ANALYSIS OF CARE BURUNDI’S SITUATION IN RELATION TO MOVING TO A
MORE PROGRAMMATIC APPROACH –
EN ROUTE VERS L’APPROCHE PROGRAMME
CARE Burundi must be praised for having started on its own a re-structuring process that
is in fact a major step to a more programmatic approach. Projects were grouped based on
who they target and three “clusters” were formed: women empowerment, youth
empowerment and empowerment of marginalized.
CARE Burundi has also started designing cluster level indicators so that each project’s
contribution to achieving cluster level indicators can be captured and measured.
Also, the strong focus put on “neighbors’1 participation” is a critical step to strengthening
downwards accountability, a key characteristic of CARE’s definition of a program.
A lot of progress has been made as well in trying to develop reflective practices and
ensuring projects are developed based on lessons learnt (e.g. the QEDD methodology and
integrated the use of appreciative inquiry throughout the entire DM&E and learning
system). Currently reflection and knowledge sharing happens through projects’ reviews
and evaluations, annual DP/AOP review and more recently monthly (?) learning days
were established.
Challenges and way forward in journey to a programmatic approach:
Each cluster needs to refine their respective program impact groups. Right now the
women empowerment cluster is the “closest” to a program. The other two and
particularly the one on marginalized are still very broad (youth & OVC) and
vague/unclear (marginalized). Choices need to be made; e.g. the same theory of change
and program cannot address the issues of such different groups as sex workers and
landless women; The Youth cluster is also suggesting to work with too large a group,
starting with children from the age of three, doing ECD, primary education, non formal
education for out of school youth, life skills, etc. It is not realistic to think that CARE can
address the needs of all these different groups; choices need to be made.
Documentation of experience and lessons learnt is reported to be a problem; CARE
Burundi has a wealth of rich experience but it is insufficiently captured and documented;
In moving to a program approach, strengthening our analytical capacity, our ability to
learn and document what we do is critical. CARE Burundi has a well staffed Program
Quality and Learning Unit that should, now an ACD-Program is finally in place, be able
to take the lead in this.
Suggested process:
1
Name given to projects’beneficiaries by CARE Burundi
1. Familiarization with the eight characteristics of a program, as defined by CARE.
It is suggested that the Program Quality and Learning unit organizes a session
during which cluster heads and PMs will do their own assessment, trying to
determine where they stand for each characteristic. This will help (1) increase the
staff’s knowledge of what a program is and (2) determine where the CO needs to
put more emphasis for future projects (e.g. working more with civil society, etc).
2. Refine impact groups: since the women empowerment group is the most
advanced and the UMWIZERO project is already very close to a program (with
policy/advocacy, research-action components, etc), the CO could opt for starting
with this one and doing the UCP analysis for this one first, prior to finalizing the
refinement of the other two as the analysis of this group will probably give a lot of
information to help refine the other two.
3. Deep analysis of UCPs for each of them with the following lens/journey in mind:
a. Marginalized: (suggestion Michael: from subjects to citizens): this can
potentially become a transversal theme that cuts across all program impact
groups, rather than remaining as a separate group;
b. Youth (suggestion Michael: from despair to hope)
c. Women (suggestion Michael: from violence to trust).
It has to be noted here that during the last years, CARE Burundi has gathered a lot
of information on UCPs. Before going into the UCP analysis, it is recommended
to analyze what the CO has. It might be more an issue of in-depth exploitation &
analysis of available information, rather than collecting new information.
4. Stakeholder analysis: There is a need for the CO to identify who the key players
are at national level in the areas linked to the program impact groups. Right now,
CARE Burundi’s projects work mostly at “agency” level, but in order to have the
broad impact CARE seeks to achieve, to leverage resources at national level and
to really impact on the structural causes of poverty and social injustice, our work
in Burundi must be linked much more strongly with national level platforms, fora
and groups, including the government when possible (e.g. Ministry of Health as
ABUBEF already works closely with them). In order to develop these true
strategic partnerships and alliances at national level, a stakeholder analysis is
required.
5. Define programs for each of the impact groups.
6. CARE Burundi needs to determine the time frame for the above 5 points and
translate that into a more detailed action plan, clearly identifying who is
responsible for what.