Out of 341 respondents from 15 villages, 260 (76.2%) were female, and 81 (23.8%) were male. People with disabilities were 101 (2.6%) out of the 3,825 direct participants of the KnK project.
Participants in the KnK project were given an opportunity to engage in soya production as one of the strategies to eradicate malnutrition. During the endline evaluation process, it was revealed that a high proportion of the KnK participants (99.2%) engaged in soya beans production. Before the KnK project, soya was not ranked as a food crop implying that farmers did not know its nutrition value, and that the crop was not considered as a reliable source of household income. The endline evaluation revealed that farmers realized the value of soya crop production, in terms of nutrition value and source of income. The mode of operandi of the KnK project laid a solid foundation that could make it sustain for years to come. The legacy of the project in terms of knowledge and skills acquired by participants, as well as the positive changes in their lives, may encourage them to sustain
activities implemented during the project. In fact, there is cause for participants to continue to engage in economic and social activities implemented by the KnK project. The KnK project had good institutional arrangements in place, and this made it easier to coordinate the project activities. Strong partnership with other stakeholders contributed significantly to overall performance of the project. Read More...
Participants in the KnK project were given an opportunity to engage in soya production as one of the strategies to eradicate malnutrition. During the endline evaluation process, it was revealed that a high proportion of the KnK participants (99.2%) engaged in soya beans production. Before the KnK project, soya was not ranked as a food crop implying that farmers did not know its nutrition value, and that the crop was not considered as a reliable source of household income. The endline evaluation revealed that farmers realized the value of soya crop production, in terms of nutrition value and source of income. The mode of operandi of the KnK project laid a solid foundation that could make it sustain for years to come. The legacy of the project in terms of knowledge and skills acquired by participants, as well as the positive changes in their lives, may encourage them to sustain
activities implemented during the project. In fact, there is cause for participants to continue to engage in economic and social activities implemented by the KnK project. The KnK project had good institutional arrangements in place, and this made it easier to coordinate the project activities. Strong partnership with other stakeholders contributed significantly to overall performance of the project. Read More...
TATWEER “Livelihood Security and Civil Society Strengthening in the OPT.”
TATWEER was implemented from May 2009 - April of 2015 utilizing partnerships with three Palestine NGOs (Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem (ARIJ), Economic and Social Development Center of Palestine (ESDC), and New Farm Company (NFC). The project was implemented to help devastated farmers begin to regain food security in the Jenin and Tubas regions. This research seeks to understand and assess the sustained post-project outcomes and impacts both achieved and unintended of the TATWEER as a food security enabler among Palestinian households. CARE Palestine, CARE USA, and partners used mixed methods for this post-project sustainability study. Read More...