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Improving Community Climate Resilience in Nissan Final Evaluation
CARE International in PNG is supporting women and men living on Nissan and Pinepel Island to build resilience to the impacts of climate change. The communities that live on these remote coral atolls in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville are highly exposed to the impacts of climate change. Support has been provided the ”Improving Community Resilience in Nissan” project since April 2015. The overall objective of the project is: “Increased community resilience to the impacts of climate change, through improved coastal and marine resource management and enhanced livelihoods in Nissan District” The project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Pacific American Climate Fund (PACAM). [53 pages] Read More...
Zimbabwe Emergency Food Security Mobile Cash Transfer Programme
The Zimbabwe Emergency Food Security Mobile Cash Transfer Response (ZEFSMCTR) Program implementation commenced in April 2016 in Gokwe South; this was against a backdrop of increasing food insecurity in the targeted communities of the district. The Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee’s (ZimVac) rapid assessment report of January 2016 had projected that 33% of households in the southern districts of the country would be food insecure during the peak hunger period (January to March 2016). The food insecurity was attributed to the El Nino phenomenon that resulted in poor crop and livestock performance resulting in a drought. The government of Zimbabwe declared a state of drought disaster for the 2015/16 agriculture season, on 4 February 2016 and appealed for humanitarian support of US$1.5 billion. [13 pages] Read More...
Where the Rain Falls (WtRF) Pilot Phase Impact Report
CARE Bangladesh has designed a project titled “Where the Rain Falls (WtRF)”, based on a research, which has been implemented in two sub-districts of Kurigram district in the northwestern Bangladesh with financial support from Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation. This study provides an account of the effectiveness of a few measures considered under the project, in order to meet the above-mentioned needs of the smallholder farmers of the two target sub-districts. [63 pages] Read More...
A-Card Progress and Prospects
A-card (A stands for Agriculture) is a brand new micro-credit mechanism, the only example in Bangladesh aimed at providing smallholder farmers financing to a digital purchase of farm inputs at a low cost (10%) through the formal financial system linked to a debit card and ICT-enabled platforms.
Addressing the problem of smallholder farmers' lack of access to finance required a consultation among different stakeholders particularly in finding an effective solution. It eventually led to the idea and design of the A-card model. In this regard, the USAID Agricultural Extension Support Activity (AESA) project's interventions effectively engaged with different stakeholders, including small-holder farmers, microfinance institutions (MFIs), formal lenders (i.e. banks) and rural agricultural inputs retailers. The aim of this collaboration was to work for a common goal with differentiated responsibilities. [14 pages] Read More...
Addressing the problem of smallholder farmers' lack of access to finance required a consultation among different stakeholders particularly in finding an effective solution. It eventually led to the idea and design of the A-card model. In this regard, the USAID Agricultural Extension Support Activity (AESA) project's interventions effectively engaged with different stakeholders, including small-holder farmers, microfinance institutions (MFIs), formal lenders (i.e. banks) and rural agricultural inputs retailers. The aim of this collaboration was to work for a common goal with differentiated responsibilities. [14 pages] Read More...
A-Card Pilot Initiative Impact Assessment
mSTAR/Bangladesh, working with the Agriculture Extension Support Activity (AESA) led by Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM), conducted pre- and postassessments in Faridpur district to understand the impact that a micro-credit product (called A-Card) delivered to smallholder farmers through Bank Asia’s agent banking had on participating farmers, associated ag-input retailers, and other relevant stakeholders, as well as to understand what further action can be taken to improve uptake of these services.
This report includes findings from the pre- and post-assessment surveys, beginning with farmers and retailers’ demographic information, including age, sex and education; as well as their mobile phone ownership, access and usage patterns. It also examines the knowledge and perceptions that stakeholders have of digital financial services (DFS), in addition to their perceived benefits from A-Card, associated challenges, and opportunities to scale up. In addition, this report includes some findings from a separate survey conducted solely by AESA. It concludes with recommendations based on the findings and feedback from stakeholders. [28 pages] Read More...
This report includes findings from the pre- and post-assessment surveys, beginning with farmers and retailers’ demographic information, including age, sex and education; as well as their mobile phone ownership, access and usage patterns. It also examines the knowledge and perceptions that stakeholders have of digital financial services (DFS), in addition to their perceived benefits from A-Card, associated challenges, and opportunities to scale up. In addition, this report includes some findings from a separate survey conducted solely by AESA. It concludes with recommendations based on the findings and feedback from stakeholders. [28 pages] Read More...
Krishi Utsho 2017 Annual Report
Krishi Utsho has emerged as a transformative social enterprise over the past several years as a way to identify and bring about progressive advancement in the lives of small holder farmers. As a social enterprise Krishi Utsho (KU) is equivalent to a hybrid of social sector intervention and pure business entrepreneurship, a social venture that can address problems of self-sustainability in a social intervention initiative. To succeed, these ventures must adhere to both social goals and financial viability. Typically, this project’s aim is to benefit small holder farmers, in particular women. It aims to permanently transform their lives by altering a prevailing socioeconomic equilibrium that works to their disadvantage. More importantly, the beneficiary group is an economically disadvantaged or marginalized segment of society that doesn’t have the means to transform its social or economic prospects without assistance. To that end, project focuses on the most important yet often neglected, agricultural sector. [47 pages] Read More...
Evaluation of the Team-Based Goals and Performance Based Incentives (TBGI) Intervention in Bihar
The Team-Based Goals and Performance-Based Incentives (TBGI) intervention, which CARE conceptualized, developed, and implemented as part of the Ananya program in Bihar, leverages the power of incentives and lessons from motivational theory on teamwork and goal-setting to help improve maternal and child health. Under the intervention, CARE set targets for the percentage of eligible beneficiaries in a subcenter catchment area who should have adopted each of seven key health behaviors or goals (Box 1). All frontline health workers (FLWs) in a given subcenter, including the accredited social health activists (ASHAs), Anganwadi workers (AWWs), and the subcenters’ auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs), received nonmonetary incentives (consisting of small household items) if their subcenters met five of seven goals in a given quarter. The intervention explicitly sought to encourage teamwork and cooperation among FLWs by providing these incentives for achievements by the subcenter as a whole rather than by individual FLWs, and by providing FLWs with information on the concept and importance of teamwork. It included additional elements to motivate the FLWs in each subcenter, such as a service pledge they recited together and a certificate of recognition for subcenters that met their targets in all quarters. Overall, the intervention was expected to lead to improvements in the incentivized outcomes and to broader changes in related, but nonincentivized, outcomes through increased FLW motivation and teamwork. [82 pages]
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Integrated Family Health Initiative: Catalysing change for healthy communities
Recent trends in the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR), nutritional status, immunization and family planning, as highlighted in Figure 1, 2, 3 and 4, indicate that there are substantial gaps in achieving related MDG goals 4 and 5.
Despite recent gains and commitments from the Government of Bihar (GoB) and active leadership of key stakeholders to improve health infrastructure and outcomes, deep-rooted problems limit the government’s ability to affect lasting change. Persistent barriers include poor quality and availability of frontline and primary health center level services and staff, limited access to services by neglected and marginalized populations, lack of accurate data, lack of effective program management, weak training systems, absence of supervision in health facilities, poor functional integration of interventions, inadequate public health infrastructures, and an underdeveloped and unregulated private sector.
With support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Integrated Family Health Initiative (IFHI) program seeks to support the GoB to improve family health outcomes statewide as well as build their leadership and ownership towards these services. Ultimately this is to accelerate the progress toward MDG 4 to reduce child mortality and MDG 5 to improve maternal health. [12 pages] Read More...
Despite recent gains and commitments from the Government of Bihar (GoB) and active leadership of key stakeholders to improve health infrastructure and outcomes, deep-rooted problems limit the government’s ability to affect lasting change. Persistent barriers include poor quality and availability of frontline and primary health center level services and staff, limited access to services by neglected and marginalized populations, lack of accurate data, lack of effective program management, weak training systems, absence of supervision in health facilities, poor functional integration of interventions, inadequate public health infrastructures, and an underdeveloped and unregulated private sector.
With support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Integrated Family Health Initiative (IFHI) program seeks to support the GoB to improve family health outcomes statewide as well as build their leadership and ownership towards these services. Ultimately this is to accelerate the progress toward MDG 4 to reduce child mortality and MDG 5 to improve maternal health. [12 pages] Read More...
Evaluation of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Continuum of Care Services (CCS) Intervention in Bihar
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Continuum of Care Services (CCS) intervention was conceptualized and implemented by CARE as part of the Ananya program in Bihar.1 The intervention involves the provision of ICT-enabled mobile-phone-based tools for frontline workers (FLWs) that aim to increase the coverage and quality of services that FLWs provide, enhance their communication with beneficiaries, and facilitate supervision (Box 1 summarizes the features of the ICT-CCS tool). [123 pages] Read More...
Measurement, Learning, and Evaluation Framework for the Bihar Initiative
The Family Health Initiative in Bihar, India (referred to in this report as the “Bihar Initiative”) is one of the foundation’s flagship programs. It represents a new approach to investing in global health, with the goal of yielding greater impacts on health outcomes and mortality, and accelerating progress toward Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. In particular, the Bihar Initiative takes an integrated approach to improving reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health by leveraging and bundling services and delivery mechanisms from several of the foundation’s Global Health Strategies to improve uptake and coverage across the continuum of family health care. These strategies include Maternal, Neonatal, and Child Health; Family Planning; Nutrition; Vaccine Delivery; Tuberculosis; Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases; Pneumonia; and Neglected and Other Infectious Diseases. [60 pages] Read More...