Overview
RTA has been engaged in organizing and implementing numerous training workshops for participants to learn and use its key project management skills – strategy development, project monitoring and evaluation reviews. A special training demanded has been knowledge and application of outcome mapping and harvesting.
RTA’s Training Projects (Outcome Mapping, Harvesting and others)
Undugu Society
Right Track Africa conducted an outcome mapping training in 2019 at a workshop which was organized by the TAKS project for its Undugu Society staff to learn Outcome Mapping (OM), and in the process learn how to develop work plans, outcome-oriented strategies, monitor and evaluate agreed behavioral transformation. The Undugu Society has been implementing the Taksvärkki’s funded project “Children and youth living and working on the street treated with love and dignity“between 2015-2017 in Kisumu and Nairobi Counties.
In the subsequent 2018 -2020 extension phase the TAKs project sought to strengthen its interventions and the team considered using Outcome Mapping to guide implementation, monitoring and assessment. This was driven by the team’s interest in focusing on behavioral change of various critical partners (or stakeholders) and the project’s relationship with them. The 4-day workshop took place at the Undugu Society field office in Dandora, Nairobi in February 2019. The objectives of the training and planning workshop were for Undugu society staff to learn about Outcome Mapping and how to develop reports that had effective outcome and/or impact level results.
Care International, Mozambique
Julius Nyangaga, a consultant from Right Track Africa facilitated an outcome Mapping training at a workshop commissioned by CARE for its CARE Mozambique and working partners, including PACT, in Maputo in 2016. The workshop was organized to develop a common approach to planning, implementing and monitoring advocacy and capacity the platforms/networks and organization through outcome mapping tool in a gender perspective. CARE had a new Strategy with three broad objectives that OM was intended to support: 1. Enhanced productivity, adoptive capacity of women and girls, 2. Women and girls empowered to exercise their rights and influence decisions, 3. CARE and partner civil societies are empowered to promote development at scale. The training supported the implementation (and reporting) of this strategy with a strong outcome-oriented approach.
ADRA and Salvation Army Training workshop
ADRA and Salvation Army Training workshop on Outcome Mapping (OM) for the Salvation Army Sweden (TSA-SWE) and ADRA Sweden (ADRA-SWE) was conducted by Right Track Africa in Kenya and Malawi in October and November of 2019. The two organizations are funded by Swedish Mission Council (SMC). Salvation Army and ADRA’s interest in Outcome Mapping was to develop their staff capacity in establishing a “clear vision of the human, social and environmental betterment to which their different programs and projects contribute to. One of the training was conducted in Blantyre, Malawi and the other in Nairobi in October and November 2019 respectively. The Salvation Army is a Christian organization with articles of faith that emphasise God’s saving purposes. The organization mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination. Salvation Army works in more than 130 countries with some of the poorest communities to restore the economic, social, ecological and spiritual relationships.
The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is the global humanitarian organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. ADRA works through an international network to deliver relief and development assistance to communities, regardless of their ethnicity, political affiliation, or religious association. The objective is to improve the quality of life of millions through social justice; support to children; disaster response; gender equity; economic growth; community health; water, sanitation and hygiene; hunger and nutrition; livelihoods and agriculture. The first training objective was mainly to improve the capacity of the organization’s staff in using outcome mapping for planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning their programs in Kenya, Uganda and South African countries. This was achieved through training project staff, selected community members and other partners for enhanced participation and greater ownership of development processes.
The second was to improve the capacity of the trained staff in establishing progress markers together with key boundary partners in their community development work. This was to be achieved through training staff and partners in setting up realistic and measurable progress markers.
The outcome mapping session was a training/refresher process to help participants identify the actors of influence, build their capacity building, learn how to develop progress markers, and use outcome journals as part of the projects’ monitoring plan. The sessions were also to guide participants in performing practical exercises in a gender equality perspective and empowerment of women. The sessions were a combination of plenary and group discussions with participants trying out their understanding of the concepts on project activities they were familiar with. The process was interactive with participants given adequate space to ask questions and raise concerns about what the new concepts really meant in actual application.
Care International – Uganda
Right Track Africa conducted an Outcome harvesting training workshop for the partners working with the CARE Uganda program STRENPO. CARE International in Uganda in partnership with four implementing partners is delivering a four years’ program titled “Strengthening Resilience and Inclusive Governance Program (STRENPO)” since April 2018.
The training objectives were: To build the capacity of participants on the use of outcome mapping and outcome harvesting methodologies in monitoring, evaluation and outcome-based reporting writing. Second, to build capacity of participants to track changes in the knowledge, attitudes and practices supporting gender sensitive resilience building and climate change. And third, to train participants on how to use outcome mapping and outcome harvesting in tracking the impact of the project on women, men, boys and girls. At the national level, the partners are: Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE) and Environment Alert (EA). The program mainly leverages on the approaches and lessons learnt from the previous project-FOREST. To best apply this approach and achieve sustained impact of the project, STRENPO is partnering with two district level Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in three districts of Arua, Kyenjojo and Kyegegwa. These are; Joint Effort to Save the Environment (JESSE) and Rural Initiative for Community Empowerment (RICE West Nile).
To achieve its goal and strategic objectives, STRENPO directly targets and works with and through the women and youth and their networks founded at district, sub-county and community levels, while also strengthening the national and local civil society to influence the spaces for women, youth and CSOs operations and advocacy for women and youth to participate in policy development, governance and in decision-making processes regarding natural assets.
The program is designed to contribute to its goal through three interlinked objectives which are; Strong community-based organizations, empowered citizens and allow women and youth to build assets and take leadership roles in strengthening community resilience. Two, CSOs and networks have increased capacity and expand spaces for negotiation between empowered citizens, refugees and accountable duty bearers through multi-stakeholder platforms focused on resilience. And lastly, Government and other duty bearers, at district and national levels are inclusive and accountable in delivering a well-coordinated response to key drivers of risk and thereby response to demands and needs of citizens and refugees