Application of Appreciative Inquiry and

lessons from “Watershed Approach” to pilot project design and implementation

The case of Harmee Education for Development Association

Presented on CSSP RBUC Learn-and-Share and Relationship Building Workshop

February 07,2014, Addis Ababa

By Daniel Keftassa

Purpose of the presentation

To share experience on how Appreciative Inquiry is used to design and

implement the Pilot project and howWatershed Approach is tested

through the pilot project on “Mitigation of Challenges to Female Education” with focus on abduction, family imposed migration and school dropout and mitigation of violence against women

What is Appreciative Inquiry?

• Appreciative – admire, honor, reward, recognize, acknowledge, grateful, valuing, encourage,

• Inquiry – question, study, discover, look for, investigate, know, research, seek, see

Why Inquiry?

• Change begins with the questions we ask• The act of inquiring is never neutral, it is in itself an

intervention, and exerts some kind of influence. • The wording of the question largely determines the

answer. • In other words, you find what you look for • There is difference between asking what have been

the major achievements and what are the problems

Philosophical ground of AI

• You find what you look for. If you go looking for what's broken, you will find lots of broken stuff. If you look for what's working, you will find that most things work

Appreciative Inquiry – the 4D Cycle

• Appreciative cycle Discovery“What gives life?”The best of what is.

Appreciating

Design“What should be—

the ideal?”Co-constructing

Destiny/Delivery“Innovate what will be?”

SustainingPositive Core

Dream“What might be?”

Envisioning Results/Impact

Steps in the Appreciative Inquiry Process

AI uses a change process called the 4-D model - dynamic process of continuous change.

• Discovery - find out the strengths, capacity and opportunities - (assessment of the situation) not problems

• Dream - Envisioning/Imagining ideal situation what it looks like when the challenges (abduction, violence, etc) are overcome - What do we want to achieve and how?

• Design Setting up ways to create the ideal situation - planning

• Delivery putting dreams into action - project implementation - Introduce the desired Changes in practice

Application of Appreciative Inquiry

• Strategic planning – a frame-work for internal and external analyses

• Participatory Project design• Organizational and leadership development -

application of the Organizational and Programmatic Capacity Assessment tools, Personal Development Plan

• Monitoring and Knowledge Management - application of Results Management Review and other monitoring tools - find out the strengths and achievements and ask for what could even be better (for the future)

Benefits of Appreciative Inquiry • Unifying factor – everybody want to share success but not failure • Improved relations - Good feeling to each other, inclusive• Energizing – participants see capacity, potential to contribute/do

more• Enhances commitment - People appreciate their organization,

their work and themselves• Helped to build trust and commit to collaborateAppreciative Inquiry is neither denying the existence of problems nor is just being positive minded but it is a system of dealing with problems to achieve improvement • Not another intervention, but a new approach to existing

interventions

Application of Appreciative Inquiry and testing the Watershed Approach through the pilot project on

“Mitigation of Challenges to Female Education and Physical and Psychological Harm (VAW) of women and girls in Munessa woreda, Arssi Zone, Oromia Region

Civil society ‘watershed’ approach

What is watershed in the context of social development process?• It is an approach to identify assets and capacities of

different actors in a specific geographical context (or ‘watershed’)

• It is a strategies for bringing people together to agree on and take action to change things.

• It is CSSP’s approach for building coalitions of CSOs, CBOs, Communities, government for change

The underlying concept of watershed approach

• Participation and contribution of all stakeholders/change agents is essential for sustainable change

• Need for Coalition building for joint action based on trust, recognition of each others resourcefulness, collaborative action

• Sustainability of the changes and impacts are the centre

The Watershed AnalogyPhysical Watershed Civil Society (Social) “Watershed”

Holistic Looks at the big picture of the watershed as a whole (hills, forests, valley, rivers, overgrazing, logging…)

Looks at the big picture – the root causes of under-development (social exclusion, hard to reach factors)

Evidence-based analyses

Analyses based on good information on problems and opportunities; good theory of change/results chain

Good analyses of technical, social and institutional gaps & opportunities; good theory of change/results chain

Looks for synergy (1+1=3)

Changes in different sectors add up to a big change in watershed as a whole (livelihoods, disaster risk reduction)

Interventions add up to more than the sum of the parts, not just lots of unconnected CS projects

Grounded in Communities

Participatory analyses with communities, to determine problems and priority solutions

Demand-led – reflects priorities determined by “hard to reach” peoples

Transformative Aims to make big changes in the watershed; Relies on changes in behaviour (and coordinated action) by many actors within the watershed

Aims to make big changes , bringing together range of CSOs and other actors with the potential to foster transformational change through and coordinated action

Sustainable Aims for sustainable changes that continue after intervention ends, with strong ownership

Technically, socially, financially sustainable interventions, with strong ownership,

Designing the pilot project in line with the “CSSP Watershed Approach”

Key concept/steps in ‘watershed’ approach

Multi-faceted Issues identified at a local level

A variety of stakeholders or change agents identified

The core concept is ensuring the coordinated effort of all change agents to address the issues through complementary activities

Steps followed to apply the “Watershed Approach” on Munessa Pilot project

Step one - Consultation meetings (using Appreciative model of situational analyses) Discovery phase

• Woreda government offices (administration, security, education, agriculture, women and children affaires),

• Local communities, • Religious leaders, • Status based associations

Key question following Appreciative Inquiry model

• Start by asking achievements, challenges and opportunities in the woreda• Allow respondents to tell success stories and

opportunities to development in general, education sector, girls participation in education, the cultural basis for respect and status of women in the society

Outcome of step one (consultations)

The following issues/challenges were identified• Unemployment of youth• Abduction, migration and school dropout of girls• Low education quality• Lack of medicines and service in the health institutions• Low level of technology use in agriculture• Lack of Support to the elderly and persons with

disabilities • Low capacity of the women associations to address the

issues of needy women, girls, children, etc.

Step two: one urgent/core issue identified

Challenges to female education - Abduction, migration and school dropout with its expansion to violence against women and girls• High abduction of girls for marriage in the woreda (20-30 per

year)• High number of school age migration of female students to

Middle East Countries (about 900 per year) • High school dropout (close to 4000 or 20% of the total female

students in the woreda)• High rate of violence against women – rape, physical

harassment, FGM, economic harassement • Consultation made with major change agents on the issue and

desired changes – build consensus

Step three: Key actors/stakeholders identified

• Woreda government offices and kebele administration

• the police and judiciary• the school communities – students, teachers,

parents, school boards • the elders, women associations, idir leaders• Leaders of the faith based organizations• mass based organizations – women, teachers,

youth associations

Step four -Project design, appraisal and approval process – dream and design phases of AI

• Project designed/planned following participatory methods

• Project agreement with the local gov’t signed

Step five: Project implementation - delivery phase of AI

• Project launched with the major change agents (stakeholders)• Project implementation

Development of the Memorandum of Understanding The woreda attorney produced a document on the legal

provisions (criminal codes and family law) on violence on women and girls with focus on abduction of girls for marriage and rape and below age family imposed migration

The Roles and responsibilities of the government offices and all other stakeholders identified and agreement reached

Actions and strategies

• Establishment of woreda taskforce (composed of all stakeholders) that is chaired by Woreda administrator

• Training and meetings of the taskforce members• Awareness raising to the public – conferences,

meetings, trainings, posters, leaflets• Establishment of girls clubs in 58 schools• Establishment/strengthening community policing in 38

kebeles• Make schools attractive to the students with focus on

female students –extra tutorial classes

Girls Internship program – complementary activity

PurposeTo create competence and self confidence of

young female professionalsTo create favorable environment for the young

girls/women professionals to successfully compete in the labor market

To create role models in the society and for the girls in schools

Girls Internship program - process• 20 professional girls participated in the program–

most of them are from the field of sociology and social works, education planning and management, psychology

• Attached to different government offices and associations to analyze the legal frame-work, achievements, opportunities, challenges, etc in each office

The benefits of the girls Internship program to the participants

• Enhanced their understanding of the local context and working environment

• Enhanced their understanding about the realities under which women, female students, people with disabilities and older people live and their wishes

• 40 research reports produced in groups and individually• Helped them to understand themselves better – who am I?

what is my role in the society? What can I contribute?

Achievements of the Pilot project

• Abduction reduced from 18 (officially reported) in 2004 EC to 6 in 2005 (close to 70% reduction)

• Family imposed Migration reduced from 1101 (928 female in 2004 E.C to 231 students (223 female) in 2005 (75% reduction)

• School dropout reduced from 7551 students (3972 female) in 2004 E.C in 2004 to 2164 students (939 female) in 2005 – 741 students were brought back to the schools by the school girls clubs

• 13,500 women organized in 28 women associations (so far) – to take responsibility to mitigate violence against women

Process outcomes

• The relationship among different government sectors, community and HEfDA enhanced

• Strong bond between the government structure and women associations and school girls clubs

• The operation of the taskforce gave new ways of collaboration among government offices

Impacts on HEfDA- the implementing CSO

• New approaches to enhnce technical and organizational systems introduced – score cards, ladder of change, Results chain, Result management review, personal development plan

•HEfDA became more visible in the woreda• The trust and partnership with the government

offices enhanced

Lessons • Trust building among stakeholders/Government -

appreciation, identification of gaps and building partnership

• Windows of hope to dialogue with the government on what has been understood as ”grey areas” for CSOs interventions– differentiation of dealing with the issues/practice and advocacy for the victims

Lessons that ensure sustainability of the impacts of the pilot project

• CSO - Not as a forerunner but as a facilitator for change – the positive lesson from the taskforce (coalition building at kebele and woreda levels)

• Trust building and collaboration with the government offices and the society at large

• Support the people to take responsibility over their issues – strengthen the women associations or school girls clubs to deal with issue of violence against women and girls

What follows?

• Draw lessons – what, why, how • Share the lessons – modeling positive

experiences- coaching/mentoring of emerging and young CSOs

• Expanding the watershed – scaling up – based on the evidences and learning e.g. mitigation of different forms of violence against women on wider geographic area more stakeholders

Galatooma