Valuing Voices

Aid providers: More puzzle pieces, including unexpected outcomes; ours is not the whole picture

Jindra Cekan Donor evaluations tend to ignore unexpected results beyond the usual set outcomes; this being reconfirmed in a Dutch study of 80% #foreignaid When we did our first ex-post evaluation/ delayed final evaluation in 2006 in Niger for Lutheran World Relief (LWR) funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (pg75 on), we found all sorts of unexpected/… Continue reading Aid providers: More puzzle pieces, including unexpected outcomes; ours is not the whole picture

What makes it Difficult to Evaluate Projects Ex-post: Lessons from WWF

Jindra Cekan The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) generously shared lessons from two ex-posts and in particular what they felt should not have been done in terms of organizational learning. They originally wanted to see whether ”the work done is sustainable and so to provide lessons for the implementing office, donor offices and the wider WWF network about… Continue reading What makes it Difficult to Evaluate Projects Ex-post: Lessons from WWF

Our Accountability for the SDGs

Jindra Cekan Accountability: Are we responsible for meeting the SDGs? Yes, personally and by programming for more sustainability In a 2014 article about mutual accountability for the SDGs, Dr. Paul Zeitz states that “Sustainable development is the most urgent challenge facing humanity. The fundamental question is how the world economy can continue to develop in a… Continue reading Our Accountability for the SDGs

Implementing, Scaling and Planning for Aid Exit and Sustainability

Jindra Cekan Rarely do funders return to evaluate what lasts after aid projects end, but when they do, we can find myriad pleasures: 1) sustainability of activities we launched and nurtured together and hoped would last as is, even 15 years later, or 2) new ways local participants or partners made old activities last which we would have never imagined,… Continue reading Implementing, Scaling and Planning for Aid Exit and Sustainability

Holiday Hallelujahs and my Wish List for Sustained Impact(s)

Conferences such as COP24, as well as a huge range of ‘non-state actors’, including corporations, non-profits, philanthropies, tribes, even individuals like you and me. Whether it is our self-interest or expenditure-avoidance which propels us to decrease our emissions and increase our use of clean technologies, or our altruism toward the millions of species on earth, we have globally begun turning to sustainability of the ecological kind.

Setting a higher bar: Sustained Impacts are about All of us

Jindra Cekan Global development aid has a problem which may already affect impact investing as well. It is that we think it’s really all about us (individuals, wealthy donors and INGO implementers) not all of us (you, me, and project participants, their partners and governments). It’s also about us for a short time. All too often, the measurable results we in… Continue reading Setting a higher bar: Sustained Impacts are about All of us

Local Accountability and Transparency… During and Post Project?

Jindra Cekan Local development partners? Check. Long-term transparent and accountable investments through them as “local solutions” partners? Not so much. While President Obama and former United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Raj Shah promised up to 30% of all contracts would go to ‘local solutions’ that “promote sustainable development through high-impact partnerships and local solutions”, nowhere near… Continue reading Local Accountability and Transparency… During and Post Project?

Impact Investing – International Development’s New Holy Grail?

Jindra Cekan Admitting failure, posting failure reports are awfully rare in international development, but how bad is it? There are so many things I love about the private sector such as Forbes 18 Dec Quote of the Day: “You’re going to be wrong a fair amount of times. So the issue is, how do you be wrong… Continue reading Impact Investing – International Development’s New Holy Grail?

Living in a Well-meaning Lie: Valuing all Voices?

Jindra Cekan Large parts of international aid system remain broken. We design too many projects outside of the countries themselves. We have fixed funding and leave in pre-set times rather than when participants are actually ready to take over. We ‘handover’ without partnering throughout the whole project so that partners can determine what they are… Continue reading Living in a Well-meaning Lie: Valuing all Voices?

Embedding Sustainability Everywhere – All Five Slices Now

Jindra Cekan As domestic concerns grow larger in two huge economies, US and UK, the question of the place foreign aid will play abound in conversations around the world It has been a tumultuous year, and next year does not look like we will have much stability as a respite. As domestic concerns grow larger… Continue reading Embedding Sustainability Everywhere – All Five Slices Now