Bonding capital* rules – OK!

Posted on February 9, 2015 by martin

Grace clarifying the question in the first small group discussion

Small group discussion Question 2

At change over time on Saturday, we ran a (rough) participatory budgeting workshop with the eight permanent guards for them to decide how to distribute the $550 donated by our generous neighbours and Australian friends. We designed a process for the barely literate, that is with simple instructions, little written out. Through Grace our interpreter we first asked them to discuss with each other three questions, asked sequentially: How had the big storm effected them? What would they do if they had a little bit of money to aid recovery? How would they demonstrate to each other that they had spent the money in that way?

Allocating funds with sugar sachets

After this process, we provided each with twenty sugar sachets, each worth roughly MK1200. They were to allocate these funds to each other. They were not allowed to allocate funds to themselves. However, after each distributing their 20 sachets they came to a collective realisation that this process had resulted in an uneven distribution of the funds. They demanded an opportunity to do it again. However then they realised it would always result in an uneven distribution, and as they did not want any body to be jealous, they wanted to split the funds equally. We went to great lengths to impress on them that this was their decision, not ours.

The Revolution: When they realised that the process would result in unequal allocation.

On Reflection: The designed process was OK in that they made the decision for equal allocation themselves. However I’m sure we could have designed something different that would have made them come to that decision without it being a revolution. Also even just having the names written was almost certainly too much writing for the (at least) one who was completely illiterate. (e.g.: We should have had photos).

They were all very grateful and wished to thank everyone that had helped them. They collectively decided that within the next two weeks they would each get two friends to visit them to see how they had spent the money and report back.

*Bonding capital : Everyone with similar values – see each other through good and bad times, but don’t dare be different. Linking capital: Essentially all having the same values, but able to accept some individual differences. Bridging capital: Able to acknowledge and accept those with completely different value systems to oneself.

Malawi Floods

Posted on January 29, 2015 by martin

Last week torrential rains hit Southern Malawi. To date it is estimated 175 are dead and 250,000 have been displaced by flood waters. There are dramatic pictures and an official appeal. Concern Universal is becoming increasingly involved in the official response and recovery work.

Nearing the front of the queue for water. Fortunately we went at lunch time on Sunday, when many Malawians are at church AND after three days the water came on that night.

For us the major subsequent inconvenience has been highly erratic water and electricity supply. Most days one, other or both are off for a number of hours. We have been fortunate with only having to go for 3 days without water before the taps worked again. For many in the city it is weeks. Whilst the strong winds and rain did not affect conventional buildings, for those that work in our compound the story is very different.

Also: Ali: He lost a wall to his bathroom and most of his kitchen. Martha: She lost her house. Alfred & Gerard, both lost walls to their houses.

We visited Ali at his house and viewed some of the damage in his neighbourhood. This is (informal) suburban Blantyre.

MB viewing the damage.

Ali’s wife Mazie and son Emanual preparing food in their wrecked kitchen.

Whilst we encourage donations to the official appeal, we have decided to run a collection from those that live in the compound for these ten and their families. Our intention is that on Sun 8th we will run a ‘participatory budgeting’ process where these ten would decide on who to allocate whatever money was raised. Should you feel so inclined you also could send some money to my PayPal account martinbutcher@mac.com. Contributions can be small e.g. $2. These guys monthly wage is $70 p.c.m and anything makes a difference.

Definition

Posted on January 15, 2015 by martin

A friend recently asked ‘what exactly is an impact report’. Good question, but with many answers. if you live in Australia (or probably any other Western democracy), google the name of your local council and search the site for the latest annual report. Near the front will be a statement called ‘Our Vision’. It will probably say something like “….a flourishing community living in harmony with the natural environment and achieving a sustainable and dynamic economic base”. The annual report itself will say how much the new library cost and the number of meals on wheels delivered, but the impact report happens at the next election when the council is either voted back or a new one given a go.

It's a statistic that surely needs to be considered. That the International Labour Organisation

It’s a statistic that surely needs to be considered. When the International Labour Organisation states that more lives are lost in the workplace annually than in war, and that doesn’t even count the number of lives made miserable at work. When will we acknowledge that ‘impact’?

At the National level, there is probably some document that talks about ‘honouring our international obligations’ which gets translated into having an overseas aid budget. A proportion of this aid budget then might be given to a Non Government Organisation (NGO), who has a vision saying something like “We will help the local community flourish, protect and enhance their environment and achieve improved economic livelihoods”. A problem is that it is not the “beneficiaries” of this gesture who vote, but the folks back home. And the Government wants to tell them that their taxes have been spent efficiently, effectively and made a difference. This is where a different form of impact report comes in, and which generally means trying to describe, define and measure something as ephemeral as a ‘flourishing community’.

The standard way to do this is through logframes (sometimes known as ‘theory of change’) and associated indicators. Indicators of achieving a ‘flourishing community’ could be fewer people getting sick, or increased life expectancy. This is fine as long as the situation is relatively simple. Collect the records from the local clinic, construct a borehole, check the clinic records again. Where it gets tricky is working within a complex environment. In other words, how do you claim attribution (or responsibility) that it has been your bore hole that has reduced diarrhoea when there are three other NGO’s doing the same thing and there is nobody in the clinic actually reporting why people are being admitted other than being ‘sick’, and/or another NGO has been training local people to treat simple ailments at home and the weather has been seriously wet?

I think I’ve heard this mantra too many times to take it seriously. Unless it means helping people have an enquiring mind, supporting them to try new things, celebrating failure?

A question for today regarding both situations is whether the ‘impact report’ provided then results in any real learning and change. Or do we just keep trying to do the same thing (albeit with computers and smart phones) whilst hoping for a different result? That different result being not just about bore holes and libraries, but genuinely achieving a ‘flourishing community with a stable economy living in a sustainable natural environment’? And if this is the case, then what do we need to change for us to make a real difference in how we live, work and play? My own tentative suggestion is to enable more people in on both the decision making and the subsequent assessment process of the impact of that decision. “WE made this decision and on reflection it’s sort of worked here, but could have been better there”.

Brick Wall

Posted on December 31, 2014 by martin

Travelling too fast (possibly even recklessly!), come to a corner and slide into a brick wall, only to be left picking up the pieces – metaphorically speaking. Describing the ‘impact’ that an organisations activities have through a staff perspective proved to be a bit like hitting a brick wall at speed. Not the desired impact.

The staple food in Malawi is ground maize meal, cooked into a thick paste called nsima. It’s sometimes referred to as ‘food’ by the locals, because anything else is considered merely ‘relish’, or an accompaniment. Unfortunately whilst nsima is incredibly filling, it is almost completely nutrition free. The consequences of this cultural phenomena are dire. The UNDP writes “Malnutrition remains a challenge and the single biggest contributor to underweight children under the five years of age and child mortality. If the current trend continues, about 32 percent of children will be underweight by 2015 which is 18 per cent more than the (Millenium Development Goal) target.” These children are malnourished because they’re fed an exclusive diet of nsima. Food production and eating are cultural activities, and people only change accepted cultural practice or tradition at their own pace.

Grace scooping nsima out of the pot. Each glutenous pod being a serving.

How we describe the ‘truth’ is equally subject to cultural tradition. Wikipedia states that ‘There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth: what things are truthbearers capable of being true or false; how to define and identify truth; the roles that faith-based and empirically based knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective or objective, relative or absolute.’ In other words whether one prefers the truth as described by a science undergrad or that of Hunter S Thompson is in itself one of cultural tradition. In a complex world with multiple truths, both are more or less right. Difficulties generally arise when the belief is that there is only one truth, in much the same way as believing there is only one food. Despite being a truism, what one believes to be true, is true. Unfortunately a critical factor in todays world is who has the power to define the truth, – even when describing how to identify and describe truth itself.

One story, a type of truth. Livelyhood project staff were asked 'what legacy of your project would you hope to find 2yrs after you've left an area?'. They were then asked 'what chance do you expect your project would achieve each aspect?'. Across the projects, answers were: Economically Empowered Households 70% chance; Effective Community Lead Advocacy 50%; Improved Well Being 70%; Effective local institutions 50%.

Multiple stories leading to an agreed truth. In a workshop I asked Livelyhood project staff ‘What legacy of your project would you hope to find 2yrs after you’ve left an area?’. After grouping their answers, I then asked ‘what chance do you expect your project would achieve each aspect?’. Of those in this photo, answers were: Economically Empowered Households 70% chance; Effective Community Lead Advocacy 50%; Improved Well Being 70%; Effective local institutions 50%.

So, whether an impact report based on staff perceptions of ‘impact’ is more or less true than something with figures and an impression of objectivity is in itself subjective. I say ‘impression’ of objectivity because whilst ‘objectivity’ is the dominant culture of describing ‘truth’, it is still only a cultural tradition, and possibly only relatively appropriate when describing change in a highly complex environment with infinite factors and parameters. So, a bit like telling a Malawian that nsima isn’t that good for them, I’m left surveying the wreckage caused by attempting to describe an organisations ‘impact’ in a different manner to the accepted tradition. Which leaves me wondering how and where to start putting things back together.

Learning Workshop

Posted on November 23, 2014 by martin

Last week I co-facilitated a ‘learning workshop’ with Adam the new Deputy Country Director, for the four livelihoods projects in CU.

We structured the program through looking at four of the OECD measures of program success: Efficiency, Effectiveness, Sustainability and Relevence.

The definition of sustainability caused problems, for the OECD definition relates quite specifically to environmental sustainability during the project lifetime, but the common usage in the organisation defines it more as ‘legacy after the project is completed’. We went for the latter.

I introduced World Cafe as a technique for the session on effectiveness, causing shocked silence when I demonstrated how participants should write on the table cloths (they presumed that the white clothes were the venues, but relaxed when assured that we had bought them for the purpose).

Tenthema (of the sugar out growers capacity building project) giving the discussion summary of the Effectiveness Successes World Cafe table.

At the end of the first day, Adam did an outside exercise of brainstorming and ranking peoples big learnings for the day. He was so impressed with World Cafe that he wanted to use it again on the second day for participants to explore how the top four learnings should be incorporated into new project proposals. I was really impressed with what participants came up with for one of these; and I particularly liked the last sentence of point 10, which I think sums it all up for any development organisation.

Adam directing participants on the brainstorm & ranking exercise used at the end of the first day

EMPOWERING LOAL STRUCTURES TO CARRY OUT MOST OF THE ACTIVITIES – LESS PARTICIPATION BY CU STAFF

CU to play an advisory/mentorship role in assisting beneficiaries or local organisations through awareness, sensitization, training instead of doing things for them
Identify local organisations/beneficiaries, social groups to work with
The identified local organisations need to participate in the need assessment e.g PRA (participatory research & analysis)
Need to assess their capacities e.g. financial, technical, social, literacy etc
Build local organisations capacity to address their identified gaps
Promote self assessment of local organisations
Provide strategic sub-grants to local organisations
Develop coherent M&E to track the management of sub-grants
Community Advocacy should be emphasized e.g CAI
Focus entry point should be through CBOs (community based organisations) as they are more focused on what they are doing. Will require change of CU system

Martin Butcher

Community Engagement – Planning and Consultation

Author Archives: martin

Bonding capital* rules – OK!

Malawi Floods

Definition

Brick Wall

Learning Workshop