Women's Economic Empowerment

Étude sur les filières porteuses des communes de Beaumont, Jérémie et Roseaux

Diagnostic & Development Group S.A. (DDG) a été recruté par CARE Haïti pour réaliser une étude sur les filières porteuses dans les communes de Jérémie, Beaumont et Roseaux, dans le cadre du projet d’Appui à la Sécurité Alimentaire, au Renforcement Agricole et à l’Amélioration Nutritionnelle dans la Grand’Anse (ASARANGA), implanté par CARE, Action Aid Haiti (AAH) et Konbit Peyizan Grandans (KPGA).
Une approche mixte, c’est-à-dire combinant des techniques de collecte de données quantitatives et qualitatives, a été adoptée pour réaliser l’étude. En plus de données secondaires, essentiellement obtenues dans des rapports d’études pertinentes, des données primaires ont été collectées, au cours des mois de juillet et août 2019, via une enquête de ménages, un inventaire d’associations et de coopératives, une enquête de marché, des groupes de discussion avec des planteurs et des entrevues individuelles avec des représentants d’institutions financières dans les trois communes d’intérêt.
Nous avons étudié huit filières pour les sections communales cibles des communes de Jérémie, de Roseaux et de Beaumont. Il s’agit des produits vivriers igname, manioc, banane et le haricot ; le maïs, l’arachide et deux filières d’exportation traditionnelles : le café et le cacao. Le processus de sélection a tenu compte du nombre de planteurs qui pratiquent ces cultures, de l’importance de la filière dans la sécurité alimentaire et l’environnement et enfin de leurs potentiels de revenu. 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
Read More...

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...

STRENGTHENING RESILIENCE AND PROMOTING INCLUSIVE GOVERNANCE PROGRAM (STRENPO): Experiences of advocacy and action for climate change resilience

Care International in Uganda presents to you experiences and lessons learnt while implementing Strengthening Resilience and Promoting Inclusive Governance for Women and Youth in Vulnerable Communities Project (STRENPO). At Care we are using the nexus of humanitarian and long-term development to build resilience that bridges humanitarian action and sustainable development. Our approach to increasing resilience operates in synergy with gender transformation and inclusive governance.

We also show the models used to empower citizens such as engaging duty bearers, building civil society organizational capacity to engage with the duty bearers and claim citizens’ rights and provide information to citizens, build organization legitimacy and support multi-stakeholder platforms for engagement and informing policy processes. Read More...

Proyecto Lendwithcare – Revisión de Resultados

Lendwithcare es una plataforma web de crowlending promovida por CARE International UK, que opera en todo el mundo conectando a personas que desean apoyar a emprendedores en situación de vulnerabilidad socioeconómica a través de préstamos a baja tasa o sin tasa de interés. Gracias al uso del Internet y de los avances a través de plataformas tecnológicas, el proyecto Lendwithcare llega al Perú a inicios del año 2018 a través de CARE Perú y el Instituto de Desarrollo Regional Cesar Vallejo (IDER CV) bajo la línea de créditos CREDILIDER para financiar a micro y pequeños (as) emprendedores(as), especialmente negocios liderados por mujeres emprendedoras vulnerables, con acceso limitado al sistema financiero de las zonas rurales y periurbanas de las regiones de Piura, La Libertad y Tumbes.

Durante los dos años de presencia en el Perú, el proyecto Lendwithcare ha financiado emprendimientos de 590 personas, de las cuales el 80% fueron mujeres, desembolsó un total 608 mil dólares1 los cuales fueron entregados mediante créditos haciendo un total de 838 créditos.

Este documento, elaborado por CARE Perú presenta los resultados del proyecto Lendwithcare a través de la caracterización socioeconómica de las y los participantes y de sus hogares, sus conductas hacia el manejo del dinero, los elementos que permitieron la consolidación de las líneas de negocios, su experiencia solicitando préstamos con IDER CÉSAR VALLEJO, su acceso a productos o servicios financieros, el desarrollo de la capacidad individual de las mujeres y cómo han enfrentado diferentes situaciones de vulnerabilidad. Read More...

Where the Rain Falls Phase III (2017 – 2019): Final Evaluation Report

In 2009, the Where the Rain Falls (WtRF) initiative started as a three-year research project investigating the impact of rainfall variability on food and livelihood security, and migration.

This research culminated in a global policy report (2012) and the development of more action-oriented community-based adaptation (CBA) pilot projects in each India, Thailand and Bangladesh. A second phase (2014 – 2016), and later a third phase (2017 – 2019), aimed to scale results, impacts and lessons learned to date for broader support for, and uptake of, CBA methods and approaches.

In October 2019, CARE France engaged an International Consultant to lead WtRF’ first multi-county evaluation. As per the Terms of Reference (TORs) for this evaluation (see Annex IV) the main objectives of the evaluation are two-fold:
(i) to assess the degree of achievement of the WtRF global and specific objectives in India and Thailand respectively; and
(ii) to extract common and/or comparable lessons learned about factors contributing to and hindering achievements (e.g. barriers and enablers) Read More...

Supporting Partnerships and Resilience of Communities (SPARC) in Northern Rakhine State End-of-Project Evaluation

The Supporting Partnerships and Resilience of Communities (SPARC) project, with funding from the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), was implemented in Maungdaw District, northern Rakhine State between December 2011- December 2019.

SPARC’s goal is to contribute to the sustainable reduction of poverty in communities through improving the social and economic position of poor, vulnerable households, and to strengthen household and community capacity to sustain such improvements. To achieve this goal, CARE implements integrated livelihood activities that improve food security and economic opportunities, including community forestry, crop productivity intensification, facilitating access to education and introducing financial services through Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA).

An end-of-project evaluation was recently commissioned ‘to determine if SPARC achieved its end of project outcomes of sustainable reduction of poverty in poor, vulnerable communities and strengthened household and community capacity to sustain such improvements’.

The evaluation used a mixed method approach combining a literature review and quantitative data sets drawn primarily from the project monitoring system, together with qualitative data, collected using participatory approaches such as focus group discussions (FGD), key informant interviews (KII), and Stories of Change Interviews (SoCs). Read More...

Strengthening Resilience and Inclusive Governance (STRENPO) Mid-term Review

The Strengthening Resilience and Inclusive Governance Program (STRENPO) is a 4-year programme in the nexus between humanitarian and development work, managed by CARE International in Uganda, in partnership with four Ugandan civil society organisations. The programme commenced in April 2018 for the years 2018-2021.

The overall objective of STRENPO is: Women and youth in vulnerable, natural resource-dependent communities, including refugee settlements, are resilient to shocks and stresses arising from natural resources degradation, climate change, and conflict & displacement.

The overall impression generated from the documents review and the consultations in Uganda is that programme implementation is largely on track compared with work plans; this includes individual partner projects carried out by three ‘old’ partner organisations and RICE-WN as the new partner in the programme. Interventions are well-managed and the STRENPO team in CARE as well as staff in the partner organisations appear dedicated to the implementation of the programme in general and to their particular contribution.

A baseline survey was undertaken in late 2018 and is assessed as a well-planned and executed activity. The study focused on measuring resilience and the result was a sophisticated framework of criteria for categorising indicators of capacity to anticipate and respond appropriately to climate changes. Important information also came out from the Gender Sensitive Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis (G-CVCA) that were undertaken by mid-2019.

- It is therefore recommended to introduce a more diversified approach to the interventions that targets impact groups directly, building on findings from the baseline survey and the G-CVCAs.
- It is recommended that STRENPO continues a strong follow-up to the CAAPs in order to facilitate funding of activities of priority to the involved communities and relevant to the programme’s objectives.
- It is therefore recommended that STRENPO during the coming two years increases the focus on using potential avenues for best practices replication and other catalytic effects.
- It is recommended that the STRENPO partners together selects a handful of the outlined ‘strategic actions’ for further development and specification.
- It is recommended that some of the capacity gaps that have key relevance for the programme are selected, so that it can be decided what type and how much support to the capacity development interventions the programme is able to offer.
- It is recommended that STRENPO in early 2020 reviews its potentials for engaging in stronger partnerships with the private sector, using a market driven analytical approach to determine appropriate interventions and relevant value chain and private sector actors to engage with.
- It is recommended that the STRENPO team engages in a discussion with CARE Danmark to further clarify their understanding and expectations regarding the programme’s inclusion of innovative climate change prevention solutions and a transformative approach to resilience.
- It is recommended that STRENPO undertakes a quick review of its results framework, with the intention to reduce the number of indicators, but also to allow a breakdown on some indicators into refugees and hosts. The revision should also aim at reducing and/or combining the qualitative indicators and progress markers. It is furthermore recommended to review and revise the phrasing of result areas and the Theory of Change, taking note of the suggestions made during the MTR workshop.


Read More...

RESI Final Evaluation

The Rural Economic Sustainability Initiative (RESI) aimed to support inclusive and sustainable rural economic
development in four target municipalities in Kosovo: Prishtinë/Priština, Novo Brdo/Novobrdë, Kamenicë/a and
Ranil(l)ug. The approach utilised built on a very successful previous project and featured grants to MSME in agriculture,
capacity development of municipality agriculture departments and a special focus on empowerment of women and
socio-economically vulnerable groups.

Relevance. RESI was found to be highly relevant to the four chosen municipalities and filled critical gaps that were
impeding rural economic development at farmer, processor and local government levels.

Effectiveness. RESI has delivered its outputs which is a massive achievement in such a short 3 year period. The
project met or exceeded each of its targets as per the output indicators. In terms of outcomes, specific targets were
not set but increased income and job creation has occurred and can be linked to RESI.

Efficiency. RESI was highly efficient. As compared to the previous (IRDS) project the RESI team scaled up all aspects
of the project across 4 municipalities and dispersed twice as many grants in only 3 year (as compared with 5).

Impact. Data gathered by the RESI team shows that 285 new full-time jobs and 490 seasonal jobs have been created
so far. Income of grant recipients has increased by 53% on average.

Sustainability. Overall signs are good, but it is too soon to concretely assess sustainability.



Read More...

THE ROLE OF COLLECTIVES IN ACHIEVING WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT: A CROSS-PROJECTANALYSIS

Collectives are a fundamental building block for much of CARE’s work. What are the greatest strengths of a collectives approach across projects? We combined data from many CARE collectives across projects and found that:
• The gender composition of the collective affects the intended outcomes.
• The most successful collectives are those with a balanced gender mix of collective members and women leaders. The second most successful collectives are those with a balanced gender mix and mixed gender leaders.
• CARE collectives are having an effect on women’s economic empowerment.
•CARE collectives are having a particularly strong effect on income, leadership, domestic decision making, production, violence and time use. Read More...

Filter Evaluations

Clear all