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Gender Analysis: Prevention and Response to Ebola Virus Disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo

The latest epidemic of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has rapidly evolved into the second largest outbreak in history. Deployed in an operational environment characterised by ongoing volatility, EVD prevention, treatment and containment efforts have faced multiple difficulties. Mistrust of EVD responders by local communities, coupled with targeted attacks on healthcare workers and facilities, have proved to be serious operational challenges. Despite a gressive efforts to stamp out the disease across three provinces, the virus has continued to spread and is responsible for the deaths of 3,303 people to date (as of 24th November 2019) with an overall fatality rate of 67%.

However, these casualty numbers hide the underlying characteristics of the EVD crisis. The reality is that the majority of fatalities consist of women (56%), and children (28%). Adult men constitute just 11% of EVD deaths. Yet fatalities alone do not fully demonstrate the differential ways in which men, women, boys and girls are exposed and experience the immediate risks and longer-term consequences of the disease. Socially prescribed cultural norms, attitudes and practices in relation to gender and age dictate how individual women, men, girls and boys are differentially impacted by the EVD crisis. It is therefore critical to better understand the socio-behavioural underpinnings to EVD aetiology. In light of the gendered dimensions of the EVD crisis, CARE International in DRC commissioned a Gender Analysis of the EVD crisis in North Kivu in order to provide information about the different needs, capacities and coping strategies of women, men, girls and boys during the EVD crisis. Read More...

Integrated Basic Emergency Assistance to Conflict-Affected and Vulnerable Communities in Yemen Project

CARE Yemen has been implementing an OFDA-supported “Integrated Basic Emergency Assistance to Conflict-Affected and Vulnerable Communities” project in four districts (Sudah, As Sawd, Jabal Yazid, and Maswar) of Arman Governorate; two districts (Ash Shagadirah and Ku’aydinah) of Hajjah Governorate; and three districts (Alrujum, Jabal Mahweet, and Hafash) of Al-Mahweet Governorate Yemen. The goal of the project is to improve the basic living conditions, and facilitate early recovery and resilience of internally displaced persons and host communities affected by conflict in Yemen. This project seeks to meet the critical WASH and basic living needs of the most vulnerable households living in the targeted districts so that lives are saved, suffering is alleviated, and human dignity is maintained. The specific objectives of the project are: reduce morbidity from WASH-related diseases of vulnerable IDPs and host communities; enable the most vulnerable IDPs and host communities to meet their basic and immediate needs, and increase their asset base; and improve the food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable host communities. Read More...

KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES AND PRACTICE SURVEY SOUTH EAST TURKEY

CARE International in Turkey began responding to the needs of Syrian refugees in Southern Turkey in October 2014. As of 27 November 2019, Turkey hosts 3,691,333 Syrian registered refugees, accounting for around 5% of total resident population in Turkey and over 365,000 refugees of other origins. Of that total, around 45.8% are females, with 21.4% of those female refugees are below the age of 18. A total of 62,216 individuals are hosted in 7 camps.

The impact of the now nine-year old conflict on Turkey’s economy, livelihoods, public infrastructure and services have been so profound that it is starting to affect inter-community cohesion. Off-camp refugees face several challenges linked to their ability to meet basic needs and are especially vulnerable to protection risks, forced to resort to negative coping mechanisms such as early marriage, child labour and reduction of meals since their original displacement.

CARE's experience in South East Turkey illustrated numerous gaps in access to services (education, health, legal), financial security, protection risks (child labour, sexual and GBV) and access to sufficient current information for the refugee population. Building on this CARE’s prior experience, we embarked on the Knowledge Attitude and Practice (KAP) Survey to provide additional context and aims to understand the changes in the community as a result of CARE’s protection programming.

The overall purpose of the KAP/base-line assessment is to provide valid reliable information focusing on Syrian refugees’ knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and behaviors related to some crucial topics such as; child/early/forced marriage; gender-based violence; child protection; information and access to services and sexual and reproductive health. Read More...

IMPACT EVALUATION REPORT: WOMEN BUSINESS INCUBATOR PROJECT

Lotus Flower, supported by CARE, started its Women Business Incubator (WBI) project on May 2019. The project was commenced with the recruitment process of staff and followed by an introduction of the project activities to the communities in Rowanga camp. Multiple activities have been conducted as part of the comprehensive approach to meet the objective of the project. Activities included conducting business mentorship training, awareness raising, and psychological support.

The impact evaluation aims at assessing the effectiveness, relevance and sustainability of the project. In addition, project success and challenges faced during project implementation has been assessed.
Specific objectives include:
- To document any gaps in in the project implementation and to identify barriers in running business by women in the male- dominated society;
- Examine whether any of the beneficiaries have the interest to use these skills as a trade/small business; whether they started earning income from their business or not, and how they are benefitting in a highly traditional society with firm gender role.
- To understand whether the women who benefited from the business women incubator project would be accepted as business women , if entrepreneurship is traditionally regarded as “male” job, by their community or not; whether they were interested in the material (and perhaps would want to learn other “male” skills); and whether this training has resulted in any changes among target beneficiaries families/community with respect to gender relations.
- To identify opportunities, and draw lessons learnt as well as recommendations
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Better Governance for Education End of Project Evaluation Report

Better Governance for Education (BG4E) is a 4 year project (July 2016 – June 2020) funded by the Australian Government’s ‘Australian NGO Cooperation Program’ (ANCP) with a total budget of 1.7 million Australian dollars. It is a pilot project that aims to develop and test a model that shows that better governance (and therefore better decision-making, resource allocation, project implementation oversight, monitoring & evaluation) results in improved service delivery. BG4E is based on CARE International’s Governance Framework, which states that if marginalised citizens are empowered, if power-holders are effective, accountable and responsive, and if spaces for negotiation are created, expanded, effective and inclusive, then sustainable and equitable development can be achieved, particularly for marginalised women and girls. The project worked intensively in four school communities, within the Obura Wanenera District, and at sub-national level in 3 districts (Obura Wonenara, Okapa and Lufa) within Eastern Highlands Province.

The evaluation focused on answering four key evaluation questions:

1) IMPACT - Has improved gender inclusive governance led to better service delivery in education?

2) MODEL - Has this project produced a proven or promising approach?

3) RELEVANCE - How relevant is the project to the policy context?

4) SUSTAINABILITY - Are the outcomes and impacts likely to be sustained after the end of the project? Read More...

LIVELIHOOD BASELINE ASSESSMENT REPORT SINJAR DISTRICT

CARE Iraq with support from the Australian Department of Home Affairs’ (DHA) will contribute to CARE’s work on enabling internally displaced people (IDPs), returnees and host communities, particularly the vulnerable youth, ISIL survivors and female headed households (FHHs) in Sinjar Mountain and Sinjar Town, Ninewa governorate of Iraq, to rebuild their lives through a sustainable livelihood program.

The purpose of this baseline was to provide an information base on which to monitor and assess an activity’s progress and effectiveness during implementation and after the implementation. The objective of the baseline was to:
- To consolidate information in relation to livelihood indicators, gender inequality and information on existing protection risks;
- To identify the major risk factors influencing the vulnerability of the population within the Livelihood system and their coping strategies.
- To identify what is the structure of the market system, and how has it been impacted by the conflict (how is the current situation compared to the pre-conflict one)? How do target groups engage in the system?
- What are the opportunities and inefficiencies in the current market system enabling or hindering the ability of target groups to sustain their livelihoods?
- To streamline activities according to the context based on findings from the baseline.
- To identify the specific livelihood needs of the IDPs, returnees and host communities in Sinjar district
- To assess the availability of livelihood opportunities in assessed areas.
- To identify gaps and propose interventions to improve the level of access to income generating activities
Read More...

End of Project Evaluation: Support for conflict affected people through strengthening of essential primary health care and protection from gender-based violence

Since 2014, when Iraq experienced a sudden escalation in hostilities, the primary health care sector has sustained widespread destruction, looting of health facilities, reduced or inadequate health staff, and lack of supplies, especially in areas that had been severely impacted by the conflict, such as Anbar & Mosul. Sexual, reproductive and maternal health (SRMH), was severely affected, amongst other things, by poor delivery methods, lack of maternity wards, inadequate pre- and postnatal care, and a high prevalence of anaemia amongst pregnant women.

Against the backdrop of this situation, and following increasing returns of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their places of habitual residence in retaken areas, CARE, with funding from German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO) has been implementing the project in Duhok, Anbar & Mosul to improve maternal and child health in return areas. The project implementation period was January 01, 2019 to December 31, 2019.

Purpose of the Evaluation
The purpose of this evaluation was to assess post intervention situation of the targeted area against indicators mentioned in the project document. The findings will help CARE to measure the impact of project. The findings will be used to compare the baseline situation with the end-line situation to assess the changes in knowledge, attitudes and practices, of the targeted population and impact of the interventions.

The evaluation identified, and documented lessons learnt and made recommendations for CARE-Iraq and project partners to improve future project implementation as well as strengthen the design of future related projects.

Objectives of the Evaluation
The evaluation was expected to:
1. Assess the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the project;
2. Generate lessons that will inform SRMH programming in Iraq and in the broader context of GFFO.

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Final Evaluation Report: ENSURING ACCESS TO DRINKING WATER, CLEAN ENVIRONMENT AND GOOD HYGIENE IN WEST MOSUL, IRAQ

With the objective of providing vulnerable women, men, boys and girls in conflict-affected, underserved and epidemic-prone communities and improving civic participation of local residents, CARE’s interventions targeted highly prioritized areas of West Mosul in need of installation and rehabilitation of water supply systems through close collaboration with the Directorate of Water (DoW) as the local authorities are currently overwhelmed by the scale of needs to enable affected populations to return home.

With this project, CARE addressed three critical gaps in water rehabilitation systems and services in West Mosul by:
• the rehabilitation of water supply system,
• solid waste management, and
• community engagement through establishing hygiene volunteers and water committees.

The endline evaluation seeks to analyze the endline values for key WASH indicators as stated in the project documents in the targeted areas and to assess, impact and effectiveness of programming to successfully track accomplishments of the WASH project, relevance and sustainability of the project after the implementation through the usage of quantitative and qualitative data. The evaluation also looked into areas of success as well as challenges faced implementing activities in Al-Matahin and Al-Islah neighborhoods of West Mosul.

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BASELINE STUDY REPORT: AGRO-SOURCE: LAST-MILE AGRICULTURAL INPUT SUPPLY SYSTEMS

The Agro-Source project in Ghana is a two and half (2½) year project (July 2018 to December 2020). The overall goal of the Agro-Source project is to improve the productivity of 30,000 smallholder women farmers in five (5) districts i.e. Garu, Tempane, Bawku West, Lambussie-Karni and Nandom in the Upper East and West regions of Ghana through increased availability, access and use of good quality agricultural inputs by 2020.

The baseline study was to establish a benchmark against which to measure the progress and achievements of the project. It was to generate: information on the current status on the availability of quality agro-inputs in the target locations and information regarding smallholder women farmers’ access to and utilization of agro-inputs to improve their productivity.

Read More...

A POLICY BRIEF FOR REDUCING CLIMATE RISKS AND VULNERABILITY FOR THE WOMEN, GIRLS AND SMALL HOLDER FARMERS AMONG PASTORALIST COMMUNITIES

Investments especially mining in pastoral areas across the Horn of Africa countries, while important for national development entails serious environmental impacts and pose climate risks that increases the vulnerability of marginalized groups of people who are already disadvantaged by the semi-arid topography. The women, girls, youth, and smallholder
farmers are particularly affected given that their fragile livelihoods are nature based.

The current regional initiatives aimed at building resilience of the affected communities have not adequately addressed the linkage between livelihood systems and sustainable environment management. The initiatives at national and regional levels tend to use traditional orthodox approaches of “environmental conservation” as sacrosanct for addressing all climate risks.

It is critical that any initiatives to reduce the vulnerability caused by the investments must consider that providing decent livelihoods for the most vulnerable groups is the key to achieving an environment conducive for investment. The interventions proposed in this brief, if well implemented, will address this issue; providing sustainable livelihoods while promoting economic investment. Read More...

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