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Measurement, Learning, and Evaluation for the Ananya Program (Family Health Initiative in Bihar)

In 2010, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Family Health Initiative in Bihar, India (now named “Ananya”, a Sanskrit word meaning “unique” or “unlike others”). The goals of the Ananya program (2010–2015) are to reduce maternal, newborn, and child mortality; malnutrition; fertility; and morbidity from infectious diseases by developing and implementing innovative and integrated health solutions that involve both the public and private sectors. More specifically, the program aims to expand the reach, coverage, and quality of (1) essential primary health and nutrition services for infants, children, and women of reproductive age; and (2) diagnostic and disease-control services for infectious diseases, including pneumonia, diarrhea, tuberculosis, and visceral leishmaniasis. [68 pages] Read More...

Using Supply- and Demand-Side Strategies to Improve Maternal and Child Health in Bihar, India

This report focuses on the findings from our process study of two early Ananya grants: (1) the Integrated Family Health Initiative (IFHI), led by CARE; and (2) Shaping Demand and Practices to Improve Family Health in Bihar (SDP), led by BBC Media Action. We focused on these two grants because their activities had begun earlier than other grants and had had time to take root. Next, we offer additional detail on the interventions, describe the data collection for the study, and summarize key findings. [120 pages] Read More...

Baseline Findings from the Ananya Evaluation

The Ananya program (ananya is a Sanskrit word meaning “unique” or “unlike others”) was created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (the foundation) to address some of the important family health challenges in Bihar, one of India’s most populous and poorest states. Ananya started as a five-year program (2011–2015) with the long-term goals of reducing maternal, newborn, and child mortality; fertility; and undernutrition rates in Bihar. To achieve these goals, the foundation is funding a synergistic set of complementary grants focused on improving the reach, coverage, and quality of family health services in two main areas: (1) essential reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health services and (2) diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases, including pneumonia, diarrhea, tuberculosis, and visceral leishmaniasis. Since its inception, the program has also expanded to include additional interventions that focus on improving sanitation in Bihar and on strengthening the system for health payments, including health-related incentives for households and incentives and payments for frontline health workers. [126 pages] Read More...

Bringing Agroforestry to Scale for Improved Livelihood in Care-Harande resilience zones (BrASIL)

The BrASIL project is a collaboration between the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and CARE Mali (HARANDE Program) for maximizing synergies. The Goal of the Harande program, which means ‘food security’ in Peulh, is “Sustainable food, nutrition and income security for vulnerable household members in Youwarou, Tenenkou, Bandiagara and Douentza in Mopti region. The collaboration under BrASIL aim at ensuring a better intervention that takes full account of adaptation to climate change, optimal natural resource management and reduction of target communities’ vulnerability to climate change. This partnership will put high emphasis on the bottom up and community led, cascading training of trainers and farmer-to-farmers learning approaches. [19 pages] Read More...

Food security, nutrition, climate change resilience and gender

This Policy Analysis is part of series of country-specific studies on Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) and Climate Change Resilience (CCR) policies in the Southern African region that CARE International is currently conducting. CARE identifies advocacy as one of the priority approaches to influence broader change and scale up effective
solutions. Multiplying the impact of innovative solutions that bring lasting changes, by documenting and replicating successful experiences, promoting pro-poor approaches and advocating and influencing policies are key aspects of CARE global 2020 Program Strategy. [112 pages] Read More...

Enhancing Community Resilience Programme 2011-2017

The Enhancing Community Resilience Programme (ECRP) was designed to address the chronic climate vulnerability faced by rural people in Malawi. It started in 2011 and is closing in 2017. The purpose of the ECRP is to increase the resilience of vulnerable communities to climate variability and change. DFID, Irish Aid and the Royal Norwegian Embassy fund the ECRP. Its total budget is £30.6m, of which £27m is provided by DFID.

ECRP had five major components that aim to build resilience to climate change. They are 1) improved capacity of local authorities (especially village, area and district civil protection committees); 2) improved and resilient livelihoods for vulnerable households in target areas; 3) enhanced early warning for District Governments and vulnerable households; 4) informed policy in areas relevant to climate and disaster resilience;
and 5) strengthened humanitarian response and recovery. Component 4 is managed by CEPA which aims to distil lessons learnt from the programme to advocate for improved policies and programmes at district and national level. Component five was added in 2015-16, following large scale floods that affected the country in January 2015, with the recovery component supporting households affected both by floods and the subsequent drought. Read More...

Political Consciousness, Leadership and Collective Action in the Mata Masu Dubara Structures in Niger

This research study is part of a broader learning agenda contributing to CARE’s Impact Growth Strategy (IGS) in West Africa - “Women on the Move” (WOM). The purpose of this study is to learn from CARE Niger’s more than 25 years of experience with the Mata Masu Dubara (MMD) which has a proven track record of women's leadership and empowerment. It is also about informing efforts to scale up the MMD model and its impact in the region. The goal of the WOM strategy is to reach a critical mass that can serve as a lever for a vibrant social movement with potential for real transformation of social norms and laws in favor of the rights of women and girls. The overall premise of this direction is that social movements are essential for creating and sustaining long-term social change, and published research has shown that feminist activism is the most important and consistent driver behind progressive policy change. [22 pages] Read More...

Zimbabwe ‘Cash First’ Humanitarian Response 2015–2017 Evaluation report

This report is an independent evaluation of the DFID-funded Zimbabwe Humanitarian Response 2015–2017, produced by Oxford Policy Management (OPM) in association with Humanitarian Outcomes. The evaluation was commissioned by CARE International in Zimbabwe. The evaluation was led by Andrew Kardan and the qualitative data collection was led by Sarah Bailey. An incountry workshop on the findings was conducted by Paul Harvey and Andrew Kardan. The evaluation’s design and research were also supported by Molly Scott, Marta Favara, Chris Hearle and Helen Morris. The qualitative data collection was conducted with support from Jimat Consulting. Finally Sheila Chikulo provided peer review inputs. [107 page] Read More...

Zimbabwe Food and Nutrition Emergency Cash Transfer Programme

The programme objective was to mitigate the effects drought induced of El Nino induced food insecurity in 3 wards namely ward 8, 11 and 12 of Gokwe North district.. The aim was to improve Household (HH) food security through unconditional mobile cash transfers and increase access to nutrition intervention to prevent, identify and treat severe and moderate acute malnutrition among children (0-59 months) from February- April 2017. . Under the programme CARE through ECHO funding, reached its target of 9 400 beneficiaries (4 446 men; 4 954 women), drawn from 1 799 households in the district were registered to receive monthly cash transfers to assist them in meeting expenses for basic household needs from February up to April 2017 The cash transfer value was USD7/person/month and USD10 for a single person HH and this amount met 66% of the HH Kilocal needs of the 2,100 kcal/person/day on a basic diet of maize, pulses & vegetable oil. [38 pages] Read More...

Youth Empowerment Project Baseline Survey Report

In June 2014, Care International embarked on a baseline study for the Sida- funded Youth Empowerment Programme (YEP) in Zimbabwe. The study was done by a team comprising CARE International in Zimbabwe, its partners and an external consultant in nine of the eleven districts covered by YEP. The purpose of the study was to establish comprehensive baseline information that will be used to measure programme outcomes and impacts. The study would also serve as a benchmark for future measurement of the performance of the programme in contributing towards its overall goal of ‘increased economic and social participation of male and female youths in Zimbabwe.’ [90 pages] Read More...

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