Our mission is to promote sustainable livelihoods and
community-driven development to address poverty in Africa. To
do this we facilitate action-learning processes linking
government, communities, civil society and business, drawing
from global development thinking.
Thevan Naidoo (Director: Action Learning Services)
www.khanya-aicdd.org
[email protected]
Regional Programme to Strengthen
Managing for Impact (SMIP) in Eastern and
Southern Africa
Presentation to SAMEA conference
21 August 2009
Introduction to Managing for Impact (M4I)
Quick Task
Share in plenary:
 What do you understand by the term ‘impact’?
 Identify some of the barriers to achieving
impact?
 How do you overcome these barriers?
“Impact”
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Changes in the lives of people, as perceived by them
and their partners at the time of monitoring and
evaluation
Change: + or –
Context: Some current barriers to
realizing impact
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Inadequate participation, ownership and
empowerment of the project by communities
Weak situation analysis within communities
Disabling and unfriendly policy & institutional
environment
Inflexibility during implementation of the project
Ineffective service delivery models
Insufficient human resources
Ineffective partnerships with stakeholders
Catastrophes undermining current situations, e.g. climate
change
Context within with M4I was developed
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Increasingly complex and rapidly changing world
Need to combine technical solutions with social and
institutional change
Participation and empowerment of the people
whose lives we claim to change- missing in projects
Movement away from simple project mode to
programmes/public private partnerships etc
Increasing pressure for donors to justify investments,
e.g. IFAD evaluation in 2000
Managing for
Impact
Paradigms & M4I
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Paradigms –
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A world view, a general perspective, a way of breaking
down the complexity of the real world.
Different people have different “lens’” through which to
view the world- influenced by their experience, culture,
history etc.
The “lens” through which reality is viewed will often
determine what that reality is to an individual
Therefore…

M4I recognizes the importance of being clear about the
underlying paradigm that influences the use of a
particular strategy/approach/methodology/ tool
M4I Pillars (basis of the Capacity
Building)
Guiding the
Project
Strategy
Towards
impact
Creating a
Learning
Environment
Impact
Ensuring
Effective
Operations
Guiding the strategy
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Being clear and explicit about
theory of change and
intervention logic & strategy
Translating the intervention
logic into operational
guidelines
Facilitating shared
understanding of the
stakeholders
Improving strategies based on
learning and feedback
Design is an ongoing process
(initial design, start-up, during
implementation)
Guiding
the
Project
Strategy
Towards
impact
Being clear about the theory of change
Ensuring Effective Operations

Covering core operations:
staffing, taking care of equipment, goods and
office buildings, managing contracts, financial
tracking and audits, and more. The annual work
plan and budget is to reflect all these and more
basic management procedures.
Establishing procedures for feedback on operations
Managing information & communication
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Ensuring
Effective
Operations
Creating a learning environment
Working effectively with the “people” processes:
 Creating spaces for analysing and critically
reflecting on experiences
 Ensuring that the views of all those affected by the
project are listened to and heard
 Enabling meaningful participation
 Providing incentives and removing the disincentives
for constructive criticism & critical reflection
Creating a
Learning
Environment
Levels of learning
Context
Assumptions
Actions
Results
Single-Loop Learning
Are we doing things right?
Double-Loop Learning
Are we doing the right things?
Triple-Loop Learning
How do we decide what is right?
Monitoring & Evaluation
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Ensuring that M&E processes effectively contribute to:
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Guiding the project strategy
Ensuring effective operations
Creating a learning environment
Utilising M&E for:
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Strategic management
Operational management
Knowledge creation
Empowerment
Accountability
Changing the M&E Perspective
Shifting Paradigms, methodologies, approaches & tools
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M&E is mainly for the external
funding body
Focus on activity & financial
reporting
Lots of data & little analysis
Little learning
Little stakeholder participation
M&E is about highly qualified
technical experts conducting
statistical studies
M&E is boring and not very
useful for project
staff/beneficiaries
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M&E is for everybody involved
in the initiative
M&E helps in understanding
impact & reasons for
success/failure
Analysis & critical reflection to
improve the initiative
Learning is a key function of
M&E
People processes – lots of
stakeholder participation
M&E is active, interesting and
useful to all involved in an
initiative
M&E Made Simple
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What
Why
So what
Now What
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(has succeeded or failed)
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(have we had success or
failure)
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(what are the implications
for the project)
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(What action will we now
take to make improvements
Towards Managing for Impact
Management
Management
Design
Design
M&E
M&E
How Managing for Impact addresses
current barriers to realizing impact
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Development initiatives based on clear understanding of
development paradigms and theories of change
Rigorous situation analysis fully owned by local stakeholders
Enabling organisational and institutional contexts that operate in a
participatory and inclusive manner
Development initiatives that are responsive and flexible in adapting
to changing circumstances & able to cope and respond to shocks
appropriately
Development initiatives demonstrating that they reach communities,
add value, and can be upscaled
Improved human and organisation capacity
Stakeholders working together in effective partnerships through the
impact chain
Development interventions engaging consciously and critically with
power relations and promote transparent processes
How is MfI different/similar to other
approaches
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MfI is not about the use of any one tool/method – it is about
the use of appropriate tools/methods depending on the
context, principles & paradigms
MfI draws on tools/methods of many other approaches, such
as the Logical Framework Approach, Sustainable Livelihoods
Approach, PRA tools
MfI plays equal weight to technical approaches & people
processes in all four focus areas
MfI is a holistic, learning oriented and participatory approach
to the design and management of pro-poor initiatives
Key Messages
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MfI is not so much about the use of specific tools/methods as it is
about the underlying principles & paradigms of the way in which
tools/methods are used
MfI pays equal importance to both the people processes and the
technical approaches used in managing pro poor initiatives
MfI is about facilitating cultures of learning
MfI is about making the obscure clear and continually questioning
assumptions (why are we doing this, what are our internal theories?)
Paradigms are fundamental in influencing design and implementation
as well as individual behavior in teams, organisations and processes.
Changes in attitudes and behavior require shifts in paradigms first
and foremost if changes are to be sustainable
An exclusively technical information and external accountabilityoriented approach needs to be replaced by an actor-specific
learning approach
A learning oriented process
Services provided by Khanya-aicdd in relation to M&E
Capacity building & Training:
1. Annual M4I regional training
2. In-house tailor made training
Technical support:
1. Design of Participatory M&E systems
2. Conduct M&E (Programme; Project)
Publication and Dissemination
Where have we implemented M4I
(2007- 2009)
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Conducted 3 regional 10- day training courses
(Nairobi, Lesotho, Ethiopia; SA in Sept 2009)
Support to SANReMP (Government of Lesotho)
Support to MUVI (Government of Tanzania)
Design and implementation of the M&E for the Right
to Work pilot projects (South Africa)
Design of M&E planning framework for Oxfam
America agricultural rural livelihoods programme in
Mozambique
Design of a Social Impact Assessment Tool (SIAT) for
DSD (N.Cape)
Role play amongst women famers in rural Mozambique
Thank you for your time!
Questions?
Comments?
Reflections?
Alternative views?