Inclusive Governance
Sawtahaa (Her Voice) in Peacebuilding and Recovery Actions Final Evaluation
The longstanding cultural practices across Sudan often exclude women from decision making, even in issues of direct concern to them, such as early marriage and FGM. This report builds on CARE's efforts in the context of the “Sawtahaa” project to analyse women's situation in the post conflict processes and to enhance transformative change in three areas, namely: structure, relations and agency. This was directed to enhance women's role in decision making and in addressing issues of direct concern to them.
The Darfur Community Peace and Stability Fund (DCPSF) was launched in 2007 to help facilitate peacebuilding by restoring the capacity and authority of traditional community-based conflict resolution mechanism and to enhance the delivery of economic and basic social services by implementing a number of community-based activities.
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The Darfur Community Peace and Stability Fund (DCPSF) was launched in 2007 to help facilitate peacebuilding by restoring the capacity and authority of traditional community-based conflict resolution mechanism and to enhance the delivery of economic and basic social services by implementing a number of community-based activities.
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Gender-Sensitive Conflict Analysis in South and East Darfur States, Sudan, 2022
CARE International in Sudan is implementing the project “Enhancing resilience through improved food security, disaster risk reduction and peaceful co-existence in South and East Darfur states, Sudan” (1 September 2021 – 31 August 2025) through funding from the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The project addresses the specific needs, vulnerabilities, and capacities of women, youth, and persons with disabilities to strengthen their resilience to buffer, adapt, and respond to future shocks at an individual, family, and community levels. This gender sensitive conflict analysis in East and South Darfur – representing eight villages – is to understand the causes, power and gender dynamics, and actors of conflicts in the project area.
The conflict in Darfur is escalating rapidly, with eight times more people killed and displaced in 2021 than in 2020. Inflation rose by 359% in 2021. Climate change—marked by devastating floods and prolonged droughts—combined with food insecurity and a lack of services leaves people feeling violence is their only choice.
A profoundly unequal and harmful set of social norms that do not value women, and even refer to them as vessels of the devil, coupled with laws that do not protect women and their rights, are pushing many burdens of this crisis onto women. A common saying is, “Almara mamlouka ela malak Almout” or “A woman is owned to death.” As the situation gets more extreme and livelihoods and service get scarcer, women are more likely to be working outside the home to help meet family needs. Men have not increased their involvement in household chores and childcare to compensate for these shifts—leaving women with even higher burdens than before. The shifts in women having to work outside the home have not translated into corresponding improvements in women’s rights, engagement in politics, or access to public life.
This research draws from 20 focus groups and 20 Key Informant Interviews that represent the views of 193 people (45% of whom were women) in eight villages in July of 2022. It also looks at 44 secondary sources.
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The conflict in Darfur is escalating rapidly, with eight times more people killed and displaced in 2021 than in 2020. Inflation rose by 359% in 2021. Climate change—marked by devastating floods and prolonged droughts—combined with food insecurity and a lack of services leaves people feeling violence is their only choice.
A profoundly unequal and harmful set of social norms that do not value women, and even refer to them as vessels of the devil, coupled with laws that do not protect women and their rights, are pushing many burdens of this crisis onto women. A common saying is, “Almara mamlouka ela malak Almout” or “A woman is owned to death.” As the situation gets more extreme and livelihoods and service get scarcer, women are more likely to be working outside the home to help meet family needs. Men have not increased their involvement in household chores and childcare to compensate for these shifts—leaving women with even higher burdens than before. The shifts in women having to work outside the home have not translated into corresponding improvements in women’s rights, engagement in politics, or access to public life.
This research draws from 20 focus groups and 20 Key Informant Interviews that represent the views of 193 people (45% of whom were women) in eight villages in July of 2022. It also looks at 44 secondary sources.
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Learning From Failure 2022
In 2019 and 2020, CARE published Learning from Failures reports to better understand common problems that projects faced during implementation. Deliberately looking for themes in failure has helped CARE as an organization and provides insight on what is improving and what still needs troubleshooting. This report builds on the previous work to show what we most need to address in our programming now.
As always, it is important to note that while each evaluation in this analysis cited specific failures and areas for improvement in the project it reviewed, that does not mean that the projects themselves were failures. Of the 72 evaluations in this analysis, only 2 showed projects that failed to deliver on more than 15% of the project goals. The rest were able to succeed for at least 85% of their commitments. Rather, failures are issues that are within CARE’s control to improve that will improve impact for the people we serve.
To fully improve impact, we must continue to include failures in the conversation. We face a complex future full of barriers and uncertainties. Allowing an open space to discuss challenges or issues across the organization strengthens CARE’s efforts to fight for change. Qualitative analysis provides critical insights that quantitative data does not provide insight into the stories behind these challenges to better understand how we can develop solutions.
CARE reviewed a total of 72 evaluations from 65 projects, with 44 final reports published between February 2020 and September 2021 and 28 midterm reports published between March 2018 and October 2020. Seven projects had both midterm and final evaluations at the time of this analysis. For ease of analysis, as in previous years, failures were grouped into 11 categories (see Annex A, the Failures Codebook for details).
Results
The most common failures in this year’s report are:
• Understanding context—both in the design phase of a project and refining the understanding of context and changing circumstances throughout the whole life of a project, rather than a concentrated analysis phase that is separate from project implementation. For example, an agriculture project that built it’s activities assuming that all farmers would have regular internet access, only to find that fewer than 10% of project participants had smartphones and that the network in the area is unreliable, has to significantly redesign both activities and budgets.
• Sustainability—projects often faced challenges with sustainability, particularly in planning exit strategies. Importantly, one of the core issues with sustainability is involving the right partners at the right time. 47% of projects that struggled with sustainability also had failures in partnership. For example, a project that assumed governments would take over training for project participants once the project closed, but that failed to include handover activities with the government at the local level, found that activities and impacts are not set up to be sustainable.
• Partnerships—strengthening partnerships at all levels, from government stakeholders to community members and building appropriate feedback and consultation mechanisms, is the third most common weakness across projects. For example, a project that did not include local private sector actors in its gender equality trainings and assumes that the private sector would automatically serve women farmers, found that women were not getting services or impact at the right level.
Another core finding is that failures at the design phase can be very hard to correct. While projects improve significantly between midterm and endline, this is not always possible. There are particular kinds of failure that are difficult to overcome over time. Major budget shortfalls, a MEAL plan that does not provide quality baseline data, and insufficient investments in understanding context over the entire life of a project are less likely to improve over time than partnerships and overall MEAL processes.
Some areas also showed marked improvements after significant investments. Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL), Gender, Human Resources, and Budget Management are all categories that show improvements over the three rounds of learning from failures analysis. This reflects CARE’s core investments in those areas over the last 4 years, partly based on the findings and recommendations from previous Learning From Failure reports. Specifically, this round of data demonstrates that the organization is addressing gender-related issues. Not only are there fewer failures related to gender overall, the difference between midterm and final evaluations in gender displays how effective these methods are in decreasing the incidence of “failures” related to engaging women and girls and looking at structural factors that limit participation in activities.
Another key finding from this year’s analysis is that projects are improving over time. For the first time, this analysis reviewed mid-term reports in an effort to understand failures early enough in the process to adjust projects. Projects report much higher rates of failure at midterm than they do at final evaluation. In the projects where we compared midline to endline results within the same project, a significant number of failures that appeared in the mid-term evaluation were resolved by the end of the project. On average, mid-term evaluations reflect failures in 50% of possible categories, and final evaluations show failures in 38% of possible options. Partnerships (especially around engaging communities themselves), key inputs, scale planning and MEAL are all areas that show marked improvement over the life of the project.
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As always, it is important to note that while each evaluation in this analysis cited specific failures and areas for improvement in the project it reviewed, that does not mean that the projects themselves were failures. Of the 72 evaluations in this analysis, only 2 showed projects that failed to deliver on more than 15% of the project goals. The rest were able to succeed for at least 85% of their commitments. Rather, failures are issues that are within CARE’s control to improve that will improve impact for the people we serve.
To fully improve impact, we must continue to include failures in the conversation. We face a complex future full of barriers and uncertainties. Allowing an open space to discuss challenges or issues across the organization strengthens CARE’s efforts to fight for change. Qualitative analysis provides critical insights that quantitative data does not provide insight into the stories behind these challenges to better understand how we can develop solutions.
CARE reviewed a total of 72 evaluations from 65 projects, with 44 final reports published between February 2020 and September 2021 and 28 midterm reports published between March 2018 and October 2020. Seven projects had both midterm and final evaluations at the time of this analysis. For ease of analysis, as in previous years, failures were grouped into 11 categories (see Annex A, the Failures Codebook for details).
Results
The most common failures in this year’s report are:
• Understanding context—both in the design phase of a project and refining the understanding of context and changing circumstances throughout the whole life of a project, rather than a concentrated analysis phase that is separate from project implementation. For example, an agriculture project that built it’s activities assuming that all farmers would have regular internet access, only to find that fewer than 10% of project participants had smartphones and that the network in the area is unreliable, has to significantly redesign both activities and budgets.
• Sustainability—projects often faced challenges with sustainability, particularly in planning exit strategies. Importantly, one of the core issues with sustainability is involving the right partners at the right time. 47% of projects that struggled with sustainability also had failures in partnership. For example, a project that assumed governments would take over training for project participants once the project closed, but that failed to include handover activities with the government at the local level, found that activities and impacts are not set up to be sustainable.
• Partnerships—strengthening partnerships at all levels, from government stakeholders to community members and building appropriate feedback and consultation mechanisms, is the third most common weakness across projects. For example, a project that did not include local private sector actors in its gender equality trainings and assumes that the private sector would automatically serve women farmers, found that women were not getting services or impact at the right level.
Another core finding is that failures at the design phase can be very hard to correct. While projects improve significantly between midterm and endline, this is not always possible. There are particular kinds of failure that are difficult to overcome over time. Major budget shortfalls, a MEAL plan that does not provide quality baseline data, and insufficient investments in understanding context over the entire life of a project are less likely to improve over time than partnerships and overall MEAL processes.
Some areas also showed marked improvements after significant investments. Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL), Gender, Human Resources, and Budget Management are all categories that show improvements over the three rounds of learning from failures analysis. This reflects CARE’s core investments in those areas over the last 4 years, partly based on the findings and recommendations from previous Learning From Failure reports. Specifically, this round of data demonstrates that the organization is addressing gender-related issues. Not only are there fewer failures related to gender overall, the difference between midterm and final evaluations in gender displays how effective these methods are in decreasing the incidence of “failures” related to engaging women and girls and looking at structural factors that limit participation in activities.
Another key finding from this year’s analysis is that projects are improving over time. For the first time, this analysis reviewed mid-term reports in an effort to understand failures early enough in the process to adjust projects. Projects report much higher rates of failure at midterm than they do at final evaluation. In the projects where we compared midline to endline results within the same project, a significant number of failures that appeared in the mid-term evaluation were resolved by the end of the project. On average, mid-term evaluations reflect failures in 50% of possible categories, and final evaluations show failures in 38% of possible options. Partnerships (especially around engaging communities themselves), key inputs, scale planning and MEAL are all areas that show marked improvement over the life of the project.
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Midterm Supporting Meaningful Engagement for Improved Accountability by Leveraging Digital Technologies (Implementing Social Accountability Framework II)
The Implementation of the Social Accountability Framework (ISAF) in Cambodia aims to empower citizens, strengthen partnerships between sub-national administrations (SNAs) and citizens, and leverage enhanced accountability of SNAs to improve local service delivery. The ISAF was introduced as a platform for coordinated action by The Government of Cambodia and Civil Society Organisations to operationalize the Strategic Plan on Social Accountability for Sub-National Democratic Development adopted by the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) on July 2013. The Strategic Plan and ISAF are important elements of the RGC’s broader democratic development agenda, as implemented through the second (2015-2017) and third (2018-2020) 3-Year Implementation Plans (IP3). This agenda, in turn, implemented in the context of the RGC’s national development vision, as outlined in the fourth Rectangular Strategy (2018 – 2023), which calls for the development of social accountability mechanisms in pursuing overarching national goals of growth, employment, equity and efficiency.
The overall objective of the midterm assessment is to assess the contemporary situation of impact groups (including women, youth, ethnic minorities and people with disability), their knowledge, degree of satisfaction with public services (including administration, health, education and waste management) and level of dialogue with local government in the old districts and the new districts at the middle point of the project to compare with the Logical Framework indicators from the start of the action.
Midterm respondents were chosen from key project participants: citizens, youth (aged 15 to 30 years old), local authorities/services providers (commune and district levels, healthcare centres and primary schools) and Community Accountability Facilitators (CAFs). A total of 892 respondents were interviewed for the midterm. Data collection was conducted with a team of 10 data collectors in February and March 2022. Read More...
The overall objective of the midterm assessment is to assess the contemporary situation of impact groups (including women, youth, ethnic minorities and people with disability), their knowledge, degree of satisfaction with public services (including administration, health, education and waste management) and level of dialogue with local government in the old districts and the new districts at the middle point of the project to compare with the Logical Framework indicators from the start of the action.
Midterm respondents were chosen from key project participants: citizens, youth (aged 15 to 30 years old), local authorities/services providers (commune and district levels, healthcare centres and primary schools) and Community Accountability Facilitators (CAFs). A total of 892 respondents were interviewed for the midterm. Data collection was conducted with a team of 10 data collectors in February and March 2022. Read More...
Stand Up, Speak Out: Breaking the silence around gender based violence among ethnic minority communities in Northern Vietnam
Violence against women is a global issue. Eliminating violence is one of the key priorities for countries worked to promote gender equality. The National study on violence against women in Vietnam in 2010 and 20191 showed that most violence against women is perpetrated by husbands/partners or acquaintances. Most cases are unreported to the authorities. Gender inequality is both an underlying cause and a consequence of violence against women – gender inequality is more common where women are undervalued compared to men and still experienced violence, which hampers women's empowerment.
The Vietnamese Government has implemented numerous programs and action plans on preventing and responding to gender based violence (GBV)/domestic violence,and has supported civil society organizations (CSOs) in implementing intervention projects on GBV. In such a general context, with the support of the European Union, the SUSO project implemented by CARE International in Vietnam and Light has been carried out in 4 communes: Muong Phang, Pa Khoang, Thanh Nua and Hua Thanh of Dien Bien province, which is a poor province in the socio-economic region with the highest density of poor population (MOLISA and other organizations, 2018), from March 2018 to January 2022, with the goal of breaking the silence around GBV among ethnic minority communities in Northern Vietnam.
This final evaluation report aims to assess the project’s impacts/outcomes and key lessons learned using the OECD/DAC criteria as the guideline. Read More...
The Vietnamese Government has implemented numerous programs and action plans on preventing and responding to gender based violence (GBV)/domestic violence,and has supported civil society organizations (CSOs) in implementing intervention projects on GBV. In such a general context, with the support of the European Union, the SUSO project implemented by CARE International in Vietnam and Light has been carried out in 4 communes: Muong Phang, Pa Khoang, Thanh Nua and Hua Thanh of Dien Bien province, which is a poor province in the socio-economic region with the highest density of poor population (MOLISA and other organizations, 2018), from March 2018 to January 2022, with the goal of breaking the silence around GBV among ethnic minority communities in Northern Vietnam.
This final evaluation report aims to assess the project’s impacts/outcomes and key lessons learned using the OECD/DAC criteria as the guideline. Read More...
POST-PROJECT LEAD IMPACT ASSESSMENT “INTEGRATING SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY INTO DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION
The project "Integrating Social Accountability in Education for Development" (LEAD) is a social accountability project understood as the continuous process of improving collaborative relationships, compliance with commitments made, and accountability between institutional actors and citizens in order to contribute to participatory governance in the education system. The LEAD project ran from October 1, 2014 to September 30, 2018. It was funded by the World Bank's Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA). It aimed to improve the performance of the education system not only within schools but also at the provincial (DPMEN1) and regional (AREF2) levels. During this period, the project was piloted in 50 schools between the region of Marrakech- Safi (Province of Al Haouz) and Casablanca- Settat (Prefecture of Sidi Bernoussi). Read More...
Conflict Sensitive Rapid Gender Analysis Cabo Delgado, Mozambique
The on-going armed insurgency in Cabo Delgado that started in 2017 and the mass displacement it caused have created a complex humanitarian crisis in one of Mozambique’s poorest regions, Cabo Delgado. Prior to the crisis, Cabo Delgado province already suffered from high levels of poverty and absence of services. This situation has been worsened by the crisis which depleted what little resilience the province’s population had. Host communities find themselves having to share already scarce resources. There are evident signs of solidarity fatigue and tensions between IDPs and host communities result in frequent conflicts.
IDPs in Cabo Delgado are suffering from dire living conditions, extremely limited access to basic services and struggling to meet essential needs. Widespread lack of access to cash and income generating opportunities are causing negative multi-layered gendered impacts on the lives of IDPs. IDPs living in resettlement centres are among
those most vulnerable, women and children making up the majority of residents, where access to resources or income generating opportunities is very limited. Female-headed IDP households have constrained access to land when compared to their male counterparts, making subsistence farming difficult. The combination of these factors
has led to the commodification of humanitarian aid with the sale of part of the food received through humanitarian assistance being a prevalent practice.
While humanitarian assistance has been vital in meeting IDPs’ most urgent needs, there are still immense and persistent needs. Life at resettlement centres is difficult and protection risks abound, particularly for women and girls. Water is scarce and fetching it is an arduous and often dangerous task for women and girls. Access to health care is
limited, including to maternal and sexual and reproductive health services. Reports of sexual exploitation and abuse were frequent and included cases of community leaders requesting money or sex in exchange for guaranteed access to humanitarian aid. Read More...
IDPs in Cabo Delgado are suffering from dire living conditions, extremely limited access to basic services and struggling to meet essential needs. Widespread lack of access to cash and income generating opportunities are causing negative multi-layered gendered impacts on the lives of IDPs. IDPs living in resettlement centres are among
those most vulnerable, women and children making up the majority of residents, where access to resources or income generating opportunities is very limited. Female-headed IDP households have constrained access to land when compared to their male counterparts, making subsistence farming difficult. The combination of these factors
has led to the commodification of humanitarian aid with the sale of part of the food received through humanitarian assistance being a prevalent practice.
While humanitarian assistance has been vital in meeting IDPs’ most urgent needs, there are still immense and persistent needs. Life at resettlement centres is difficult and protection risks abound, particularly for women and girls. Water is scarce and fetching it is an arduous and often dangerous task for women and girls. Access to health care is
limited, including to maternal and sexual and reproductive health services. Reports of sexual exploitation and abuse were frequent and included cases of community leaders requesting money or sex in exchange for guaranteed access to humanitarian aid. Read More...
RAPPORT D’ANALYSE SITUATIONNELLE, CARTOGRAPHIE SOCIALE ET ANALYSE DU POVOIR SUR COVID-19 DANS LA ZONE DE SANTE DE KATWA
Une de composante de ce projet de prévention contre la propagation de la pandémie COVID-19 dans la zone de santé de Katwa, consiste à conduire une analyse situationnelle plus approfondie dans les aires de santé ciblées par le projet dans le but de pouvoir déterminer les connaissances, les perceptions, les attitudes et les pratiques des membres de la communauté y compris des partenaires étatiques vis de la pandémie elle-même et de ses mesures de prévention. Par conséquent, l’exercice consiste à ouvrir des débats sur la Covid-19 et d’autres épidémies, à faire prendre conscience du problème et à amorcer le dialogue entre les principales parties intéressées à différents niveaux pour des stratégies de lutte plus appropriées.
La réalisation de cet exercice a comporté quatre (4) moments clés à savoir :
1. Atelier d’analyse situationnelle, cartographie sociale et analyse du pouvoir avec les acteurs clés
2. Enrichissement et collecte des données de l’atelier à travers des Focus groups dans les 9 Aires de santé
3. La phase d’analyse, compilation et rédaction du rapport (première version) des données
4. Restitution, capitalisation des amendements et des résultats de l’analyse.
Ce rapport relate le cheminement méthodologique et les résultats synthèse des travaux réalisés, ils seront ensuite complétés lors de l’atelier de restitution par les résultats complets des focus groups réalisés au sein de la communauté bénéficiaire dans la ZS de Katwa. Read More...
La réalisation de cet exercice a comporté quatre (4) moments clés à savoir :
1. Atelier d’analyse situationnelle, cartographie sociale et analyse du pouvoir avec les acteurs clés
2. Enrichissement et collecte des données de l’atelier à travers des Focus groups dans les 9 Aires de santé
3. La phase d’analyse, compilation et rédaction du rapport (première version) des données
4. Restitution, capitalisation des amendements et des résultats de l’analyse.
Ce rapport relate le cheminement méthodologique et les résultats synthèse des travaux réalisés, ils seront ensuite complétés lors de l’atelier de restitution par les résultats complets des focus groups réalisés au sein de la communauté bénéficiaire dans la ZS de Katwa. Read More...
Supporting meaningful civic engagement for improved accountability by leveraging digital technologies
The baseline assessment for the “Supporting meaningful civic engagement for improved accountability by leveraging digital technologies” project was conducted to develop values for baseline indicators and provide evidence with regards to the degree of satisfaction and level of dialogue target beneficiary groups have with public service providers. Data from this baseline assessment will enable comparisons between the start, during the course of the project, and at the end of the project. Baseline respondents were chosen from key project beneficiaries: citizens, youth (aged 15 to 30 years old), local authorities/services providers (commune and district levels, healthcare centers, and primary schools), and Community Accountability Facilitators (CAFs). A total of 906 respondents were interviewed for the baseline. Read More...
CARE in the Pacific PARTNERSHIPS RESEARCH REPORT
Partnership is central to CARE International’s global vision where poverty has been overcome and all people live with dignity and security. CARE International’s partnerships in the Pacific are carried out through CARE Australia managed country offices in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Vanuatu, and through the CARE in the Pacific team (which sits under CARE Australia) which manage partnerships in countries where CARE Australia does not have a country office. This currently includes Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu. CARE Australia is in the process of developing its Pacific strategy. Central to this process is understanding its approaches to partnership and supporting local leadership with its partners in Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu. CARE in the Pacific commissioned this Partnerships Research to document its partnership approach and reflect key contributions and gaps to advancing localisation for its partners in the Pacific. The research was conducted during September and November 2021 and involved CARE in the Pacific and 12 partners in Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu.
What this research report does
⮚ Documents CARE in the Pacific’s partnership approach and the key features of the partnership that are supporting locally led outcomes
⮚ Employs a qualitative approach drawing on the voice of partners through feedback captured during interviews, and secondary documentation related to CARE’s partnership and localisation practice, and current sector discourse on localisation to demonstrate how CARE in the Pacific is supporting localisation, and approaches hindering locally led outcomes
⮚ Identifies actions and approaches for CARE in the Pacific for charting a more strategic course for partnership and localisation by building on existing positive practices and considering areas for improving partnership practice to better support localisation
Key findings
Partnership findings
⮚ CARE’s partnership can be characterised by long-term and short-term partnerships. The long-term partnership is guided by a high-level partnership agreement with sub-agreements developed for project or program specific engagement. Capacity strengthening is focused on supporting organisation-wide learning and growth. The short-term partnership usually begins with CARE either securing or identifying a funding opportunity. Based on consultation and shared objectives, agreement is sought to work together and co-design proposals/projects. A sub agreement guides the engagement. Capacity strengthening (informed by due diligence assessments) is largely focused on ensuring partners can meet CARE’s program quality, administrative and financial requirements, including donor compliance requirements.
⮚ Both long-term and short-term partnerships are contributing to positive change, in advancing CARE’s strategic objective of achieving greater impact through partnerships, and for partners, helping to achieve positive change at organisational and community levels. Having both short-term and long-term partnerships allow for flexibility in the partnership and as partnering is also influenced by the amount of funding CARE has available to support partners. A long-term partnering approach would better position CARE to achieve its broader partnership goals for transformed partnerships in the Pacific for reduced poverty and inequality. A key consideration is for CARE to articulate how it will support partners who want to transition to long-term partnerships, the strategy to engage long-term partnerships and with which organisations it will establish such partnerships.
⮚ CARE’s approach is grounded in supporting partners to achieve their mandate and objectives, working within partners priorities, and partners strengths. Partners perceive CARE is taking a partner led approach that is based on shared values and complementary vision, and a strong commitment to partnership. This approach together with the provision of quality technical support in gender, disaster, and humanitarian programming is helping establish CARE as a partner of choice. This is noted by partners as a core strength of CARE’s partnership approach and an area that CARE should continue to build on.
⮚ CARE has strong foundational policies, processes, and principles in place for partnership, but these are not being consistently applied outside of project implementation. CARE has strong processes and principles in place for partnering but these are not being fully maximised, with the focus more on assessing project delivery and results and not partnership outcomes. This approach to partnerships is potentially hindering achievement of more meaningful partnership outcomes, including more effective programming. There is a desire from partners to have more conversations and participate in processes that are focused on assessing the partnership.
⮚ CARE is directly investing in partnerships in several ways: recruitment of dedicated staff and consultants to the CARE in the Pacific team including a Partnerships Coordinator, Gender, and Inclusion Senior Advisor (Fiji), Program Quality Coordinator, Finance & Grants Coordinator and Project Coordinators. CARE is also demonstrating ongoing financial investment in partners by mobilising consecutive funding with the majority of its partners. It will be important for CARE to consider and plan for future resourcing that may be needed to support a long-term partnering approach, acknowledging that CARE largely operates on project specific funding which directly influences the parameters of support CARE is able to provide to partners as this support has to fit within project budgets. Read More...
What this research report does
⮚ Documents CARE in the Pacific’s partnership approach and the key features of the partnership that are supporting locally led outcomes
⮚ Employs a qualitative approach drawing on the voice of partners through feedback captured during interviews, and secondary documentation related to CARE’s partnership and localisation practice, and current sector discourse on localisation to demonstrate how CARE in the Pacific is supporting localisation, and approaches hindering locally led outcomes
⮚ Identifies actions and approaches for CARE in the Pacific for charting a more strategic course for partnership and localisation by building on existing positive practices and considering areas for improving partnership practice to better support localisation
Key findings
Partnership findings
⮚ CARE’s partnership can be characterised by long-term and short-term partnerships. The long-term partnership is guided by a high-level partnership agreement with sub-agreements developed for project or program specific engagement. Capacity strengthening is focused on supporting organisation-wide learning and growth. The short-term partnership usually begins with CARE either securing or identifying a funding opportunity. Based on consultation and shared objectives, agreement is sought to work together and co-design proposals/projects. A sub agreement guides the engagement. Capacity strengthening (informed by due diligence assessments) is largely focused on ensuring partners can meet CARE’s program quality, administrative and financial requirements, including donor compliance requirements.
⮚ Both long-term and short-term partnerships are contributing to positive change, in advancing CARE’s strategic objective of achieving greater impact through partnerships, and for partners, helping to achieve positive change at organisational and community levels. Having both short-term and long-term partnerships allow for flexibility in the partnership and as partnering is also influenced by the amount of funding CARE has available to support partners. A long-term partnering approach would better position CARE to achieve its broader partnership goals for transformed partnerships in the Pacific for reduced poverty and inequality. A key consideration is for CARE to articulate how it will support partners who want to transition to long-term partnerships, the strategy to engage long-term partnerships and with which organisations it will establish such partnerships.
⮚ CARE’s approach is grounded in supporting partners to achieve their mandate and objectives, working within partners priorities, and partners strengths. Partners perceive CARE is taking a partner led approach that is based on shared values and complementary vision, and a strong commitment to partnership. This approach together with the provision of quality technical support in gender, disaster, and humanitarian programming is helping establish CARE as a partner of choice. This is noted by partners as a core strength of CARE’s partnership approach and an area that CARE should continue to build on.
⮚ CARE has strong foundational policies, processes, and principles in place for partnership, but these are not being consistently applied outside of project implementation. CARE has strong processes and principles in place for partnering but these are not being fully maximised, with the focus more on assessing project delivery and results and not partnership outcomes. This approach to partnerships is potentially hindering achievement of more meaningful partnership outcomes, including more effective programming. There is a desire from partners to have more conversations and participate in processes that are focused on assessing the partnership.
⮚ CARE is directly investing in partnerships in several ways: recruitment of dedicated staff and consultants to the CARE in the Pacific team including a Partnerships Coordinator, Gender, and Inclusion Senior Advisor (Fiji), Program Quality Coordinator, Finance & Grants Coordinator and Project Coordinators. CARE is also demonstrating ongoing financial investment in partners by mobilising consecutive funding with the majority of its partners. It will be important for CARE to consider and plan for future resourcing that may be needed to support a long-term partnering approach, acknowledging that CARE largely operates on project specific funding which directly influences the parameters of support CARE is able to provide to partners as this support has to fit within project budgets. Read More...