Outcome-Based Conditionality: Too Good To Be True?

Author: Nuria Molina. Date: 2008. Size: 42 pages

“Does linking aid disbursement to a results agenda (outcome-based conditionality) actually build recipient ownership and development effectiveness? This report for the European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD) analyses the different interpretations of outcome-based aid delivery adopted by the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Commission (EC). It examines EC experience in piloting the approach in Burkina Faso, Mozambique and Tanzania. Outcome-based conditionality is a strategic step towards giving recipients ownership of their own development. However, experience is limited and it is hard to tell if there has been any real impact on poverty reduction.”

(From the Governance and Social Development Resource Centre Email Bulletin, Issue No 59, 16th July 2008)

Does Empowerment Work?

“Does Empowerment Work?: Underlying concepts and the experience of two community empowerment programs in Cambodia and Tanzania ” (2008), by Aldo Benini.

This book length document “investigates the effectiveness in poor rural societies of a concept of modernity that has enjoyed an explosive career over the past fifty years – empowerment. From rich-nation self-help movements to the liberation of historically oppressed groups, programs claiming to give power to the powerless are legion. Often they are mixed with other normative master frames and social technologies such as human rights or micro-finance. Continue reading “Does Empowerment Work?”

Efficient linking of lists in humanitarian data management

“Aldo Benini has produced a technical note reviewing efficient ways of linking lists when the linkage variables (e.g. name of person, village) have significant spelling differences, or the lists are of different size.

Abstract: ”Relief workers sometimes have to match two or more lists of persons (food aid recipients, camp populations, missing persons, patients, etc.) or localities (villages of origin; populated places in two administrative gazetteers). The identifying information (name, address, document numbers) may be held in spreadsheets or databases, but may defy immediate matching, notably because of spelling differences. Automated record linkage procedures can speed up the process greatly while manual verification of dubious cases remains important. With lists obtained from a community empowerment program in Tanzania, I demonstrate how the linkage works, using one method in a popular spreadsheet application, and another in a statistical program.” – The paper can be downloaded from http://aldo-benini.org/Level2/humanitarian_data_analysis.htm. Continue reading “Efficient linking of lists in humanitarian data management”

Tracing Power and Influence in Networks:Net-Map as a Tool for Research and Strategic Network Planning

Eva Schiffer and Douglas Waale
Discussion Paper No. 772 June 2008
Related Resource Net-Map Toolbox Blog

Abstract: Believing that complex problems call for complex solutions and that stakeholders should have a say in policies that concern them, policymakers have strongly promoted the development of forums and organizations made up of many stakeholders to address complex governance issues such as water management. Both developing and developed countries have instituted multistakeholder water governance bodies on local, national, and international levels. However, while the belief is strong that these integrated bodies should improve governance, how and to what extent that actually happens is still unclear, not only because of the complexity of the matter but also due to a lack of appropriate research tools for the analysis of complex governance systems.
Continue reading “Tracing Power and Influence in Networks:Net-Map as a Tool for Research and Strategic Network Planning”

4th UK Social Networks conference

Date: Friday 18 July 2008 – Sunday 20 July 2008
Venue: University of Greenwich, London

“The UK Social Network Conference offers an interdisciplinary venue for social and behavioral scientists, sociologists, educationalists, political scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists, practitioners and others to present their work in the area of social networks. The primary objective of the Conference is to facilitate interactions between the many different disciplines interested in network analysis. The Conference provides a unique opportunity for the dissemination and debate of recent advances in theoretical and experimental network research.”

Editor’s note: I have included this event because I think social network analysis tools are very relevant to the task of describing and evaluating development project plans and progress. See more on this issue here http://mande.co.uk/special-issues/network-models/

AfrEA-NONIE-3ie International Conference on Impact Evaluation for Development Effectiveness

Date: 30 March -3 April 2009
Venue: Cairo, Egypt

“After four very successful conferences over the past few years (held twice in Nairobi, in Cape Town and in Niamey), AfrEA wishes to announce that its Fifth Conference will be an international event hosted in partnership with NONIE (www.worldbank.org/ieg/nonie) and 3ie (www.3ieimpact.org).

…the AfrEA-NONIE-3ie International Conference on Impact Evaluation for Development Effectiveness, which will be held on 30 March-3 April 2009 in Cairo, Egypt. This is the first time an AfrEA event will be held in North Africa. Continue reading “AfrEA-NONIE-3ie International Conference on Impact Evaluation for Development Effectiveness”

Annual Praxis Commune on Participatory Development

Date: 19th – 28th August, 2008
Venue: KILA Campus, Thrissur (Kerala), India

This residential workshop acts as a forum for participants from across the world to come together for reflection and learning. It provides both, a theoretical understanding of participatory approaches/tools as well as the opportunity to apply them in the field. The ten days include general and specific module based theory, three days in various rural, peri-urban and urban field settings, as appropriate to the module content and finally a sharing, reflection and feedback session. Continue reading “Annual Praxis Commune on Participatory Development”

A Guide to Monitoring and Evaluation of Nutrition Assessment, Education and Counseling of People Living With HIV

The Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance (FANTA) Project is pleased to announce the release of A Guide to Monitoring and Evaluation of Nutrition Assessment, Education and Counseling of People Living With HIV. The guide provides guidance and tools to support programs in monitoring and evaluating nutrition interventions for people living with HIV government health system staff who are responsible for designing and implementing M&E systems. The guide can be used to select indicators, set targets, plan data collection and tabulation processes and interpret and use the information obtained.

Support for this guide was provided by USAID/East Africa and USAID’s Bureau for Global Health’s Office of Health, Infectious Disease and Nutrition.

The guide can be downloaded from FANTA’s website at www.fantaproject.org.

Impact assessment: Drivers, dilemmas and deliberations

Prepared for Sightsavers International by Jennifer Chapman & Antonella Mancini
jenny.chapman@tiscali.co.uk antonella.mancini@blueyonder.co.uk 9 pages 10th April 2008

“This paper investigates key debates and issues around impact assessment and performance measurement for UK development NGOs. It was originally written for Sightsavers to stimulate debate and thinking among staff, Board and senior management team. This version has been amended to be relevant for a wider NGO audience. It is based on the authors’ many years experience, reading of key documents and 11 interviews with informants selected because they are inluential in these debates and/or they have first hand experience of trying to implement impact assessment or performance measurement systems within NGOs. The paper has been put together in a relatively short period of time and does not claim to be based on rigorous research.”

Training on Evaluation of Sustainability, by EASY-ECO Saarland

Date: 20th to 24th October, 2008
Venue: Saarbrücken, Germany

The next training opportunity within the EASY-ECO series of conferences and training courses will be held from 20th to 24th October, 2008 in Saarbrücken, Germany. The training will focus on the areas of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of regional development programmes and evaluation of climate protection initiatives, water management programmes and environmental education. This is the first training with a new structure: an e-learning phase lasting 3-4 months, followed by a 5-day on-site case training (for details, see http://www.sustainability.eu/easy/?k=training&s=germanycourse). Continue reading “Training on Evaluation of Sustainability, by EASY-ECO Saarland”

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