An overview of what seems to work
and what to do from now to final
evaluation
Fletcher Tembo, Mwananchi Programme Director
10th May, 2012, Lusaka, Zambia
Order of Presentation
• Definitions – important ones
• Mwananchi by design
• 11 Issues/ characteristics of
Mwananchi results
• Tools we have developed
• Next steps (2012/13)
2
Defining governance
Governance refers to the formation and stewardship
of the formal and informal rules that regulate the
public realm, the arena in which state as well as
economic and societal actors interact to make
decisions.” Hyden, G. et al 2007)
Emphasis on ‘rules of the game’
3
Some definitions (b)
• Institutions : rules of the game which “structure
incentives in human exchange, whether political,
social, or economic” (North, 1990, p.3).
• Incentives : “rewards and punishments that
individuals perceive to be related to their actions and
those of others” (Gibson et al, 2005, p. 8)
4
GTF Background
• Open call for proposals for organisations to work on the
selected issues in each country
• Maximum of ten projects for each country in order to
enable deeper action learning and plan to scale-up through
• Three funding phases for the same organisations – with
different learning emphases
Phase 1 (2009/10): Building consensus on the broad
theory of change and issues, designing funding/ capacity
development mechanisms/ looking at innovations
Phase 2 (2010/11): Identifying game changers
(interlocutors) and learning to connect – building coalitions
Phase 3 (2012/13): Exploring supply vs demand side
intervention links (examining quality of citizen engagement
and state responses)
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Mwananchi Theory of Change (in part)
Governments in 6
African countries are
more responsive and
accountable to citizens
Increased ability of game changers
(civil society, media and elected
representatives) to enable citizens to
effectively express their views and
hold governments to account
Enhanced institutional
role clarity and play by
interlocutors
6
Synergetic actions
among interlocutors –
drawing on
comparative
advantages
Enhanced effectiveness
in policy influence
through use of
research-based
evidence
Characterising results and how they
come about
Some lessons from projects
implemented across the Six
Mwananchi countries
7
1. Context matters
• Multi-party democracy – politics based more on
informal than formal rules
• Culture – role of women and youths
• Demographic shifts – increasing youth engagement
• Globalisation and the ‘iphone’/ ‘G’ networking
8
2. Theories of change
The question ‘how did we
get here?’ informs many
more of the answers to the
question ‘how do we get
from here to there?’
9
Basic Needs Ghana as an example
Draft
Mental
Health Bill
1st
Mental
Health
2nd mental
Policy
health
policy
Chief
Psychiatrist
BN is
established
1983 1996
10
2002
2004
1st
Reading
2nd
Reading
MPs
visit
to
UK
Bill
passed
though
yet to be
signed by
President
SNP
government
includes in
manifesto
Funding + CB
support from
Mwananchi
Ghana
Photo Book
Published
2006 2008
2010 2011
2012
3. Interlocutors of CV &A change
What can change rules of
the game in this context?’
and, by implication, ‘who is
a game changer on this
issue?’
11
Working with various interlocutors
•
•
•
•
Media
Traditional authorities
Civil society
Elected representatives
– (MPs)
– Councillors
But these are not the only ones: -
12
4. From interlocutors
to interlocution
• What interlocutors do in a particular governance
dynamic is more important than the label that
they are associated with
• The interlocution process is complex
• Our analysis needs to follow this complexity
around different issues and contexts
13
5. Local politics matters
Embedding politics back into
the socio-cultural roots of
societies
14
15
16
17
A woman of Luwero district
humbly question the duty
bearers kneeling in a culturally
accepted manner
6. Dealing with hanging policies
Dealing with hanging, overgeneralised or otherwise
ambiguous policy frameworks
that often create room for
corruption
19
7. Marginality and voice
We need to unpack ‘marginality
and voice’
20
Engaging school children in Masindi,
Uganda
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8. Creating dialogue mechanisms
Creating mechanisms where
dialogue can take place –
generating new relationships,
partnerships for change, new
rules that work
Wherefore the formal local
governance institutions?
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9. Role of Research-based Evidence
• Evidence creates a basis for negotiation – moving
away from personalising/ over politicising engagement
• However evidence uptake is also linked to
- Politics of debates (Emma’s work)
- Credibility of organisations – how do we build it?
- Research skills – which can take care of threats to
validity (e.g. through triangulation)
- Communication skills
- Etc – to be revealed further through governance
experts work
23
10. Capacity building
• It seems training as capacity building plays a role but
what works much more are the mentoring/
‘accompainment’ methods
• The greatest capacity is in learning to network with
others that have capacities in areas where we do not
have
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11. A lot of work has gone into
relationship building
• A lot of good work is around relationship building and
creating opportunities for engagement – less so
higher up the results chain
This might be a good thing –depending on how one
looks at it
25
Voice and Accountability Results
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Narrative Summary
Verifiable Indicators BASELINE
2
2009/10
PURPOSE
Increased ability of civil 1) # of CSOs, media,
society, media and
elected reps and
elected representatives traditional leaders
to enable citizens to
take citizens views
effectively express their into account e.g.
views and hold
Data collection/
governments to account regular hearings/
for their actions
surgeries etc
2) # of pro-poor
policies/ documents
that are formed and
implemented based
on evidence from
CSOs, media and
elected reps
27
8 out of 12 cases
reflect evidence
of citizen views
being taken
effectively into
account
MILESTONE
2011
A minimum A minimum of
of 60 case
90 for all the
studies in all countries
countries
Source(s) of verification
Pilot grantee reports
NCO reports
On average 3
policies per
organisation per
year in each
country
At least 5
policy
documents
per
organisation
per year
Source(s) of verification
Government documents and
reports
3) Evidence of CSOs, Nil
media, elected reps
and traditional
leaders' engagement
with state actors,
some resulting in
improved
government actions
(e.g. change in public
officials' behaviour or
better public
MILESTONE
2012
Evidence of
increase in
effective
engagement
strategies,
and of state
actor
behavioural
change for
each of the
grantee
TARGET
2013/14
Assumptions
i)
Constitutiona
l and legal
provisions
promote
citizen rights
Collected when and by whom to be
Mwananchi Country Coordinator: respected
and voices of
Quarterly, biannually and
the poor to
annually
be heard on
governance
issues
At least 8 policy
documents per
local
organisation per
year
A minimum sum
of 120 case
studies in all
countries
At least 10
policy
documents per
organisation per
year
Collected when and by whom
Mwananchi Country Coordinaotr:
Quarterly, biannually and
annually
Evidence of
increase in
effective
engagement
strategies, and
of state actor
behavioural
change for each
of the grantee
organisations
Evidence of
increase in
effective
engagement
strategies, and
of state actor
behavioural
change for each
of the grantee
organisations
ii) Prevailing
formal and
informal
rules of
engagement
continue to
promote
space for civil
society,
media and
elected rep
Tools that we have generated
• Outcome Mapping
• LFA + OM + PEA
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Status of Outcome Mapping
“Outcome Mapping focuses on one type of result:
outcomes as behavioural change. Outcomes are defined
as changes in behaviour, relationships, or actions of the
people, groups and organisations with whom a program
works directly” Earl et al, 2001) OM Manual.
• All country programmes are using OM in various
forms, and emerge with results in their quarterly
reports
• Rating and consolidation of results still a challenge
• Consultants (Kevin and Donna) are helping with this
but delayed
29
Political Economy Analysis (PEA)
“Political economy analysis is concerned
with the interaction of political and
economic processes in a society: the
distribution of power and wealth between
different groups and individuals, and the
processes that create, sustain and
transform these relationships over
time” DFID (2009, p.5)
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PEA is concerned with . . .
• The interests and incentives facing different groups
in society (and particularly political elites), and how
these generate particular policy outcomes that may
encourage or hinder development.
• The role that formal institutions (e.g. rule of law,
elections) and informal social, political and
cultural norms play in shaping human interaction
and political and economic competition.
• The impact of values and ideas, including political
ideologies, religion and cultural beliefs, on political
behaviour and public policy.
DFID, 2009, p.5
31
Log Frame + OM + PEA
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Research within action research:
Governance Experts work
CSOs
33
A
What kinds/ nature/ types of Citizen Voice &
Accountability (CV & A) results do these
interlocutors (each looked at separately and then
alongside others) achieve?
B
What exactly seems to be happening for these
interlocutors to achieve or be associated with these
results (what do they tend to do, how do they tend
to do it)?
C
What are some of the specific and broader
circumstances under which these results seem to be
occurring? Are they completely coincidental or part
of the wider impact of the results of interlocutor’s
initiatives?
D
Out of the many strategies being used by the
different interlocutors, which ones seem to be
useful for sustaining positive changes and scaling
them up?
E
How effective are these interlocutors using
research-based evidence to influence policy
processes and engage citizens? Which specific
aspects, types, forms and representations of
research-based evidence seem to work well, under
what circumstances?
Media
TAs
MPs
Questions around marginality:
governance experts work
– How is marginality understood in this context
(using the general categories of youths, women
and people living with disability)?
– How does marginality affect the expression of
citizenship in these contexts (how do the
marginalised try to make their way to the centre of
decision making and resource access/ distribution,
and how do those at the centre respond to these
attempts by the marginalised)?
– Are there specific strategies that interlocutors are
using in order to change rules of the game towards
empowered citizenship for the marginalised? Which
interlocutors make this to happen and how do they
do it?
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Looking to the future: 2012-13
• Consolidate on results – move up the chain to
purpose/ impact levels (attribution will be tricky as we
go up the chain)
• Improve quality of OM frameworks, especially
documentation and reporting – linked to evidence
gathering
• Critically examine demand-supply linkages (citizenstate relations/ transformations
• Improve on the PEA +OM+ LFA framework
• Active sharing of lessons learnt – understand
sustainability
• Manage final evaluation
35
Thank you!
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