Resilience Building and the Theory of Change – Accelerating Resilience (3 of 3)

Building resilience into Somalia multi-sectoral humanitarian programming.
The “Change Statement” for this Somalia is based on our ability to provide, or support the provision of basic health, nutrition and education services. Within this theory we are not looking directly at longer term developmental change within the area of operations but rather, a sustainable change within the programme – building governance capacity, gender equality and community resilience within the three core programmes of Health, Nutrition and Education (creating a multi-sectoral approach to Resilience).

This approach is based on an understanding of Resilience as “the ability of an individual, a household or a community exposed to hazard to withstand, adapt to and recover from the effects of the hazard in a timely and efficient manner”, but it extends it – in line with definitions of Resilience adopt by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of hazard in a timely/efficient manner ) and The Resilience Alliance (The capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change ); where the definition includes systems & society.

There are three core programmes (Health, Nutrition and education), each of which has its own specific Theory of Change – practically designed to focus on the provision, or support for the provision of basic services to the population as the Somali national political structures develop, the federal states form and the local authorities move to a status of political representation. This will take many years so under the first of what will be several Theories of Change the focus is on building the capacity of the Staff, Systems and Structures within these basic services as a foundation for future programming, including specific opportunities to consolidate the three programmes around:
• preventative and protective programming that aligns the target beneficiaries across each programme,
• prioritising the Governance and Gender elements of each programme,
• target TB patients. HIV is not that prevalent in southern Somalia where as TB as a communicable disease that requires daily, prolonged treatment (8-12 months) has a greater impact on marginalisation of the person and disrupted livelihoods as the patient (and family) becomes an informal IDP for the duration of the treatment,
• humanitarian readiness (given the continuing humanitarian crisis in Somalia)
• building resilience through the systems and structures that support both basic services and the surge capacity to respond to the ill-health and malnutrition consequences of a humanitarian crisis.

The Humanitarian Readiness approach focuses on the Theories of Change for the three programmes – building the Staff, Systems and Structure so that the capacity exists to increase services should the demand increase. This is in line with the Resilience approach, outlined for our Nutrition programme and based on the experience of Trócaire in East Africa in Resilience-grounded programmes.

This application of a Resilience Theory of Change is based on the overall Health & Nutrition programme. Drawing on the research conducted in the aftermath of the 2011/12 drought in East Africa, which defined resilience in a humanitarian context as “the ability of an individual, a household or a community exposed to hazard to withstand, adapt to and recover from the effects of the hazard in a timely and efficient manner”.

There is a link between the capacity (building & delivery) element of the Health Theory and that of the Nutrition Theory. This captures the inter-dependency at staffing level within the District Health services for all illness-types and the acknowledgement that nutrition is a medical condition and that nutritional treatment (through fortified foods and stabilisation services) is a medical/health service and that it is their responsibility to provide these services. And there is a link between the Health Theory and both the Education and Nutrition Theories in encouraging a change in attitude – within the:
• family towards good diet, domestic hygiene, breast-feeding, etc.
• community-based health workers that work directly with families in indentifying malnutrition and so, who are best placed to support families in addressing poor nutrition and hygiene practices as a preventative/protective approach to malnutrition; and
• District Health staff in their acceptance of malnutrition as an illness and their responsibility to manage the supplies as they would drugs and treat the patients as they would any other

And, to fully integrate the sectoral based programmes, there are key linkages between the Education programme and both the Health and Nutrition programmes at the capacity-to-attitude stage of the theory of change. The education theory allows us to target beneficiaries more effectively and reach them in a more protective/preventive way, complementing the response capacity of the Health & Nutrition Programmes.

When building resilience in a humanitarian context it is vital that the relief acts as an accelerator to existing longer-term programming and not simply as a standalone intervention.

It is most likely that Somalia will encounter another humanitarian crisis during this strategic period – whether political, security or environmental as drought is forecast and Somalia is still at Crisis levels from the 2011 famine).

Readiness and Resilience will form the basis of the response to humanitarian crisis leveraging the established programmes – Health providing care to those suffering ill health from any crisis, Nutrition being the surge-response providing protective and responsive assistance to malnourished people and Education as a targeting mechanism to identify those most vulnerable through the community structures and the school capacity.

The Readiness approach focuses on the Theories of Change for the three programmes – building the Staff, Systems and Structure so that the capacity exists to increase services should the demand increase. This is in line with the Resilience approach, outlined for our Nutrition programme and based on the experience of Resilience-grounded programmes

Resilience Building and the Theory of Change – Introducing Innovation (2 of 3)

Kenya Arid & Semi-Arid lands (ASALs):
The rationale supporting the design of this programme was to increase household and community resilience by producing surpluses through better husbandry and diversification and developing collective storage mechanisms in the context of better post-harvest management. By leveraging the integrated experience of Livelihoods with Governance and Human Rights (GHR) programming, allowed for the incorporation of activities to stimulate conflict transformation and strengthen accountability in the use of devolved public funds in order to achieve greater impact in livelihoods and resilience. Resilience will be built by addressing conflict, which is restricting access to productive land and natural resources, and developing the ability of communities to engage critically in decisions over the allocation of public funds with the help of social auditing skills.

Strategy of Change :The programme was designed to optimise the existing capacity in community mobilization models. Such approaches apply a diffusion of innovation (Rogers, 1962) model in that ‘early adopters’ and individuals with peer influence are the first to be targeted to take up modified behaviours and others are encouraged to follow once personal risks have been better evaluated and additional rewards demonstrated (eg. successful introduction of the Toggenberg breed of goats which provide higher milk yields).

Outputs associated with community capacity in DRR, conflict transformation and auditing public funds, in which trained community leaders and representatives model new roles within a social context build more on social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1963) with its emphasis on role modeling, building self-efficacy and integrating personal, social and environmental factors. Our work on conflict is based on a conflict transformation approach, which recognizes that conflict may be embedded in a pattern of conflictual relationships that extend beyond the actual site of conflict (Lederach, 1995).

Realising Change: Drawing on past experience, including the 2011 drought, the ARP integrates humanitarian, resilience and longer-term development elements based on a model of action in which access to improved and diversified agricultural (livestock and crop) inputs at household level (by early adopter families/peer influencers) will create more resilient (moving from coping with hunger-gaps to seasonal food supply) food security (production capacity linked to agricultural value chain improvements) for these families that in turn will support the adoption by more households of improved, more sustainable livestock and farming practices within communities.

And from this basis (attitude) communities can come together, around the agricultural food value chain (capacity) to work at an aggregate-level (cross community) on food resilience, such as improved animal husbandry (productivity, disease resilience) creating animal products (milk, meat, animal hide, etc.) that can either complement dietary needs (food security) or be sold (income generation); and extensive farming (scale) based on the success of intensive (sustenance) farming techniques, creating food surpluses that can be stored, preserved (food security and diet) or sold (income generation) creating the foundation for more cooperative approaches to strengthening the strategic points (adding value) in the agricultural value chain (such as post-harvest management, value-chain improvements and commercialisation).

Resilience Building and the Theory of Change – CMDRR as a point of entry (1 of 3)

Ethiopia Programme Design & Theory of Change
I facilitated the design of a programme titled the “Ethiopia Relief and Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP)”. The ERRP draws on past experience of humanitarian assistance provided by several agencies in collaboration with partners in targeted geographic areas. The ERRP Theory of Change document (see sample diagrams) provides details of the conceptual approach used to translate these lessons into innovative humanitarian interventions that can address both the consequence of a crisis and the underlying causes – not necessarily at the root level (e.g. climate change) but at the household level addressing the causes of individual people and households vulnerability to these crisis.

The challenge facing any humanitarian response in Ethiopia is to not simply address the immediate consequences of a crisis - particularly predictable or recurring crisis, but to do so in a manner that:
• strengthens rather than depletes community coping strategies;
• directly links the relief assistance being provided with the recovery and development activities (LRRD) that support an effective transition strategy from emergency to longer term resilience;
• builds resilience at the most effective level – individual & household, of a humanitarian intervention;
• allows for continuous improvement of the support and assistance that is provided to the community that enables downwards accountability and quality (as envisioned in CMDRR)

In addition to embedding the LRRD approach to designing humanitarian responses – that both meet the immediate humanitarian needs and create links to longer term development initiatives, the theory of change that underpins the programme also looks at understanding the factors that can impact on community resilience and incorporating resilience-building into the modalities of assistance that are provided.
Two simple examples include cash-based programming and nutritional programming:

Cash-based programming: where a humanitarian need has been identified and, with functioning local markets (supply) it is possible to provide assistance through cash transfer (from unconditional cash transfer to cash-for-work type programmes)
In the majority of cases cash-based programming has a condition for eligibility/participation – cash-4-work where a number of days must be completed (the condition) for the beneficiary to be eligible to receive the humanitarian assistance. By understanding why that same beneficiary needs assistance in the first place (the vulnerability) and designing the condition around addressing that vulnerability allows for the humanitarian assistance to be provided and for the vulnerability against future shock to be mitigated (e.g. Cash-4-literacy, vocational skills, increased water harvesting – as well as cash-4-work that targets strategic community &/or livelihood infrastructure)

Nutritional assistance: where the humanitarian crisis – whether acute (i.e. sudden and extreme) or chronic (i.e. long-term and recurring) results in levels of malnutrition among vulnerable households.
Fortified foods are the primary assistance in crisis that result in malnutrition. CSB, Unimix and plumpynut (SFP) are provided to those individuals that do not require more intensive treatment (OTP). By adding a family food ration (or cash transfer) to those families that have a member being treated for malnutrition, this can protect other members of the family from becoming malnourished and can also ensure that the fortified foods prescribed for the person being treated are not shared among the other family members. Rather than a relief assistance that ends when the food has been consumed, by providing a durable source of nutrition – for example goat, sheep or chickens, you can provide the protective food ration to the family and also create a transition from the aid (dependency) to the families recovery (recovery) – opening a door potentially to supplementary nutrition through meat, milk, eggs and – via the scale of off-spring, income)

The opportunity that has been incorporated into the three objectives (long term results) of this programmes draw on the short-term immediate and short-term intermediate results across all three objectives - vertical logic across objectives rather than the horizontal logic within objectives that underpins Development Logic Models and Results Frameworks. This is consistent with the Humanitarian Theory of Change (see the Annex) for relief-based programmes; and is consistent with the LRRD approach that supports the ERRP two year programme.

The ERRP has three objectives (long-term results) each of which prioritise the three opportunities to successfully engage in the Ethiopian humanitarian context – each objective support the other through the capacity to:
• work continuously with communities through preparedness and risk mitigation (CMDRR) assistance in a advance of any potential crisis;
• work collaboratively with communities during recurring, seasonal (chronic) crisis to provide relief and address the underlying causes of vulnerability at household level;
• escalate a response as and when a crisis escalates to acute proportions (e.g. sudden-onset crisis or peak in slow onset crisis such as drought) to provide relief in an accountable manner while also focusing on the underlying causes of vulnerability;
• create a link as an exit/transition strategy from between chronic and acute crisis interventions to preparedness and risk mitigation assistance against future crisis.

The Logic Model identifies the key activities, outputs and short-term results that form the basis of this accountable approach to continuous programme improvement and household resilience-building. And as explained above, these activities, outputs and results support the entire programme – building the capacity of individual actors and combining these to optimise

ERRP and Protection
The Theory of Change and design principles that underpin the ERRP are based sound protection practices. The humanitarian interventions across each of the three objectives look to embed into the individual projects – aligned to mainstreaming approaches to key cross-cutting themes, but also in the core concepts of the modalities of assistance that will support the LRRD approach. That is to say:
• By strengthening existing traditional community structures as part of an integrated approach to CMDRR we create an entry point for women, youth and marginalised groups to become involved in these structures – increasing their participation (their voice) in community decision-making on risk prevention and preparedness, periods when vulnerability can change to exploitation;
• By identify the needs of both the community and the individual as part of the mobilisation of crisis response (both chronic and acute) we can design modalities of assistance that address the causes of vulnerability and both community and household level – linking not only relief to recovery & development but also linking assistance to durable solutions to vulnerability within communities
• By providing more durable solutions in cash and food/dietary assistance we will be proactively protecting the beneficiary households against future vulnerability to crisis – making them less vulnerable to exploitation of future assistance
• And by adhering to good humanitarian standards during project interventions - as embodied in the approaches outlined below, we can mitigate the instances for exploitation during times of crisis

To summarise, the basis of the ERRP is to facilitate a tangible, demonstrable connection between our response and the needs of communities; AND a tangible, demonstrable link between those immediate needs of the community (the consequence of the crisis) and the underlying causes of either the crisis or the vulnerability of people as a result of the crisis.

The Theory of Change for humanitarian interventions links relief to recovery and development (LRRD). A description of the Humanitarian theory of change adopted in East Africa is provided in the Annex and looks to answer questions such as:
• What interventions will we directly engage in to meet the needs of the targeted communities?
• And how will we define eligibility, prioritise vulnerability and, where we are not providing 100% coverage of eligible families/people, select beneficiaries?

However, the challenge facing any humanitarian response in Ethiopia is to not simply address the immediate consequences of a crisis - particularly predictable or recurring crisis, but to do so in a manner:
• that strengthens rather than depletes community coping strategies;
• that directly links the relief assistance being provided with the recovery and development activities (LRRD) that support an effective transition strategy from emergency to longer term resilience
• that builds resilience at the most effective level – individual & household, of a humanitarian intervention.

And it is this combination of resources, activities and results that has been captured in the ERRP Theory of Change, the programme model (logic model and results framework) and the proposed modalities of assistance.
In addition to embedding the LRRD approach to designing humanitarian responses – that both meet the immediate humanitarian needs and create links to longer term development initiatives, the theory of change that underpins ERRP programme also looks at understanding the factors that can impact on community resilience and incorporating resilience-building into the modalities of assistance that are provided.

Building Resilience – Crisis, Coping and Change

To date the approach to Resilience for humanitarian programming has focused on the LRRD concept – extending it to the phases that a person / household passes through within Relief, Recovery & Development. Rather than a Humanitarian Programme, for an integrated programme of this nature the focus should be on “humane” programming, with resilience being built in stages:
1. Live-saving: where an immediate intervention is required to simply save a life (e.g. immediate food & nutrition aid)
2. Life-preserving: where we are looking to reduce the risk to a person’s life once it has been “saved” (e.g. health & hygiene interventions directly designed to reduce disease & contagion)
3. Life-sustaining: when the immediate risks to life have been mitigated and we can focus on recovery & rehabilitation (e.g. family livelihoods; looking to build resilience of the family beyond a single season)
4. Life-enhancing: Once a family has some degree of certainty (resilience) over food & income then the focus can move to quality of life (the D in LRRD)
Resilience, as a new concept rather than a new word, is related to a person’s & a household’s ability to cope with crisis (and then linking to a community’s & economy’s); and as such it is a phase in the development cycle rather than a standalone outcome.

Building Resilience & Humanitarian Preparedness - The Readiness approach focuses on the Theories of Change for the three programmes – building the Staff, Systems and Structure so that the capacity exists to increase services should the demand increase. This application of a Resilience Theory of Change is based on integrated programming. Drawing on the research conducted in the aftermath of the 2011/12 drought in East Africa, which defined resilience in a humanitarian context as “the ability of an individual, a household or a community exposed to hazard to withstand, adapt to and recover from the effects of the hazard in a timely and efficient manner”.
When building resilience in a humanitarian context it is vital that the relief acts as an accelerator to existing longer-term programming and not simply as a standalone intervention.

Building Resilience – Linking Relief to Resilience

There are many definitions for Resilience, with many commonalities to these definitions, that can be summarized as follows:
• Capacity/ ability – all of the definitions refer to a ‘system’s’ (being a household, community or even state’s) abilities or capacities. It is worth also noting that traditional humanitarian response has not placed a strong emphasis on developing capacities and abilities and this may be an area that organisations could place increasing emphasis in future.
• Positively manage change/ absorb stress or disturbance/ adapt/ recover/ bounce back/ re-organise – these objectives would fall within the remit of DRR and would be the responsibility of both humanitarian and development agencies. These also relate strongly to the first point on capacities/ abilities.
• Without compromising long-term prospects/ protect livelihoods/ quickly recover in ways that reduce chronic vulnerability and facilitate inclusive growth.

These final points relate to recovery of the system and its ability to have coped with shocks and stresses and come out the other side without long term prospects being damaged. This is where ‘humanitarian’ response could be said to have traditionally failed. It is also an area that is seen as largely the responsibility of ‘development’ interventions that need to work in contexts with an understanding of the inevitability of drought and so drought proof their development investments.
There is an interconnected nature of different aspects of development and humanitarian programming. This means that a humanitarian resilience theory of change needs to complement the overall development theory of change for the country and the context. As a result humanitarian interventions are designed to provide life-saving interventions at a time and in a way that contributes, and does not undermine, the achievement of the wider theory of change defined by the capacity that an organisation wishes to create. Examples of this are humanitarian interventions in Ethiopia and Kenya which have been designed to contribute to longer term resilience building whilst maintaining the lifesaving/ preserving nature of humanitarian response.

By designing humanitarian relief responses (resources) that directly support the short-term (immediate & intermediate) results of the longer term development programmes, the coping capacity of communities, as a key indicator of building resilience, can be improved – contributing to the development goals for the community(s). The recovery capacity of communities should increase in line with the longer term development goal(s) and the need for external humanitarian relief should fall as coping capacity increases as exemplified in the diagram below. This is not the dominant scenario at present where despite significant amounts of humanitarian assistance when crises occur the general trajectory in poverty and vulnerability is downwards because of late or inappropriate response
Where needs are identified in the situation or needs analysis that are not directly addressed in the programme/intervention results we must acknowledge either how we will incorporate these needs (e.g. referral to another party, advocacy on key "consequences", etc.) or provide an explicit reason (consistent with our programme/intervention) why we cannot.

This integrated approach has various strengths, including:
+ it allows for a consistent approach to programming across distinct regions or zones, based on outcome & impact;
+ it allows for the pace on programme implementation – of core programme plus broader outcome & impact priorities, to reflect the progress and challenges in each region/, depending on the political, security and development/ humanitarian context for that zone/region; and
+ it allows for Implementing Agencies to actively share success, opportunity and continuous improvement throughout programme implementation

Within this approach, both Donors and Implementing agencies have the scope to target specific cross-cutting or sectoral challenges that are relevant/prevalent in their specific areas of operations – addressing gender-specific issues (FGM, SGBV), treatment of HIV, TB and the associated stigma for beneficiaries of prolonged, communicable diseases; strengthening local/traditional community engagement in public policy processes (from cross-community working as the local environment becomes more stable, etc. )

The Theory of Change – applying the concept to programme strategy & design

The following is an overview diagram explaining the process for preparing for a humanitarian response (although the same process applies to development programming) – incorporating the Theory of Change outlined:

Context analysis; The operating environment within which the beneficiaries are living and we are working. Assuming we have not conducted a formal "Contextual Analysis" (as defined by our key institutional donors) then we draw on 3rd party sources of information to put into context our rationale for engaging in this environment. The context should link to potential donor's broad strategy/priorities for that country (e.g. The priority for Trocaire's East Africa Appeal was "saving lives by providing emergency food, clean water and medical care"). 3rd Party soures can include PEA, HEA, recent baselines (inc. from other organisations), published literature (ICRC, ICG, Enough, etc.) and UN assessment papers (inc. FSNAU, FEWS NET, etc.). Evaluations of past programmes/projects provide a "lessons learnt" for operating in this environment

Situation analysis: This is our stated understanding of the current situation. It is at this stage that we will identify the cross-cutting themes that underpin our approach including our (Trocaire & partners) capacity to engage actively & pro-actively in responding to beneficiary needs. We draw on monitoring reports, partner feedback, recent baseline surveys, etc. to link the "context to the current” situation. The situation analysis is an indication of the escalation of specific issues within the operating context that cause us concern and support the need for our engagement at this time. This is the first point when we start to define potential cross-cutting considerations (e.g. observed coping strategies) we must address, either through direct intervention, M&E processes, accountability procedures, referral systems; engagement with coordination (inc. bilateral arrangements); approach to advocacy or simply documenting issues

Needs analysis: The specific needs of the beneficiary group, supporting our targeting methodology, beneficairy eligibility & selection criteria. Included here are cross-cutting themes as they apply to beneficiaries - including coping strategies and consequences of humanitarian crisis. Community-based needs assessments, partner feedback, monitoring reports, current updates thru' UN system/cluster; internal early warning monitoring.
• Context is the operating environment in which we are operating (National, State & Diocese);
• Situation is the present-day environment in which the intervention is justified/based (security, political, coordination, capacity; season; etc.);
• Needs brings the analysis down to the community, family & beneficiary (vulnerability) level. The needs analysis is the point where we decide what we can directly intervene on and what we can do to assist beneficiaries in their other requirements to get through this period (situation)

Note: Coping Strategies: Not all coping strategies emerge in a needs assessment, particularly when it is conducted at a geo (diocese)-level. The following is a table outlining the escalation of coping strategies that would be expected to be observed – including their severity & reversibility:

What we identify as a Coping Strategy should link back to the Context, Situation and Needs assessments (i.e. why have people adopted these coping strategies?) These coping strategies link into either the direct programme interventions or cross-cutting considerations.

Protection & Cross-cutting considerations:
In the case of Ethiopia and the protection component of the Theory of Change and design principles that underpin the ERRP are based on sound protection practices. The humanitarian interventions across each of the three objectives look to embed into the individual projects – as described both in the mainstreaming approaches outlined below to key cross-cutting themes, but also in the core concepts of the modalities of assistance that will support the LRRD approach. That is to say:
• By strengthening existing traditional community structures as part of an integrated approach to CMDRR we create an entry point for women, youth and marginalised groups to become involved in these structures – increasing their participation (their voice) in community decision-making on risk prevention and preparedness, periods when vulnerability can change to exploitation;
• By identify the needs of both the community and the individual as part of the mobilisation of crisis response (both chronic and acute) we can design modalities of assistance that address the causes of vulnerability at both community and household level – linking not only relief to recovery and development but also linking assistance to durable solutions to vulnerability within communities
• By providing more durable solutions in cash and food/dietary assistance we will be proactively protecting the beneficiary households against future vulnerability to crisis – making them less vulnerable to exploitation of future assistance.
• By adhering to good humanitarian standards during project interventions - as embodied in the approaches outlined below, we can mitigate the instances for exploitation during times of crisis

Prioritisation & targeting:
This is particularly relevant where the geographical area is too wide for any one programme/intervention to cover all communities/needs. We must justify the decision-making process for prioritising certain communities over others (e.g. number of returnees; other NGOs (avoid duplication); seasonal access; etc.). Partner knowledge of population movements (at local level); observation of seasonal changes & impact on communities/roads/livelihoods; geo-specific needs assessment (e.g. the paragraphs of FEWSNet, UN, SRA/LRA reports etc. specific to diocese); etc. Geo or Community targeting is the first key decision-point on defining vulnerability, eligibility and capacity (to assist) and requires a methodology & evidence to support the decision to target specific communities (note: it does not have to justify "why not" but must demonstrate the rationale & reasoning behind the "why")

When we are not targeting 100% of the vulnerable population we must understand how the actual targeting & selection will occur so that we can demonstrate either:
• the prioritisation of vulnerability (i.e. the comparison between communities and families to demonstrate how we chose one of another) that was the basis of beneficiary eligibility & selection; or
• the reasoning behind why we did not use a vulnerability & prioritisation approach to beneficiary eligibility & selection – there can be justifiable reasons why one locality, community &/or family is chosen but we need to document this and link it back to “cross-cutting considerations” as, although not directly involved in the programme, all communities & families within our target AoOs will be affected by the intervention.

Risks, Assumptions & Dependencies (RAD) are an output of the Context, Situation & Needs Analysis; they are our assessment of the factors that influence the design of our intervention and as such we must continuously monitor these factors so that we can make promt decisions should our assessment have been incorrect or should the context, situation or needs change during the course of implementation.
• Risk: Those things that we can describe, define but cannot predict with certainty but that we presume WILL happen (e.g. There is a risk of rain). As a result we must put contingencies in place that will draw on our resources & become part of our work plans & reporting (wear gum-boots & carry an umbrella)
• Assumption: Those things that we can describe, define but cannot predict with certainty but that we presume WILL NOT happen (e.g. we assume it will not rain so no need to buy an umbrella). We monitor our assumptions to ensure that they remain sound during the course of the programme
• Dependency: Those things that we can describe, define and predict but are under the control of a 3rd party (we are dependent on the UN/state-led coordination mechanisms; on WFP supplies arriving; etc.). We monitor dependencies in the same way as we monitor assumptions as we must make decisions during the course of the intervention, that will draw on our resources, become part of our work-plans and that we must report on if we cannot depend on these 3rd parties.

There is a fourth (4th) component of RAD - Issues (RAID). Issues are emerging challenges or opportunities that we could not describe or define at the outset but which impact on our intervention. Issue management draws on Accountability requirements (e.g. complaints handling) & links directly to cross-cutting themes (e.g. documenting human rights issues for referral &/or reporting). In addition to general management, the management & monitoring issues is the continuous "needs analysis" to support advocacy, referral systems, coordination, etc. (the cross-cutting considerations not directly addressed within the direct intervention)

Programme & Partner Monitoring:
The "rule of thumb" is that if it is not reported (or at least documented in a structured way) then it did not happen. Any decision made (note: every decision will have a resource implication) requires supporting evidence which should draw upon a structured monitoring system (so that every decision is not seen as an exception).
Monitoring is Performance Management and should provide sufficient information support decision-making that allows you to continue as planned or make changes, on an on-going basis, to activities that contribute to the achievement of the objectives/outcomes.
• The progress made on agreed activities
• The impact of risks that have materialised on Progress (activities) and Purpose (objectives/outcomes)
• The impact of assumptions that were incorrect on Progress (activities) and Purpose (objectives/outcomes)

We monitor in order to gather sufficient information to make good decisions during the course of the intervention (see diagram above):
• Progress monitoring (process & control procedures; and team & work plans)
• Partner Monitoring (against agreed objectives/intervention)
• Financial Monitoring (budget; expenditure; financial controls)
• Risk (& Issue) Management (see RAD above)
• Emergency Monitoring (Early Warning)
• Context & Situation Monitoring (Assumptions & Dependencies)
• Needs & Community (changes in the original justification &/or the current conditions)
• Performance Monitoring (Results & decision-making)

The opportunity of successful monitoring is continuous improvement where we capture practical lessons that can be applied to Performance Management (decision-making & resource optimisation) during the programme.

Remember, good decision-making impacts on resources as all activities use resources, so performance management is resource optimisation. There are only three resources that are affected by decision-making:
•Time: the number of people that you have, their skills, experience and ability to complete the activities
•Things: the tangible things that are available to you to help you complete the activities
•Money: the flexibility to buy either more time (1) or more things (2) that will help you complete the activities

Evaluation is Impact Assessment & Lesson Learning - that is to say, did we achieve what we set out to achieve and how did we do it. This is measured in two phases:
1.Did we do what we said we would do (meet the objectives/outcomes)
2.Did we meet the expectations of the various stakeholders (the Goal)

Evaluation is “a systematic and impartial examination of [humanitarian] action intended to draw lessons to improve policy and practice and enhance accountability" (ECHO) - "To know that you do not know is already to know something" (Confucius))

Audit on the other hand is the determination of whether and to what extent activities and procedures conform to norms and criteria set out in advance. The “Four E”s in audit:
1.Effectiveness: doing the right things
2.Efficiency: doing things the right way
3.Economy: doing things cheap
4.Equity: doing right (being socially responsible in a social audit perspective)

The Theory of Change – Linking Relief to Recovery... to Rehabilitation to Resilience... and to Development (LRR-RRD)

The approach to Resilience is based on the Theory of Change for humanitarian interventions that links relief to recovery and development (LRRD). The following is an overview of the theory of change that Trócaire has adopted in East Africa:

The changes that our programme is designed to facilitate - where sustainable is focused on "sustaining human life during this period of extreme risk; or interventions that link relief to recovery. What interventions will we directly engage in to meet the needs of the targeted communities? And how will we define eligibility, prioritise vulnerability and, where we are not providing 100% coverage of eligible families/people, select beneficiaries?

The results (presented in a Logic Model & Results Framework) are our explanation of the needs of the community and how we can best support/address these needs. The results must be linked (internal design logic & continuity of narrative) to the context, situation, needs & community analysis. Trocaire has defined humanitarian as "where a single or series of disasters overwhelms the ability of the most vulnerable in society to cope” which, using the LRRD theory has two key stages:

Crisis Stage (LR): Any intervention must prioritise the needs of the targeted beneficiary group which is determined by the affect/impact of the humanitarian situation (sudden or slow-onset; safety of the operating environment [after-shock, bombings]; anticipated duration of the intervention/dependency of the beneficiary on external assistance; etc.).

Linking Relief...
Live-saving: where an immediate intervention is required to simply save a life (e.g. immediate food & nutrition aid); and
Life-preserving: where we are looking to reduce the risk to a person’s life once it has been “saved” (e.g. health & hygiene interventions directly designed to reduce disease & contagion)

...to Recovery & Rehabilitation:
Life-sustaining: when the immediate risks to life have been mitigated and we can focus on recovery & rehabilitation (e.g. family livelihoods; looking to build resilience of the family beyond a single season)

... to Development:
Life-enhancing: Once a family has some degree of certainty (resilience) over food & income then the focus can move to quality of life (the D in LRRD)

Resilience Stage (RD): Many, if not all of Trocaire’s humanitarian responses to the drought (& other seasonal emergencies) in East Africa has been founded on an LRRD rationale; building resilience. We can interpret resilience in many ways but in Humanitarian programmes the focus is on the resilience of the person – initially the individual (e.g. OTP nutrition assistance) then the family (e.g. protection rations, family-based NFIs), then the community (multiple-families) and finally the locality (the environment around the family/community). Activities may occur concurrently (e.g. designing environmentally-friendly interventions to provide immediate assistance to families, such as cash-for-work; working with community & locality simultaneously, etc.) but the focus is still person-centric.

1.Resilience of the person and the family: there is no food production without people and so individuals need to have the capacity to
a.produce their food (the land, the physical energy, the husbandry skills),
b.store their food (post-harvest management),
c.preserve their longer-term sources of nutrition (e.g. food preservation to support families through the “hunger gap” between seasons), and
d.to commercialise their assets (food surpluses, alternative livelihoods) so as to generate a flexible, financial buffer to support them during lean times (whether poor harvests of full-on drought).

2.Resilience of the family and the community: The challenge of focusing on resilience is to change the attitudes of people towards the traditional, culturally influenced approach to livelihoods and food production.
a.Sustenance farming which leaves families susceptible to the “hunger gap” between season is as negative as resilient seeds being planted in areas that cannot provide sufficient water and spoil nutrients for this type of planting
b.Similarly the attitude of many pastoralists, seeing their livestock as “wealth” in itself does not build resilience of those pastoralists. From a resilience perspective livestock is nutrition (milk and meat) and income (sale of livestock to create that flexible, financial buffer)

In order to successfully link crisis interventions with the longer-term potential of resilience-building an additional Theory of Change must be adapted, that of Innovation Adaptation theory (Rogers, 1962) to support the link between the relief phase and the resilience stage.

This theory states that ‘early adopters’ and individuals with peer influence are the first to be targeted to take up modified behaviours and others are encouraged to follow once personal risks have been better evaluated and additional rewards demonstrated. Where needs are identified in the situation or needs analysis that are not directly addressed in the programme/intervention results we must acknowledge either how we will incorporate these needs (e.g. referral to another party, advocacy on key "consequences", etc.) or provide an explicit reason (consistent with our programme/intervention) why we cannot.

The Theory of Change – Linking Theory to Results Frameworks

•Inputs: The resources introduced through the intervention. These resources are primarily "Time" (people & skills) and "Things" (physical, logistical or technical resources) introduced by the appropriate use of "Money" (the intervention) to improve the quality oif "Time" and "Things" available to either the intermediaries &/or beneficiaries

• Capacity: The optimisation of "Time" and "Things" so as to create a new context (capacity) for the intermediaries &/or beneficiaries to view their current situation. The intervention introduces:
-"Time" inputs that in turn create "competencies" within the intermediaries &/or beneficiaries
-"Thing" inputs that create/improve "capabilities" within these groups

It is the combination of "competency" and "capability" that builds capacity (see below). Note: "Cost" is the "money" element of the intervention and it is the balance between "costs" and "capacity" that will determine how sustainable the intervention can be.

• Community: The scale-up and diffusion of new capacities across the wider group (The Innovation Adoption Lifecycle) through community-led sharing of new capacity via social-cultural channels and through the facilitated programme mechanisms.

• Attitudes: Peoples willingness to change, based on the new capacity that exists and their ability to (re)interpret their context and situation based on this new capacity. A willingness to change is not change in itself, but without it there cannot be sustainable change

• Behaviour: Sustainable change in peoples day-to-day behaviour as they incorporate this new capacity into their daily lives & routines. Behavioural change is sustainable change as, while attitudes can change (revert to old behaviours), accepted behaviours tend not to.

There are a variety of explanations (depending on the source) for what capacity building is. However, there is a simple formula to follow for any (all) organisations in order to measurably increase your capacity. Time, things and money are the only three resources that any (all) organisations have available to them. It is the optimisation of these resources that builds capacity.
•Time: the people available and their knowledge, skills and attributes
•Things: the physical, logistical, technological resources that are available to us
•Money: the financial resources that give us flexibility to buy additional time (e.g. recruitment, over-time, training) or things (additional tangible resources) should we need them

Optimising these three resources is measured against the stated objectives of the organisation, programme &/or partner. Normally these are the strategic objectives for a period – for example the Results Framework; towards which it intends to concentrate its resources/capacity. And the points of intervention that an organisation can make in order to optimise the combination of resources (time, things & money) in order to achieve these strategic objectives are:
•Competency focuses on “Time” – increasing the abilities of the human resources (staff, consultants, donors, supporters, volunteers, partners, beneficiaries etc.).
•Capability focuses on “Things” – what tangible resources are available to the organisation to allow it to exploit its competencies (i.e. what these human resources, where, when, how, etc. ).
•Cost is the enabling resource “Money” that allows us to invest in the organisations competency (buying better Time) and in the organisation’s capability (buying more appropriate things).

The Theory of Change – influencing attitudes, sustaining behaviours

The approach to developing a Theory of Change is by translating our understanding of the beneficiary needs, the operating environment, the cross-cutting themes, etc. into a programme design that defines the changes (results) that we want to achieve. The over-arching approach to understanding the drivers of change and looking to incorporate these into programme design and development draws on the following methodology:

Resources/Inputs: The resources introduced through the intervention. These resources are primarily "Time" (people & skills) and "Things" (physical, logistical or technical resources) introduced by the appropriate use of "Money" (the intervention) to improve the quality of "Time" and "Things" available to either the intermediaries &/or beneficiaries.

Capacity: The optimization of "Time" and "Things" so as to create a new context (capacity) for the intermediaries &/or beneficiaries to view their current situation. There are a variety of explanations (depending on the source) for what capacity building is. However, there is a simple formula to follow for any (all) organizations in order to measurably increase your capacity. Time, things and money are the only three resources that any (all) organizations have available to them. It is the optimization of these resources that builds capacity.
+ Time (Human Resources): the people available and their knowledge, skills and attributes
+ Things (Logistics & Infrastructure): the physical, logistical, technological resources that are available to us
+ Money (Financial Resources): the financial resources that give us flexibility to buy additional time (e.g. recruitment, over-time, training) or things (additional tangible resources) should we need them (see "What is Capacity Building")

The intervention introduces "Time" inputs that in turn create "competencies" within the intermediaries &/or beneficiaries; and "Thing" inputs that create/improve "capabilities" within these groups. It is the combination of "competency" and "capability" that builds capacity. Optimising these three resources is measured against the stated objectives of the organisation, programme &/or partner. Normally these are the strategic objectives for a period – for example the Results Framework; towards which it intends to concentrate its resources/capacity. And the points of intervention that an organisation can make in order to optimise the combination of resources (time, things & money) in order to achieve these strategic objectives are:
+ Competency focuses on “Time” – increasing the abilities of the human resources (staff, consultants, donors, supporters, volunteers, partners, beneficiaries etc.).
+ Capability focuses on “Things” – what tangible resources are available to the organisation to allow it to exploit its competencies (i.e. what these human resources, where, when, how, etc. ).
+ Cost is the enabling resource “Money” that allows us to invest in the organisations competency (buying better Time) and in the organisation’s capability (buying more appropriate things). Note: "Cost" is the "money" element of the intervention and it is the balance between "costs" and "capacity" that will determine how sustainable the intervention can be.

Community: The scale-up and diffusion of new capacities across the wider group (The Innovation Adoption Lifecycle) through community-led sharing of new capacity via social-cultural channels and through the facilitated programme mechanisms.

Attitudes: Peoples willingness to change based on the new capacity that exists and their ability to (re)interpret their context and situation based on this new capacity. A willingness to change is not change in itself, but without it there cannot be a sustainable change.

Behaviour: Sustainable change in people’s day-to-day behaviour as they incorporate this new capacity into their daily lives & routines. Behavioural change is sustainable change as, while attitudes can change (revert to old behaviours), accepted behaviours tend not to.

And some supporting Science on theories that support this approach:

“A number of theories have been developed to describe how changes in factors at the individual and interpersonal levels of the social ecological model work (Partners in Action – Washington; Models, Factors and Theories of Change).

- Cognitive behavioural theories: Health Belief Model, (HBM) addresses the individual’s perceptions of the threat posed by a health problem (susceptibility, severity), the benefits of avoiding the threat, and factors influencing the decision to act (barriers, cues to action, and self-efficacy; The Stages of Change (Transtheoretical) Model describes individuals’ motivation and readiness to change a behaviour; The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) examines the relations between an individual’s beliefs, attitudes, intentions, behaviour, and perceived control over that behaviour; The Precaution Adoption Process Model (PAPM) names seven stages in an individual’s journey from awareness to action. It begins with lack of awareness and advances through subsequent stages of becoming aware, deciding whether or not to act, acting, and maintaining.
- Theories Governing Social Change: Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) describes a dynamic, ongoing process in which personal factors, environmental factors, and human behaviour exert influence upon each other; Community Organization and Other Participatory Models emphasize community-driven approaches to assessing and solving health and social problems; Diffusion of Innovations Theory addresses how new ideas, products, and social practices spread within an organization, community, or society, or from one society to another; Communication Theory describes how different types of communication affect health behaviour.

Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E)

A part of my role in Somalia is to look at M&E, either through joint initiatives or internally, within the programmes and the emergency assistance that Concern is providing.

So this is a very simplified definition of M&E that I will expand upon in the future (you will notice that M&E draws on many of the principles of programme, risk, capacity, etc that are described in other parts of this blog)...

Monitoring is Performance Management and should provide sufficient information support decision-making that allows you to continue as planned or make changes, on an on-going basis, to activities that contribute to the achievement of the objectives/outcomes.
•The progress made on agreed activities
•The impact of risks that have materialised on Progress (activities) and Purpose (objectives/outcomes)
•The impact of assumptions that were incorrect on Progress (activities) and Purpose (objectives/outcomes)

Evaluation is Impact Assessment & Lesson Learning - that is to say, did we achieve what we set out to achieve and how did we do it. This is measured in two phases:
1.Did we do what we said we would do (meet the objectives/outcomes)
2.Did we meet the expectations of the various stakeholders (the Goal)

Evaluation is always a "point in time" assessment and so, itself will have assumptions ("our conclusion is based on..."). The opportunity for continuous improvement is to capture practical lessons that can be applied to Performance Management (decision-making & resource optimisation) for the future.

Resources: activities use resources, so performance management is resource optimisation. There are only three resources that are affected by decision-making:
1.Time: the number of people that you have, their skills, experience and ability to complete the activities
2.Things: the tangible things that are available to you to help you complete the activities
3.Money: the flexibility to buy either more time (1) or more things (2) that will help you complete the activities.

A RISK is a definable, describable but unknowable event that we presume will happen ("there is a risk of rain…"). As a result a risk requires additional resources/activities to mitigate its impact (umbrella, raincoat, sandbags, etc.)
An ASSUMPTION is a definable, describable but unknowable event that we presume will not happen ("we assume it will not rain..."). No additional resources are set aside - but the assumption must be monitored in case it is wrong.

Footnote: I am currently working on developing "Theories of change" for humanitarian and resilinece-based programmes. An important definition that I draw upon is for Strength (as in SWOT): Strength – is a tangible resource (time, things, money) that you can leverage to directly achieve your objective (strength-to-opportunity) or; influence the achievement of the objective by using those tangible resources to overcome a weakness or threat

Snapshot from Somalia

My most recent placement - as Food Assistance Programme Manager with Concern, responding to the famine in Somalia. One of my most challenging posts so far, the following is just a snapshot (note - much has changed in recent weeks, but that is for a later update when the security situation allows):

The Food Assistance programme is a 6 month life-saving programme designed around Food Vouchers. It is scheduled to cover the hunger period – which as we are all aware has been exasperated by the famine in Concern’s areas of operations in south/central Somalia; between the two harvest seasons (the Gu in July and the Deyr in January). The Food Assistance programme, which also includes blanket supplementary feeding plus recovery assistance such as seed provision for the Deyr season, will be completed with the final distribution of food vouchers in late January 2012. After which there will be programme closure activities including lesson learning, evaluations and donor reporting.

More importantly, with the changing security and political situation in Somalia, the Food Assistance programme requires active management & monitoring – we have seen in September the need for first-hand engagement in programme delivery by all members of the team – in the regions, in Mogadishu and in Nairobi. On behalf of Concern, as the lead agencyin south & central Somalia, I am actively engaging with cluster coordination and peer-organisations to ensure that assistance continues in these regions during the on-going instability.

Our teams have been able to procure / pre-position food stocks for our nutrition programmes to complement the food assistance that we are providing and the focus now is on continuity of the programme activities. As the programme manager I travel in regularly to Mogadishu, leading these teams with the support of the in-country managers & coordinators. As an organisation we know, from both current and past experience, that day-to-day management will be required right up to the final distributions in January 2012, where Concern is feeding more than 200,000 people every month.

There are also a number of initiatives that I am leading including a consolidated M&E initiative with several other NGOs that offer similar modalities of assistance (cash transfers/food vouchers). This will support our own lesson learning plus broader advocacy on these types of programmes. I am preparing a Standard Operating Procedures manual to cover the various procedures (from adhering to Concern policies to checklists for field activities). And I will be supporting the programme teams as Concern prepares for the transition from Emergency to Recovery in line with the changing circumstances and operational plans for 2012.

What is Capacity Building?

There are a variety of explanations (depending on the source) for what capacity building is. However, there is a simple formula to follow for any (all) organisations in order to measurably increase your capacity



Time, things and money are the only three resources that any (all) organisations have available to them. It is the optimisation of these resources that builds capacity.

Time: the people available and their knowledge,skills and attributes
Things: the physical, logistical, technological resources that are available to us
Money: the financial resources that give us flexibility to buy additional time (e.g. recruitment, over-time, training) or things (additional tangible resources) should we need them

Optimising these three resources is measured against the stated objectives of the organisation. Normally these are the strategic objectives for a period – the priorities of the organisation, towards which it intends to concentrate its resources/capacity.

And the points of intervention that an organisation can make in order to optimise the combination of resources (time, things & money) in order to achieve these strategic objectives are:


Competency focuses on “Time” – increasing the abilities of the human resources (staff, consultants, donors, supporters, volunteers, partners, beneficiaries etc.).

Capability focuses on “Things” – what tangible resources are available to the organisation to allow it to exploit its competencies (i.e. what these human resources, where, when, how, etc. ).

Cost is the enabling resource “Money” that allows us to invest in the organisations competency (buying better Time) and in the organisation’s capability (buying more appropriate things).


Take a look at Activity & Resource-based Planning on how day-to-day management of the three resources (time, things & money) can build capacity through good operational planning & management

UNHCR in Sri Lanka

The following is a link to a dedicated YouTube site for UNHCR in Sri Lanka.

http://www.youtube.com/user/UNHCRlk

It will give you a small flavour of the work that I have been doing - you may even spot me in moe or two of the videos.

Working with UNHCR in Sri Lanka

In May 2009 I arrived in Sri Lanka as part of the Emergency Response in the aftermath of the fighting between the SLA and LTTE. I was seconded from the Irish Aid Rapid Response Corp to UNHCR as Field Officer for the Mannar District, working from the UNHCR field office in Mannar town.

With the displacement of quarter of a million people into camps, adding to the already large internally displaced population, the initial focus of emergency assistance was on the families that had been placed in camps. Mannar was the first district to also see resettlements – displaced families returning to their places of origin. The focus of assistance, in addition to the camps (welfare centres) in Mannar changed to that of resettlement assistance.

At this time the activities of the emergency assistance was on building the logistical & supply capacity of the Mannar office – the infrastructure, procedures and the actual assistance being provided to IDPs in camps, homes (elderly homes, orphanages, etc.), IDPs living with host families and, as the first returnees after the conflict, to families returning to Musali.

This assistance included: Shelter & House Repair; NFRIs; QIPs; Humanitarian assistance to EVIs/PWSN and assistance to refugees returning from India. In addition there were general management responsibilities (from staff to stock).

I remained in Mannar until the end of August 2009 before I had to return to Ireland for work commitments.

During September an October the number of resettled families to Mannar increased greatly, with 4 of the 5 divisions opened for returning families. A “180-day” plan was proposed by the government that anticipated all IDPs in camps would be returned to the places of origin, creating a new emergency for UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations – not of displacement but of resettlement.

In early November I returned to Mannar.

The assistance being provided to beneficiaries has also changed – away from Shelter & House Repair to that of Shelter Grants. This is a combination of cash (5,000 Rps) and bank certificates (20,000 Rps) and the emergency assistance I was tasked with leading the coordination, implementation, monitoring & reporting of this grant in addition to the other assistances being provided by UNHCR (NFRI, QIPs, Humanitarian assistance, assistance to refugees returning from India). Our beneficiary group can be segmented a dozen different ways - but we have returnees, IDPs with hosts, homes (elderly & orphanage), refugee returnees and EVIs (humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people or groups).

As physical shelter assistance is no longer being provided by UNHCR I am also acting as shelter coordinator for the District, coordinating the activities of all organizations providing shelter assistance to all beneficiary groups. This includes advocacy to government on behalf of these organizations to be granted access/ permission to provide assistance in Return areas.

With the conclusion of the presidential election in January 2010, the incumbent winning, it must be assumed that the focus on resettlement will continue and the challenge of getting access/permission by NGOs to return areas will remain.

Based on information provided by the Project Director’s office, as at 22nd January 2010 5,235 IDP families resettled in Mannar District - in Musali, Rice Bowl (Mannar & Mantai West Divisions), north of Mantai West and, most recently to former conflict areas in Nanaddan and Madhu.

There will be a challenge facing both the government, UNHCR and humanitarian organisations as more families return to the 5 Mannar divisions. To plan for all returnees will require the government authorities and humanitarian organisations to plan for the potential resettlement of 13,931 returning families to areas that may require various types of infrastructure & humanitarian assistance.

In the immediate aftermath of the presidential election an announcement was made by the Ministry of Resettlement that all remaining IDPs would be returned to their places of origin by April 2010; a potential resettlement of almost 9,000 families - 43,000 individuals in 3 months for Mannar alone.

Complicating this will be the legacy of the conflict in Sri Lanka, with families being displaced since the 1990s up to the final fighting in May 2009. Many families are in camps (Menik Farm primarily) but there are also large caseloads of IDPs who will be retuning from other areas where they have been living with host families, or where they have established themselves due to the length of time they have been displaced (in some cases 20 years).

The organization of returning & resettling these families across the various caseloads will be a logistical challenge, complicated for UNHCR as we are also the focal point for statistical reporting of resettled families on behalf of the World Bank and Japanese government among other donor bodies.

And the assistance to these families will require increased inter-agency coordination and field/operational management as the assistance being provided will vary depending on:
• the needs of families in return areas – based on the conditions that families encounter on returning to their villages & homes;
• the ability of families to meet these needs using their own and the communities resources & capacities (this will depend on the length of time families have been displaced & the resources they have been able to accumulate and bring with them to the return areas);
• the policies of organisations such as UNHCR on eligibility for the various beneficiary segments to assistance.

UNHCR in Sri Lanka

I have just retuirned from a 4 month placemengt with UNHCR (the UN's Refugee Agency) in Sri Lanka. This placement was as part of Irish Aid's Rapid Response Corp.

I travelled to Sri Lanka in May in response to the large scale displacement of people in the north of the country, resulting from the final phase of fighting between the government foirces and the LTTE (Tamil Tigers).

As a field officer for UNHCR my responsibilities were various and varied. As part of the visa process I had to prepare a brief ToR which is probably the best way to summarise my role:

1.Monitor the situation in IDP camps and Returned Divisions & GN Divisions and assess IDP/Return needs, specifically in the shelter sector and distribution of NFIs.
2.Monitor delivery of assistance to vulnerable groups.
3.Improve the mechanisms for identification of humanitarian gaps in the delivery of assistance and protection in the Return & IDP sites and liaise with the Head of Sub-Office and other clusters to ensure appropriate steps are taken to address gaps.
4.Provide guidance and support to Government representatives at District level and in Return Divisions & GN Divisions, governmental camp managers and NGO partners working in the IDP sites, which include participation of IDP communities (Returned & in Camps or Host locations) in issues of humanitarian services and protection provided in their sites.
5.Strengthen coordination mechanisms between local authorities (GA, DS and GS levels plus military authorities) and NGO partners, in the framework of the Shelter Coordination Cell and the Watsan Cluster.
6.Together with the Shelter Coordinator, act as focal point for negotiations with government & military authorities, UN agencies and NGO partners on the provision of assistance to return Divisions/GN Divisions and camps
7.Improve the mechanisms for information management, including age and gender demographic data, and ensure proper analysis of the collected information in order to maximize delivery of assistance.

During my time in Sri Lanka I kept a regular diary of the events and experiences, ranging from protection monitoring in the IDP camps, supporting the return proccess for families allowed to return to their original villages and homes, the difficulties of establishing & managing a supply & logistics function in a remote part of the country - and the challenge of elephants (from finding them, to dodging them).

The return process is continuing - based on a 180 day plan by the Sri Lankan governbment, so I anticipate that I will return to Sri Lanka later in the year to continue my contribution to the work of UNHCR and the assistance of Irish Aid.

Ireland & Uruguay - sharing economic development experiences (3)

On my recent trip to Uruguay I worked with a development programme (Uruguay Integra) whose focus is on building the capacity of the local government structures to identify, plan, fund and implement local development initiatives. As part of this I prepared a guide (drawing from several sources) to policy development and engaging public participation in policy. The basis of the guide was again two processes (value chains [Uruguay 2]):

Public policy design process


Public participation in policy design process

Ireland & Uruguay - sharing economic development experiences (2)

On my recent trip to Uruguay I met with a number of agencies where we discussed the Irish economic development structure (from policy to implementation to evaluation and the agencies responsible for this).

From this we developed some enterprise development Value Chains to allow us to compare the Irish experience (policy process and agencies) with that of Uruguay:

Policy Research Value Chain: this is the approach that has been adopted by Forfas, the Irish agency responsible for economic policy research:


Enterprise Development (Agency) Value Chain: this is the approach to building on innovation and entrepreneurial capacity towards export-based growth:


Policy Development (Implementation & Evaluation) Value Chain: we designed a chain of events that tend to be followed when defining a policy, developing implementation strategies for it; the associated coordination, regulation and monitoring and ending with evaluation. The purpose was to create a comparable method that we could align both Irish and Uruguayan development agencies and see where the similarities and opportunities lie:

Ireland & Uruguay - sharing economic development experiences

I have just returned from an assignment in Uruguay, working with the Office of Planning and Budgeting (OPP: oficina de planteamiento y presupuesto). This followed on from a trip by the director of OPP to Ireland in 2007.

The primary deliverable from this trip (in addition to a report and recommendations) was a story-board “Tail [tale] of the Celtic Tiger” – in interactive presentation drawing on more than 40 sources of information describing the Irish economic experience from the 1980s onwards.



The presentation follows the tail of the celtic tiger:
1. What caused the Celtic Tiger? (What existed before & what we did)
2. How did the Tiger roar? (Basis of the Celtic Tiger)
3. How can the tiger keep roaring? (Key Messages for today…)
4. How did we train the tiger? (Enterprise Development Structures)
5. The owners of the tiger (Social Partnership)
6. Feeding the Tiger (National Development Plan)
7. The tiger’s circus (Public Sector Modernisation)

Grant Management Guiding Principles

“Best practice” can be an inappropriate term to use – as what suits one organisation may not suit another. But having assisted a number of grant providers over the past number of years, there are common themes – “guiding principles” - that impact a grant provider and its grant management processes. So, while I have not listed out these “guiding principles” here, I have gathered these common themes together.

Naturally, there will be certain assumptions that support grant management “guiding principles” (to try and close the gap between grant providers and the way that they work) so I have used the following grant management process as the basis (drawing on the practical experience that I encountered with grant providers):

Supporting this value chain are the following assumptions (which underpin the “guiding principles” which I have identified:

 Grant management is an end-to-end process that is initiate with the initial application for a grant through the final payment of that grant
 Compliance with all donor requirements can be met throughout the grant management processes (initial grant application, through to final payment), including compliance with sound financial management practice and controls.
 The actual payment (settlement of the financial responsibility) of a grant is a financial transaction within the accounts payable (AP) function and as such must meet the appropriate financial management standards of control, reconciliation and audit.

I have prepared 27 “guiding principles” (15 management principles and 12 process principles that, combined support the overall grant management) under the following headings
 Planning & Design (5)
 Operations Management (5)
 Performance Management (5)
 Technology Management & Enablement (6)
 Data Management (3)
 Financial Management (3 – not including corporate governance & compliance requirements)

Enterprise & Entrepreneurship in Development

I recently completed a research study on the opportunities and challenges facing development organisation (from donors & policy-makers; through NGOs and development agencies to micro & small enterprises): “Opportunities and management requirements for enterprise & entrepreneurship-based programmes in development!)

In addition to the resources that I have found very useful through the Business Figths Poverty network I also reviewed more that 50 sources including:
- Papers & Presentations from various development; corporate; philanthropic and institutional (e,g, World Bank; IOL) sources
- African & Asian Networks (e.g. LEDNA & SBC Network & Entrepreneurship Development)
- Government Donors (e.g. Irish Aid & DFID)
- UN General Assembly
- Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship,

I adopted the same research methodology as t used for ICT in Development (which supported a successful 7-figure funding application).



There were two objectives for this research:

1. Identifying the various elements that are required to design a successful enterprise development programme; ranging from Needs Analysis & Solution Design to Programme Management and Monitoring & Evaluation (Development Value Chain)

Within this I focused on the four stages of enterprise (business) development:
- Business Idea: the basic concept for initiating an enterprise
- Business model: how will this business idea actually generate revenues
- Business Case: is the potential return (profit) appropriate for the necessary expenditure (costs) to achieve this return
- Business Plan: hat actions will we take, what decisions will we make, what finance do we need in order to start the business (Note : the business plan is a combination of business idea, model, case plus plan)

In addition to a re-usable research log (where I have itemised all of the relevant aspects of the literature and categorised them for easy searching & sorting in the future) I designed an Enterprise Development Programme Design/Assessment tool – a question-based tool, with guidance notes, to assist in either designing a programme/proposal or in assessing an existing programme as part of ongoing management, monitoring & evaluation.



2. The second objective was to help me in development an Enterprise & Entrepreneurship Development Programme, based on work that I have been doing over the past year with a number of development organisations here in Ireland.



Based on a proven enterprise & entrepreneurship development model here in Ireland; the County Enterprise Boards (CEBs), I was able to design a 3 year programme, using the Logical Framework. In addition to the “end-2-end” Development management processes I have also incorporated a policy-based (macro) set of objectives as wells as enterprise-led (micro) objectives