D R A F T
CARE BANGLADESH PROGRAM REVIEW AND ACTION
April 26-28, 2009
Koitta
INTRODUCTION
CARE Bangladesh’s strategic plan for 2002-2006 set the organization towards a rights based approach. Over time this led to a focus on poorer and more marginalized populations that most development actors do not reach. It also led to an emphasis on social and political analysis to understand the underlying causes of poverty and marginalization.
The strategic plan for 2007-2011 followed on from previous one, but is far more ambitious in what it attempts to achieve. In this plan CARE Bangladesh has framed a new mission statement with greater emphasis on the voices of poor and marginalized; using our grassroots experience to build knowledge, and influencing public opinion, development practice and policy. The new strategic plan also highlights CARE’s intent to contribute to exponential impact. This has led to the articulation of a strategic direction around building a learning culture, and another on building organizational relevance.
The focus on deeper impact and building a learning culture along with findings from the Strategic Impact Inquiry on women’s empowerment led to the construction of a strategic programming framework within a program approach. CARE Bangladesh constructed four long term programs called impact statements, each focused on a broad population group, called the impact group. These impact groups are overlapping, with the most marginalized women and girls at the center. The choice of these four impact groups represents CARE Bangladesh’s journey since 2001 towards greater impact on the lives of poorer and more marginalized groups, and to address the underlying causes of poverty and marginalization.
The conceptual framework of the impact statements has been built using the analysis and programming experience of CARE and other actors in Bangladesh. The impact statements represent CARE Bangladesh’s four long term programs and they will drive our programming over the next 10-15 years. Drawing on our best knowledge of what works, theories of change have been developed for each impact statement. They will be refined and tested over time. A measurement and learning system is being constructed to enable CARE Bangladesh to measure and construct evidence about the breadth and depth of the impact our work is contributing to. This is linked to CARE’s global Ubora system.
The construction of the conceptual framework of the impact statements is a key part of work for the strategic direction on organizational relevance and identity (see strategic direction 1 in Annex 1), which will begin to be created around our four impact groups and the issues associated with significant improvements in their lives. Aligning all CARE Bangladesh’s work with the impact statements represents for CARE Bangladesh the shift to a program approach. On this journey, CARE Bangladesh has been selected as one among eight learning labs, which brings with it, both additional support from CARE USA and others, as well as the responsibility to reflect and share our experience widely in the CARE world.
The main objectives of the Program Strategy Review and Action meeting in Koitta focused on building a shared understanding of the strategic programming framework and reaching agreement on priorities for CARE Bangladesh to enable the shift to a program approach within this framework. In addition, following the Koitta meeting, sessions were organized at CARE Bangladesh headquarters on April 27th and 28th to identify key behaviors among senior staff that would support the shift to a program approach.
The participants at the meeting consisted of 35 people at mid and senior levels from around the country offices. In addition, we were joined by visitors from CARE USA (Kevin Henry, Senior Director, Sustainable Livelihoods Cluster; Natalie Hicks, Deputy Director – Program Quality, ARMU; Meg Burns, Director Global Staff and Organizational Development, CARE USA; Rebecca Waugh, Senior Advisor Global Support and Partnership, CARE USA; and Cathy Emery, Cathy Emery, Program Quality Advisor – Mekong, CARE Australia. The participant list is attached as Annex 2.
The shift to a program approach involves changes in almost every aspect of CARE Bangladesh’s work. Guided by discussions at the Asia Regional Program Quality meeting held in Bangladesh in January 2008 CARE Bangladesh identified and adopted eight work streams (areas of work) that were seen as important to the shift to a program approach. CARE Bangladesh’s learning lab plan for the shift to a program approach is structured around these eight work streams. Work has begun on four of them to date. At Koitta, it was not possible to talk about the detail of all the work streams, however, this report and the learning lab action plan will follow the structure of these eight streams to facilitate consistency with the action plan.
In the following pages, for each work stream we will describe a) the priorities under the work stream; b) the focus of the Koitta conversation (if discussed); and c) actions and priorities agreed, in particular actions for FY10.
WORK STREAM A. DEFINING AND CONCEPTUALIZING IMPACT STATEMENTSWHAT THIS WORK STREAM IS ABOUT
The focus in this work stream is the work required to conceptualize and construct the impact statements. This process started in CARE Bangladesh in 2007 with the identification of the four overlapping impact groups that CARE Bangladesh’s long term programming efforts would focus on. Each impact statement has three sections: i) Analysis to support it (underlying causes; description of manifestations of poverty and marginalization; and vulnerability analysis)[1]; ii) Program practice (the impact vision/ goal, the theory of change, key breakthroughs and key strategies and approaches); iii) Learning and Impact (monitoring macro trends; measuring impact; monitoring progress of key domains of change and validity of the theory of change). For each impact statement CARE Bangladesh is developing a one-page summary capturing the main points in these three areas and a detailed 20 page discussion paper.
All of the analysis for these impact statements was drawn from various project documents and sessions with Dhaka based and field staff in Rangpur and Dinajpur, Sunamganj, Tangail and Bagerhat. In addition, wellbeing analysis conducted by the Shouhardo project and the Nijera pilot; the Strategic Impact Inquiry studies conducted by large groups of field teams involving almost 90 field researchers and numerous program participants; vulnerability analysis from the RVCC project, and gender and VAW analysis in the Protirodh and PHL projects was used extensively. The design process used for the SETU project, which included both field and Dhaka processes was instrumental in consolidating our thinking about extreme poverty. At the time of the Koitta meeting, one-page summaries for each impact statement and discussions papers for two of the impact statements had been drafted.
FOCUS OF DISCUSSIONS AT KOITTA
Discussions at Koitta for this work stream focused on the theories of change (TOC) and breakthroughs for two of the impact statements. The organizers felt that while senior staff had good knowledge on the four population groups, understanding or knowledge about the theories of change was inconsistent. As the TOC represent the heart of the impact statements, it is very important that all senior staff understand them well, and that they drive program development at CARE Bangladesh.
In relation to breakthroughs, as CARE Bangladesh is one of the first country offices to develop breakthroughs, little is known about what these represent. The conversation at Koitta produced some key insights into breakthroughs and their importance. While we are good at achieving incremental change, articulating breakthroughs can help us achieve much greater impact. They can help set ambition and dramatically increase the scale of our impact (both breadth and depth).
Some important characteristics of breakthroughs:§ Breakthroughs represent a change that affects the breadth of our impact on our impact group (significant and increasing numbers of our impact group – an increasing trend) as well as the depth of impact (level of wellbeing or transformation in the lives of our impact group);
§ Over time they will help construct our identity and relevance in the country;
§ Breakthroughs can be planned or occur spontaneously and be then used to galvanize or focus action;
§ A breakthrough is only a breakthrough is we use it as one.
Staff are encouraged to discuss these points with each other to develop greater clarity on the significance of breakthroughs
An example of a five-year breakthrough identified at the Koitta meeting for the impact statement focused on extremely poor people in rural areas is: Legislation passed requiring UPs to have representation of EP on most of their standing committees.
A third key issue discussed in relation to this work stream is the terminology around our program participants and various other actors. In the transition to a program approach that puts people at the center, it has become increasingly important for CARE Bangladesh to develop consistent terminology to describe various people and groups. The terminology being used by CARE Ethiopia and a few other country offices has been adopted: Impact groups, Target Groups and Stakeholders.
KEY COMMITMENTS AND ACTION
Key actions include completing the conceptual development of the impact statements, including investing in assistance for analysis related to the impact statements focused on urban marginalized groups and people and communities prone to disaster and environmental change. In addition, agreement was reached on the preparation of a set of Technical Strategy Papers for the impact statements. The reason for developing these papers is to ensure that we employ strategies that are most likely to result in the change we seek in the lives of our impact groups (and not just continue to do what we have been doing). It is also important that we continue to ensure technical excellence in the most relevant technical areas related to the theories of change in our impact statements. It was agreed that technical strategy papers would be developed for the following technical areas: Governance; Economic Empowerment; Health (including reproductive and sexual health); Food Security and Nutrition; and Education for Empowerment. In addition, a paper will be developed on Operational Strategies and Approaches, covering CARE Bangladesh’s approach to community mobilization (the community led approach), site selection, spatial spread, partnerships, sequencing of activities, and scale up. Two additional commitments under this work stream were added to initial ideas brought into the meeting: to review the Gender Analysis Framework to align it with the analysis in the impact statements, and the findings from the women’s empowerment SII; and to develop the “Mothers Matter” Signature Program Strategy in alignment with the impact statements and CARE Bangladesh operational strategies and approaches.
WORK STREAM B. DEVELOPING AND USING IMPACT MEASUREMENT AND LEARNING SYSTEMS AND STANDARDS
WHAT THIS WORK STREAM IS ABOUT
The Program Impact Measurement and Learning system is part of the country office measurement and learning system being constructed, linked to CARE’s global Ubora system. There are three parts of the country office measurement and learning system: Program Impact, Program Process and Program Support. This work stream is about constructing and using the impact measurement piece of the measurement system (however, may be expanded later to include the other two sections too). The impact measurement framework associated with each impact statement will include i) measurement of key macro trends related to that impact group; ii) measurement of impact for each impact group; iii) monitoring of incremental change and progress towards breakthroughs; and iv) monitoring assumptions and reflection on the continued validity of each theory of change. The impact measurement piece of this system will work at multiple levels: local (household, community, union); regional; and aggregated to national level (across the country). The system will measure impact in terms of breadth (numbers reached directly and indirectly) and depth (the level of wellbeing or transformation).
FOCUS OF DISCUSSIONS AT KOITTA
This work stream was not discussed further at Koitta. However, discussions in relation to program development highlighted the urgent need to complete the design for the country office measurement and learning system and the need to measure impact at the level of each key operational region.
KEY COMMITMENTS AND ACTION
While this work stream was not discussed at Koitta, it requires high priority and focused attention and technical support in FY10 to be able to fulfill the promise of being able to capture evidence of CARE’s contributions to impact, to test the theories of change, and to learn from CARE Bangladesh’s shift to a program approach. It will also be an area of work where significant capacity will need to be built over the next two fiscal years, and the demands of the system and are going to require investment and consideration of changes in structure.
A key focus of the work in this work stream relates to completing the design of the country office measurement and learning system linked to the global Ubora system, which will involve finalizing breakthroughs, indicators, and outlining levels of work and methods. External assistance will be required in FY10 for this. The risk of not getting good assistance are significant: i) we could end up with a system that is simply too heavy and complex to be of much use (it takes a lot of experience and skill to pull together a useful and light system); ii) it may take too long to develop the system, and we will miss the opportunity of ensuring that our newest projects develop M&E systems that are consistent with the country office measurement framework. In the week following the Koitta meeting, with assistance from Michael Drinkwater, the PQ team discussed some of the challenges or constructing the country office measurement and learning system. This conversation was then deepened in Nepal, and has led to an emerging set of principles for guiding the development of cost-effective and feasible impact measurement and learning systems.
WORK STREAM C. OPERATIONALIZING AND LEARNING FROM THE PROGRAM APPROACH ON THE GROUND
WHAT THIS WORK STREAM IS ABOUT
This work stream is at the heart of the program shift and will drive much of the work under the remaining work streams. The impact statements describe a conceptual framework and analysis that will guide all of CARE Bangladesh’s programming over the next 10-15 years. Through their focus on impact groups, they will help us hold ourselves accountable to changes in the lives of these populations. They are different to projects in the sense that the impact statements are not implemented as separate programs ground, but rather, they interact and overlap and are operationalized in regional programs through sets of projects (CARE and others). This is an important difference because it has important implications for our programming: