It’s been more than five years since I worked as a CEO of an NGO (true, I am my own boss now, but running an organisation is different). However there are some things that I learned in my time at the helm that have started with me and have been Read more…
So if you’ve read more than just a few of my blog entries you’ll know that there a certain theme to my writing. So it won’t come as a surprise to regular readers that when it comes to programme design I’ve got some clear ideas about how it should be Read more…
In two other recent blogs I’ve mentioned beneficiary feedback loops and implied they are a good thing and important for designing meaningful interventions. They are, but let’s look at them more closely. When I talk about feedback loops I am not talking about consulting focus groups and the end of the Read more…
I see a lot of tenders and evaluations that are stressing either qualitative or quantitative based approaches. As if in a backlash against the more complex evaluations that have been seen in the past five years or so. I do sympathise with a desire for simplicity in evaluation that can Read more…
We don’t listen enough. That’s what I said last week. A way to ensure that we always keep the beneficiary voice included is to put them at the heart of the organisations set up to support them and to include them in designing, delivering, monitoring and evaluating activities. We have Read more…
Last week I mentioned that NGOs should do lots of regular beneficiary testing (or user testing) when developing their projects, activities, products, interventions, etc. I thought I’d expand a little on that idea. You see we’ve spent over 50 years “doing development” in the global south and in some places people Read more…
You’re always going to need a project manager for your new donor-funded project, right? Each project needs its own team, doesn’t it? Well, er no. Not really. One of the biggest wastes of funding at the moment is in the duplication of staffing structures and infrastructure, when donors want their own Read more…
Over the past two years an increasing amount of my work has included disability. Until relatively recently disability as an area of work or a rights-based issue has been almost invisible in international development. The convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) has changed that. A rights-based approach Read more…
Learning is one of those buzzwords isn’t it. We’re all supposed to be doing it, we’re all supposed to be sharing it. I always get asked to evaluate how well NGOs do it and share it. And yet there are some trends that I’ve observed: Very few NGOs actually share Read more…
We are a strange bunch, us NGO folk: we deal in change, design theories of change and logic models to show us the way and create toolkits and handbooks to help us along the way and commission reports to tell us where we have been and where we might want Read more…