CARE Failing Forward: Recent Episodes
Emily Janoch
CARE staff around the world talk about experiences we learn from failure, and how we use that to get better at our work.
Cocoa income comes just twice a year, but families need stability every day. Carol Miloky (CARE) and Fatou Ndiaye (Mars) unpack what they learned from a decade of working with cocoa‑growing families. Savings groups were helping women build businesses, but without stronger household planning and clearer financial decision‑making, those gains didn’t always translate into lasting resilience. Over time, CARE and Mars saw a simple truth: stability at home shows up as stability in the supply chain.
They explore how focusing on whole‑household financial visioning, helping families plan across the year, smooth income gaps, and make shared decisions, creates more predictable livelihoods and stronger supplier relationships. The result? Stronger enterprises, safer homes, and, as Fatou puts it, farmers who stay committed for the long term. Read more about this decade-long partnership here Women for Change - Empowering Women Cocoa Farmers - CARE
Amanda Larson and Aimee Mateo talk about building health technology in the Philippines. HEAL Hub is an app that helps local health workers stay up to date on training and the materials they need. But the health workers aren’t who you think they are: in many areas, health workers are on average 60 years old, and handing them a smart phone is not going to immediately translate into results, no matter how good the app is. Amy says the biggest change she would make is to start earlier designing WITH health workers, to understand what they need, what the Ministry of Health requires, and what kinds of examples will make a difference for them. Their biggest goal now is to figure out how the tool can integrate into the health system so it can last for the long haul.
Ask yourself, 'Did the system become stronger because we were there?’” That’s the biggest piece of advice Nelima Otipa and Nithya Ramanathan from Nexleaf Analytics have for you about trying to scale up technology. It’s not about building the perfect tech. It’s about seeing people as actors in their own systems. You need to adapt with governments, not sell to them. Inspired by their article on Scale that Lasts in Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), we talk about why governments often prefer paper systems, how reliability is the key to trust, and what it takes to build a culture where you lead by understanding failure instead of ignoring it.
What happens when your brand new tool makes things worse for low performing entrepreneurs? Or restricts your most successful teachers so they can't unlock the full power of their skills? One of the most important questions you can ask about an AI tool is NOT, "is it working?" You really need to ask, "who is it working for?" and "How did the change happen?" Crystal Huang from IDinsight and Matthew Smith from IDRC talk about ways to evaluate AI tools, and how to think about if they really are creating the change you hoped for.
Just like the internet didn't end poverty, neither will AI. What succeeds or fails will depend on how well we implement AI, and whether we can truly center how technology connects to humans and real life contexts. What do we do to take something that works in a controlled setting and help it survive the messiness of real-world implementation?
Robots that get stuck in the mud, a "successful" product a farmer will never use more than once, and a financial model clients can never pay for. Listen to Ankit Chandra and Ishani Lal talk about their article, Why AgTech Startups Fail, what inspired them, and what they learned. The core lesson is that we need to change what counts as success in AgTech. Success is not "does it work in the lab?" Success is, "Will this save the farmer time or money? Will it increase profit and lower risk?" Maybe most importantly, "will any farmer ever choose to use this more than once?"
Lindsey Moore was working in AI before most of us knew what it was, and she can tell you the most common mistakes to avoid. Ignoring context, building ever more precise models that provide terrible answers, and assuming that AI will replace smart strategy and human decision-making are three on the top of her list. If you're looking to do more with AI, she recommends you invest in learning good research methods, double-down on your data architecture, find ways to counteract bias, and stay skeptical.
Developmetrics' Large Language Model with was trained on 60 years of USAID documents, and taps into a wealth of expertise that doesn't exist anywhere else. It can tell you what has worked, and what hasn't, over decades of work in dozens of countries. Here's what it tells us: we often repeat the same failures over and over again. Why? Because failures are as much about organizations as they are about tactics. The newest widget won't solve an organizational culture that drives people away from spending time understanding the local context.
Eric Kaduru and Julia Arnold talk about why simply distributing phones doesn't help people--especially women--access the internet. After seeing free phones get broken, stolen, or cause men to punish women for owning phones, they needed a new plan. Instead, they talked about learning from HIV prevention campaigns in the 90s, demystifying something complex, and making learning accessible. Social norms are at least as important as technology. Soap operas, hip hop concerts, and talking to men are critical tools in opening up access to tech for women in Uganda, and worked better than free phones ever have.
CARE has a more than 30 year history with savings groups--starting from the lowest tech version you can possibly imagine: 25 women with a box and a notebook in Niger. Building on that, in 2013, we launched the process of building Chomoka--an app that would help women in savings groups manage their record keeping and connect to digital finance. Christian Pennotti talks about that journey, and why we finally passed the work over to Ensibuuko. Building a successful, scalable enterprise around digital tools was ultimately better put in the hands of a tech company that focuses on banking tech for people who can't access existing tools. What did we learn, and what are we doing now? Tune in to find out.
What happens when you try to build an AI tool that works for women entrepreneurs – and it totally flops? In this episode of Failing Forward, CARE’s Koheun Lee and Sarah Hewitt share the story of their ambitious attempt to create a women-centered GPT trained on real-world data from women entrepreneurs. Spoiler: it didn’t go as planned. But the failure revealed a lot.
In this episode, Koheun and Sarah discuss:
- Why CARE built a custom GPT to fight bias, and what went wrong
- How even well-trained AI tools can reinforce stereotypes and exclude women
- What we learned about prompt design, user behavior, and the limits of scrappy innovation
- Why most users still defaulted to mainstream AI tools
- Actionable tips for using AI more intentionally, and with less bias
- What this "failure" taught us about building better tools and better teams
Tune in for a candid conversation about tech, bias, and what it really means to learn in public. To learn more and join the conversation, visit the Women’s Entrepreneurship LinkedIn Community of Practice.
"If you've already built an elevator to the first floor, why not take it all the way to the top?" Vidhya Sriram talks about the journey of savings groups (also called VSLAs) at CARE, and what it took to think not just about scale, but also about the biggest benefits to women. VSLAs do build savings and income, but they can also do so much more. She talks about understanding what women themselves aspire to, not what we aspire for her. She also talks how savings groups can be a platform for women to build economies, change the support women get from the people around them, and thinking about building not just savings, but also equality that benefits the whole community. Check out the report here.
What happens when you don't see the results you hoped for in your project? If you're Dr. Nahla Abdel-Tawab from Population Council, you publish your results, learn from them, and try again. Some of the biggest barriers they faced were: assuming that private sector health solutions were the answer, asking workers the wrong questions about what they needed, and not understanding the context that garment factory workers in Egypt deal with when trying to access health care. Great examples of learning, admitting that it didn't work, and finding a better way to get results. You can see more about the project here.
What does it take for people and the planet to thrive? We have to show up. C.D. Glin, President, PepsiCo Foundation and Global Head of Social Impact, PepsiCo. After decades in social impact, government, and philanthropy, C.D. talks about some of his earliest lessons as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the new South Africa, and the inspiration of Nelson Mandela’s quote, “I never lose. I either win or learn.” Appreciative inquiry, meeting people where they are, and knowing you don’t have all the answers or some of the key lessons.
What happens if we stick with business as usual? We fail by default. C.D. Glin, President, PepsiCo Foundation and Global Head of Social Impact, PepsiCo, Inc talks about food systems are failing women, and what companies can do to correct for that. Thinking with a whole of company approach, beyond just philanthropy, is critical. Companies have to use their profits, their products, their procurement, their people, and their markets if we’re going to achieve #zerohunger. He talks about how COVID-19 was a wake up call to the visceral challenges in the global food system—like climate change and inequality—and how to turn a moment into momentum. He also talks about how projects like She Feeds the World can help address these challenges.
Tahira Nizari and Barnabas Mtelevu talk about what it took to overcome the challenges in the tea sector in Tanzania, and how assuming that smallholder women farmers could immediately join a global supply chain demanded new partnerships and new plans. How do you grow from an individual farmer to a business? Don't assume it will happen automatically. Just because you're a businesses doesn't mean it will work. On the other hand, you can't assume a development project is set up to meet market needs. A demonstration factory, joint ownership with women farmers, and getting global investment were part of the key in shifting to a more business mindset in the partnership between CARE and Kazi Yetu. It led to a 17% increase in tea prices and an 83% ROI. Learn more about how they did it here.
You've commissioned an analysis to understand the dynamics for women and young people to build a better program, and the results are disappointing. They're too general, too high-level, too obvious. They're accurate, but not useful. What went wrong? Well--you're not alone. MOST of the implementers in the Gender and Youth Activity have the same experience--gender analyses are often disappointing because we do them wrong.
What's the solution? Get more focused, have managers involved in the whole process, and get the team involved in learning, instead of hoping that a consultant can do the learning for you. Great learning from Hope Schaitkin, Michelle Lemeur, and Savannah Smith from the Gender and Youth Activity.
There are more resources here about what you should do next.:
- Step-by-step: A Roadmap to Gender and Youth Integration in Food Security and Resilience Programs
- GAYA Event Report – May 2023 Stakeholder Consultation
What happens when your consultation processes go off the rails? Lauren Beriont from The Emgergence Collective talks about how a lot of our feedback and co-creation processes face three major problems:
1) They assume a trust that does not exist between different stakeholders
2) They are centering the wrong actor--the donor or the most powerful group in the process--instead of focusing on the impact the world needs to see.
3) They are looking to validate a plan that is already in place (but maybe not on paper yet), not create a new plan
How do we fix that? Have scary conversations. Talk about what's not working, what assumptions people holding, and tackle real power dynamics. Look at what impact donors expect, vs. the kind of impact people are actually seeing happen.
What's in a logo, and why does localization need to include participant-led logo design? Zinat Ara Afroze and Sairana Ahsan explore the logo competition to have frontline service providers design a logo for their own services. What did they learn? Only 9 people out of a potential 450 participated in the competition the first time around, and understanding why not, and what level of understanding it takes to draw a logo that sums up your job showcased how much more shared understanding there was to build. Zinat's recommendation for what you should do? Practice adaptive management and CLA. Check out their case study here.
Inspired by his recent blog post on From Poverty to Power, Duncan Green reflects on why it's important to learn from failure, and some of his own failure stories. "Think before you jump", and "be a reflectivist as well as an activist" are some of his key pieces of advice to people working in the sector. He's got stories about playing chess from the management bunker, evidence-based humility, and How Change Happens, the second edition paperback and Open Access that's coming out starting from August 16.
Want to hear more stories from Duncan and the change makers he works with? Listen to his podcast: GELI Stories podcasts
"I wish I had known that my biggest source of learning would be my field colleagues. ...I believed in textbooks." Dr. Muhammad Musa reflects on 41 years of work in international development. His two biggest lessons are: learn from your frontline staff, and tell stories with impact. Some lessons he learned in the decades are to build a fearless climate--a climate of trust, where staff at all levels can learn from failure, and can take time to reflect. He also notes that moving from a project to a movement--one that changes a system--is the best way to create change. Technical solutions are not the only (or even the best) way to get the job done.
The Feed the Future Mali Sugu Yiriwa operates in the Delta Zone of Mali, aiming to strengthen the resilience of farming and business communities through market-driven, inclusive, nutrition-sensitive, and agriculture-driven economic growth. However, the complex nature of Mali’s political situation poses significant challenges to program implementation and participant outreach. In this episode of the Failing Forward Podcast, Laurore Antoine, Chief of Party for Sugu Yiriwa, shares valuable insights into how adaptive leadership, collaboration with local grassroots organizations, and strategic use of digital solutions, among other adaptive management approaches, have been instrumental in achieving program goals and positively impacting lives in Mali.
Christabell Makokha talks about always anchoring innovation to the success metric: have I solved the problem? Instead of focusing on the process, focus on the problem, and whether or not people's lives are getting better. She reflects on why innovation labs fail (inspired by this article from ICTworks). What's going wrong?
- We define innovation as "the next new thing" rather than leveraging creative problem solving.
- We struggle to find the balance between stand-alone innovation work and innovation integrated with existing programming
- We measure the wrong things--too much process measurement, and not enough problem-solving.
- Our risk appetite is too low, and our timelines are too short.
You’ve done the desk literature reviews, collected and conducted field studies, crafted and deployed surveys, analyzed the data, written up the results, and released your study findings. Is it having any real influence or impact? How do you know? Laura Kim and Michelle LeMeur of the Canopy Lab wrestled with these questions when they attempted to trace uptake by stakeholders of their studies on COVID-19 and the international development workforce: https://www.marketlinks.org/blogs/beyond-downloads-views-and-likes-how-do-you-know-your-research-having-impact
Titukulane's progress was achieved by addressing the failures it faced in the years leading up to 2023. When the program was first implemented, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, making it extremely difficult to implement field-level activities. However, Titukulane was able to turn around its failures by starting from the roots and addressing every aspect of the program. They focused on team building and cross-functional teamwork, built the capacity of the M&E teams, made field engagement a regular task for everyone involved, and engaged participants in multiple activities to diversify their income while keeping sustainability in mind. This was no small feat. Listen to Daniel Abbott, the Chief of Party of Titukulane, as he speaks about how closely he worked with the team to address every detail and achieve where Titukulane stands today.
Maria Alemu and Gregory Makabila talk about the Ifaa project's Failure Summit, and what it took to create a culture where failure spurred reflection, learning and action. Lessons from Saint Yared, a learning from failure roadmap, pre-mortem exercises, and the 5 Whys of Failure were all key tools that helped the team learn, adapt, and improve. Check out their reflections, what they would do differently, and the diverse range of tools that helped the team embrace failing forward.
Ifaa is a USAID-funded RFSA project that CRS leads in Ethiopia.
It's not easy or obvious to not only work with adolescent girls in crisis settings, but also to let them lead. But it is possible. AMAL currently operates in Syria, Nigeria, and Somalia, addressing the unique vulnerabilities of adolescent girls in crisis settings, such as early marriages and adolescent pregnancy. The program includes components like a Young Mother's Club, Community Dialogues, and a health provider curriculum to improve sexual and reproductive health service uptake and enhance participants' life skills. Our guest speaker, Pari Chowdhary, highlights the importance of relationship investments, continuous quality improvement mechanisms, and including adolescent girls in program design and evaluation. The final hope is for the program to be owned and run locally by the adolescent mothers themselves.
Katharine Nasielski, Pari Chowdhary, and Brittany Dernberger talk about Fast and Fair-- CARE's work trying to get COVID-19 vaccines out to the world to meet the global deadline for 80% vaccination rates by September 2022. Advocating for funding and policy change, running programs to support vaccine delivery around the world, and trying to measure global to local impact are all places where we've learned a lot about what we need to do next time. Because like it or not, we need to prepare for a next time. Consistent investments in innovative, nimble, and adaptable are our best shot for future pandemic preparedness.
If you looked at a problem and thought, "the answer is more capacity building and more guidelines" Florence Santos says you might need to think again. Based on her experience leading Monitoring and Evaluation at CARE, she's seen a proliferation of tools and resources that aren't really solving the underlying solution. If it's the recommendation you would always have made under any circumstances, you're probably not looking carefully enough at the solution. Florence reflects on how she would get to a solution with fewer tools and trainings, and more systematic follow through.
CARE implemented the Inspiring Married Adolescent Girls to Imagine New Empowered Futures (IMAGINE) project to design & test interventions aimed at delaying the timing of first birth among married adolescents in Niger (Zinder region) and Bangladesh (Kurigram district) between 2016 and 2022. Rachael Goba explains how the IMAGINE journey went on married adolescent girls envisioning, valuing and pursuing alternative life trajectories. For example, after 22 months of implementation, contraceptive use in Niger was significantly higher in the treatment group compared to the control group; and higher for those who have had a birth compared to those who have not.
Frontline health workers play a critical role in delivering health services globally, especially to the hardest to reach populations. Despite their importance to health systems and universal health coverage goals, this majority female workforce faces diverse and ongoing barriers affecting their working conditions and capacity. Pari Chowdhary talks about how at CARE, we aim to bring support and work with and for FLHWs to achieve healthy outcomes across our programming countries, but also, we aim to bridge key gaps like equipping and training FLHWs.
This time on the other side of the mic, Emily Janoch talks about what it takes to truly move from learning to changing the choices we make, and the hard commitment to "do it differently, not just next time, but every time after that." We all need to be accountable to impact. How do we remove the idea that we are the heroes of the story in development, and how do we acknowledge our own privileges, let them go, and learn to deploy them for others instead of ourselves. Christabell Makhokha hosts, asks great questions, and helps hold a space for vulnerability.
Monalisa Salib wants you to get cozy with the context. If your theory of change is full of assumptions and logical statements that could easily be true anywhere in the world, it's probably not going to work. Only by understanding the context where we operate and respecting the actors and the expertise in that context will real change happen. That means knowing the specific players, actors, and dynamics where change gets done. Another tip she has for you: people matter more than process, and technical solutions will never be enough.
Natacha Brice--who runs CARE's work on Village Savings and Lending Associations in Emergencies (VSLAiE)--wants you to know two things about doing group savings in crisis settings: 1) It is possible, and it will have big impacts; 2) it's going to take a lot of hard work to do it right. You can build capital in crisis, which changes how we think about both our long term programming and our emergency response. There's a lot we've learned on the journey. Thanks to Beja Turner for hosting!
Why do we spend so much time and money on gathering data we never use? Why can't we always find the data we need to make good decisions? Christina Synowiec from Results for Development talks about Getting Rigor Right, and article she co-authored on deciding how rigorous data needs to be based on the decision you are trying to make. Sometimes you need quick, indicative data. Sometimes you need people's voices. (Often you need both). You always need data, but only sometimes do you need the most rigorous data to make a good decision.
In our 100th episode, Michelle Nunn talks about lessons learned since she last joined the podcast with Fourth Quarter Failure, including navigating challenges we never predicted--like COVID-19 and the conflict in Ukraine. Some of her reflections include that we have to lean more into local leadership and networks with humility, we have to lighten our systems, and we have to create a space where everyone can be a change agent. Building new tools to listen to the women we work with faster and more completely, balancing risk, and becoming agile are some of the thoughts at the top of her mind.
Aqsa Khan and Diana Wu talk about the journey to re-imagine and redesign CARE's Reflections on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (REDI) training after getting feedback that the previous version was harming staff with marginalized identities. Even with the best intentions, diversity trainings can do more harm than good. So we had to redesign ours. Change only happens when you commit to doing the work. Staff have to reflect, to change, and commit to grow. Some of the other key lessons they shared: senior leadership commitment is critical, we need to focus more on accountability, not just awareness, and budgets and resources are crucial to getting things done.
This is work none of us do alone. We had a lot to learn from people who are doing this work. Here are some of the key resources CARE drew inspiration from for the REDI training.
- AORTA, Continuum of becoming a transformative anti-oppression organization.
- We Don’t Want to be Stars
- Vo Vo
- Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective/ Mia Mingus – Accountability Lab
- Community Accountability Videos from Barnard
Joshua Muskin from Geneva Global talks about the incentives and biases that cause programmers to design "hothouse flowers"--projects that will only work inside the special resource and attention environment of a startup and a pilot. To get to scale, you need to think beyond the hothouse, to what will work under the hardest conditions, not the easiest ones. Who scales, what resources they have, and what their goals and incentives are contribute so much more to scale than having an elegant solution from the outside. "Be more trust based" is just one of Joshua's tips on how to succeed in creating something that could scale.
Rachel Wolff talks about the journey to cede power to local organizations, and continuing to push to center people in the most marginalized communities as the leaders, responders, and decision makers in their own lives. We need to put more power and more voice for impact into our partners, and be accountable for impact. Rachel talks about Nepal's Humanitarian Partnerships Platform, and how much faster partners are at stepping into the lead. Mutual respect, being flexible, and telling the truth in love so we can all get better are powerful tools. And speaking of power--remember when you have it, and step back to leave room for others.
Kevin Starr talks about his article "Don't Feed the Zombies" and how if we focus on measuring reach, instead of caring about impact, we end up doing harm in the world. His vision is a world where you can't get taken seriously if you can't talk about real, measurable change in the lives of people we serve, and the evidence to back it up. "The minute you commit to impact, and a definition thereof, you're starting to be part of the solution." What's a definition of impact? Evidence of change that happened in someone's life, and a plausible description about how your part in that change worked. If we (especially donors) are not accountable for impact, they end up supporting groups that aren't accountable to the people they serve, and are not driving for the full potential of what we can get done in the world. Here are some other links to check out:
- Making Ourselves Accountable
- Strategy: Go Big or Go... Oh, Just Go Big
- The Seven Commandments of Funding
- The Lazy Funders Guide to High-Yield Philanthropy
Anne Sprinkel talks about trying to implement, translate, and apply learnings from a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) in the middle of a pandemic. "Communities are not laboratories, and they deserve so much more." She talks about how to combine qualitative data and triangulate different perspectives in an RCT, and all of the learning around it. "Simply taking one person at their word...that is truth." Anne first joined the podcast in 2019, talking about Square Pegs and Round Holes and fitting research to community needs. Nearly four years later, she's talking about what their RCT told them, social norms findings, and balancing people's lived truth with "rigorous" research findings.
Mark Muckerheide talks about what it would take to close the gap that international development aims to work on. Right now, Mark's team estimates that many programs get $2 for every dollar they put in. To truly close the gap, it needs to be $20 per dollar in. So how do we get 10 times better? Focus on putting "money in her pockets" and think about measuring efficiency by the benefits to women who make less than $4 per day. That means we need to think about the bigger system, and fixing the market failures that prevent women from participating fully.
Sustainability fails because it assumes progress is a straight line, and things will always be getting better. Gloria Steele talks about why our thinking about how COVID, climate change, and conflict show us that we need resilience, the ability of people and systems to bounce back. Sustainability is continuing to do what others define as progress. Resilience is being able to choose the path that works for you. What's an example of resilience? Refusing to allow gender norms to define who has capacity, and what capacities they have. Another tip she has is "we are only as good as we are able to learn."
Crystal Simeoni, the Director of NAWI Collective, shares tips for decolonizing, deconstructing, bravery, and joy in development. International development gets so much wrong, but there are ways to be better. Some of Crystal's tips include: align your operations with your values, give up power, center care, and just get it done. You know what you need to do; stop analyzing and act. A few other key pieces of advice: "slow it way down," "pull your head up from your laptop," and "the narrative of capacity is a lie." Crystal helps think about redefining success, and who gets to build the future. And if she could wave a magic wand, Crystal would have a feminist audit firm take charge of operations.
When you're leading a change to have more equity in your staffing practices, people who hold privilege will feel that they are losing power, no matter what the data says. You also don't usually get to such a profound organizational change unless you REALLY have a problem. Listen to Esther Watts talk about how CARE Ethiopia had to change it's policies and practices so the staff was no longer 26% women--the worst equity rate of any office in the CARE federation, and what they had to do to get there. Diversity makes a difference, and you have to have a lot of courage to get there. Esther's advice? "go go go. Stand by the courage of your convictions."
We learn more when we have to sit in a failure than we do when we succeed. Listen to Sarah Eckhoff talk about what happened when we offered and opt out to CARE's Gender Marker. It showed us a lot about commitments to the process, data overload, and when reporting is optional. It also changed our approach to supporting teams in the gender marker process.
"If failure is uncomfortable, get over it." Rebecca Rosetti and Tara Ross talk about CARE's 2022 Learning from Failure, and how their background in laboratory sciences helped them learn early that failure is inevitable. "Failure is just data." They talk about what CARE sees as big gaps this year--partnerships and sustainability--and how we can now see that projects are improving over time. Gender and M&E have been two big areas of improvement since we started.
In part 2 of her podcast, Kalkidan Yihun talks about how to make sure that data transforms into action--and especially that women and girls who contribute data get that data back in ways they can use themselves. Instead of extractive processes that feed into a black box that communities never see, think about how to format and share data so women can act. Who needs to see it? Who will take action? What ways make sharing that data safe for people who provided it? Kal coordinates the Women Respond project, and offers tips and lessons about what doesn't work (and does) in putting women's voices first.
Kalkidan Yihun talks about how to redesign data collection so it centers what people--especially women--want and need, instead of being a burden on their time and lives because of what's easiest for the data collectors and researchers. Kal coordinates the Women Respond project, and offers tips and lessons about what doesn't work (and does) in putting women's voices first.
What do you do when your pursuit of a necessary program partner falls through? Don’t waste time on pushing a failed strategy, and don’t be afraid to move on. How do you guarantee commitment from partners early on? Assess interest from partners to ensure equal buy-in on both sides. Naureen Chaudhry identifies two challenges and the resulting lessons experienced by the CARE Pakistan team while working with female entrepreneurs through the CARE Ignite Program.
Tran Thi Minh Nguyet discusses her experience with working to increase access to finance for local micro and small women-led businesses in Vietnam through the CARE Ignite program. Partnerships with microfinance institutions can prove to be very difficult in these contexts. How to work against experiencing potential failures with these partners? Build in flexibility in financial product development that allows for pivots in the face of issues. Additionally, have a deep understanding of your partner from the start and develop output based contracts with potential partners to prevent failures during product rollout.
Cash transfers designed to help women re-enter markets after COVID-19 lockdowns lifted worked really well, AFTER we added programming to address GBV. Partway through the project, gender dialogues showed that women were facing so much violence that even cash was not enough to get back into the market. So the project re-designed their work to include social norms and addressing GBV, and helped more than 1,400 vendors get back on track. Media Matyanga talks about what the team learned, how they learned it, and what they did next.
Como trabajadores humanitarios/as la conversación difícil e incómoda es muchas veces necesaria, si de verdad queremos tratar a fondo temas como el antirracismo, la descolonización y la igualdad de género.
Resumen: Considerando temas mencionados entre los diferentes podcasts anteriores y en vísperas de la Vision 2030 decidimos realizar nuestro primer podcast en Castellano con el fin de hablar sobre temas como lo son la aceptación de los errores, el antirracismo, la descolonización y feminismo. Y cómo crear espacios de reflexión dentro de los diversos equipos que promuevan el reconocimiento de los errores, la deconstrucción y análisis sobre interseccionalidad es crucial para llevar nuestro trabajo humanitario... a un nivel más humanitario.
English:
Title: As humanitarians, the difficult and uncomfortable conversation is often necessary, if we really want to deal in depth with issues such as anti-racism, decolonization, and gender equality.
Summary: Considering the topics mentioned in the different previous podcasts and on the eve of Vision 2030 we decided to make our first podcast in Spanish in order to talk about issues such as the acceptance of mistakes, anti-racism, decolonization, and feminism. And how creating spaces for reflection within the various teams that promote the recognition of mistakes, deconstruction, and analysis on intersectionality is crucial to take our humanitarian work... to a more humanitarian level.
Como trabajadores humanitarios/as la conversación difícil e incómoda es muchas veces necesaria, si de verdad queremos tratar a fondo temas como el antirracismo, la descolonización y la igualdad de género.
Resumen: Considerando temas mencionados entre los diferentes podcasts anteriores y en vísperas de la Vision 2030 decidimos realizar nuestro primer podcast en Castellano con el fin de hablar sobre temas como lo son la aceptación de los errores, el antirracismo, la descolonización y feminismo. Y cómo crear espacios de reflexión dentro de los diversos equipos que promuevan el reconocimiento de los errores, la deconstrucción y análisis sobre interseccionalidad es crucial para llevar nuestro trabajo humanitario... a un nivel más humanitario.
English:
Title: As humanitarians, the difficult and uncomfortable conversation is often necessary, if we really want to deal in depth with issues such as anti-racism, decolonization, and gender equality.
Summary: Considering the topics mentioned in the different previous podcasts and on the eve of Vision 2030 we decided to make our first podcast in Spanish in order to talk about issues such as the acceptance of mistakes, anti-racism, decolonization, and feminism. And how creating spaces for reflection within the various teams that promote the recognition of mistakes, deconstruction, and analysis on intersectionality is crucial to take our humanitarian work... to a more humanitarian level.
Rojan Bolling and Hannah Itcovitz talk about their paper on how to design flexible programs that work for fragile settings. Along the way, they discovered 4 myths that everyone believes work, but that really don't. Flexibility can make a huge difference--especially in complex contexts--and that makes it even more important that we do it well. The idea of flexibility in institutions and relations, not just in operations, and getting beyond a 15% budget benchmark are two of their key insights.
Rojan Bolling and Hannah Itcovitz talk about their paper on how to design flexible programs that work for fragile settings. Along the way, they discovered 4 myths that everyone believes work, but that really don't. Flexibility can make a huge difference--especially in complex contexts--and that makes it even more important that we do it well. The idea of flexibility in institutions and relations, not just in operations, and getting beyond a 15% budget benchmark are two of their key insights.
Solar water pumps were a great business opportunity for women in northern Kenya--so great that as soon as businesses were profitable, men took over and shut women out of both the business, and sometimes access to water. Dorothy Aseyo from CARE Kenya talks about what she learned about how to pick technologies, pick partners, and make sure that when your goal is women having successful businesses, you don't set up systems for failure. Keeping track of who leads and adapting quickly are some of her key lessons
Monica Tobar and Ronald Picso talk about their experience working with cryptocurrency instead of cash to support refugees and host communities in Ecuador. Some key lessons? Just do it--don't spend all of your time trying to get everything perfect. Get lots of feedback--participants will tell you what's not working. Build more supply--get many vendors up to speed on crypto so people have choices about where to shop. Plan for training--it takes time to learn a new technology, especially in a crisis. Plan lots of time to support people in using and adopting a new tool, it won't happen overnight.
We talk about sustainability all the time, and commit to guaranteeing it in almost every development program. But is it really working? CARE launched a series of post-project studies to find out what lasts and what doesn't after a project closes. Caitlin Shannon and Maria Tobin talk about what they learned doesn't work. A few tips they saw across all 9 research studies:
- No matter how good it is, training alone is not enough for sustained impact.
- If you can't figure out how people will get paid in the long term, it probably won't last.
- You have to design differently. Participants who will have to live with systems in the long term should be at the heart of decisions about sustainability.
There are lots of things that worked too. Check out all of the studies to learn more.
"You have to believe that girls have the power. You don't empower the girl; you have to see the power in her." Suniti Neogy from CARE and Jayanthi Pushkaran talk about lessons from girl-led activism in the Tipping Point project, adapting a model from EMpower in India to Bangladesh and Nepal. What would they do differently now? Have girls lead more! It's very difficult for adults to let go of control, but girls can lead themselves. Ask them the questions; don't tell them the answers. Help girls think through risks and what activism means for them, and how we can be their allies. In needs cultivation, coordination, and commitment.
Thanks to Colleen Farrell for hosting the interview!
Madj Sawan from Ihsan for Relief and Development Organization, Fe Kagahastian from CashCap’s Syria response, Ola Batta from the Shafak Organization, and Reem Khamis from UNFPA describe their experience from the Cash and GBV working group. Why was 9 years into the crisis the right time to get started? How do we overcome the failure that most cash responses aren’t focusing on survivors of GBV? They shared the process that helped them get to a better set of standard procedures, and what we have to do to make them real in the way we do programs.
This podcast is produced in partnership with the Women's Refugee Commission and with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
Fe Kagahastian from CashCap’s Syria response and Reem Khamis from UNFPA talk about the importance of getting Cash practitioners and experts in supporting GBV survivors. Doing it wrong sets off all kinds of alarm bells, because if we do it wrong, we can hurt the people we’re trying to support. We need to speak “not necessarily the same language, but at least an understandable language.”
This podcast is produced in partnership with the Women's Refugee Commission and with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
Madj Sawan from Ihsan for Relief and Development Organization and Ola Batta from the Shafak Organization talk about the challenges they see while working on cash responses to protect women and girls and support survivors of Gender-based Violence in Syria. Some of their recommendations are to speed up the cash process so survivors can get services fast, to make sure there is a referral system in place, and to prioritize survivors and take action to support them. This podcast is produced in partnership with the Women's Refugee Commission and with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
This is a translation of the original Arabic podcast here: https://careinternational.podbean.com/e/move-faster-finding-ways-to-support-gbv-survivors-with-cash-services/
ARABIC Podcast. Madj Sawan from Ihsan for Relief and Development Organization and Ola Batta from the Shafak Organization talk about the challenges they see while working on cash responses to protect women and girls and support survivors of Gender-based Violence in Syria. Some of their recommendations are to speed up the cash process so survivors can get services fast, to make sure there is a referral system in place, and to prioritize survivors and take action to support them. This podcast is produced in partnership with the Women's Refugee Commission and with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
Stay tuned for the English version of this podcast, coming soon.
Nour AlSaaideh and Heba Abu Deyak reflect on what they learned doing cost efficiency analysis with the Dioptra tool. When they look at Conditional Cash Transfers for Education, cost is one metric, but it's not the only--or maybe even the most important one. Learn more about how we can focus on effectiveness AND efficiency so that when we lower costs, we don't compromise on impacts. Focusing on just cost runs the risk of creating programs that reach a lot more people without providing useful impacts in their lives. Do it well, and with some structure, can you can learn a lot about improving your programs.
Theophile Twahirwa from CARE Rwanda talks about what the team has learned in more than a decade of programming on Women's Economic Empowerment and savings groups. What did they find out? Savings is not enough; economic empowerment is not enough; investing in women is not enough. The team learned that true change comes from investing in equality--working with women, and also with the men in their lives and the systems of power they all face and replicate. Looking over a decade of learning, including the Indashyikirwa project, the team sees transformational change, and talks about where to go next.
In this English version recorded based on translations from the original Arabic podcasts, Fatima Azzeh from CARE interviews Samar Karamo and Baraa Bobaki from IHSAN Relief and Development, who talk about what they've learned on designing cash programming so it supports and protects women facing gender-based violence. This interview his interview covers why cash is important, how to make sure we don't retraumatize survivors, and the importance of understanding local context and testing our approach. It also shows how important it is to set up safety plans, think about potential harm, and build in holistic services. This podcast is produced in partnership with the Women's Refugee Commission and with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). CARE and WRC’s programming that integrates CVA into GBV response is also supported by USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance.
The original Arabic podcast was in two parts. The English language version covers the same content and is directly translated from the originals. However, it is in only one podcast because the recording time was shorter in English.
Fatima Azzeh from CARE interviews Samar Karamo and Baraa Bobaki from IHSAN Relief and Development, who talk about what they've learned on designing cash programming so it supports and protects women facing gender-based violence. The second in a 2-part series (check out part one here), this interview covers how important it is to set up safety plans, think about potential harm, and build in holistic services. This podcast is produced in partnership with the Women's Refugee Commission and with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). CARE and WRC’s programming that integrates CVA into GBV response is also supported by USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance.
In our first ever Arabic podcast, Fatima Azzeh from CARE interviews Samar Karamo and Baraa Bobaki with IHSAN Relief and Development, who talk about what they've learned on designing cash programming so it supports and protects women facing gender-based violence. The first in a 2-part series, this interview covers why cash is important, how to make sure we don't retraumatize survivors, and the importance of understanding local context and testing our approach. This podcast is produced in partnership with the Women's Refugee Commission and with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). CARE and WRC’s programming that integrates CVA into GBV response is also supported by USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance.
Holly Radice reflects on 3 years of cash and voucher programming at CARE, where we've grown, and where we need to invest more. Working with cash and vouchers to ensure that we're supporting gender equality and reducing risks of GBV is possible, but it's also a challenge. Here are some places that we need to strengthen: get participants more involved in design, listen to feedback, and understand that you've always got different levels of skills and experience are some of her big recommendations. She also says we need to be patient with ourselves, and always learning more.
Amani Idfonce from CARE Tanazania talks about how reinforcing the whole health system--especially with community health workers--makes it possible to get an even better COVID response than focusing on the disease alone would have done. How did they manage it? They worked on aligning with existing priorities, thinking about infectious diseases more broadly, and remembered to keep regular services running. Read more about the project here.
Mona Sherpa from CARE Nepal reflects on lessons learned in responding to emergencies in true collaboration with local partners. "We are not superior. Learning has to go both ways," she says. It's not just about your plans on paper or your commitment to principles, but also your actions and your systems.
Zachary Vinyard from the One Acre Fund talks about how digital projects in Rwanda failed because of too many assumptions about what worked for farmers. His team has a new report on Digital Innovations, and how to get better. Key tips? Break inward. Design experiments so if they fail, the organization bears all of the extra risk and extra work, and the farmers you serve don't have to take it on. Also, don't assume just because the code works that it will work for people. The benefits we care about are to farmers, not to functional code.
"Don't try to win for yourself. Try to win for impact." Rahul Chandran talks about what he terms the catastrophic failure of innovation in the humanitarian sector, why importing the Silicone Valley model of innovation and scale doesn't work, and how collective action and anti-racism are the only solutions. "Scale isn't about big" is just one of his provocations to the sector at large.
Allison Burden, CARE International's Head of Programming, reflects on where white feminist traditions have failed at anti-racism, what that means for white feminists to improve their own behavior (hint: listening and humility are two big tips), and what that means for the system of international development where we're working towards equality, human rights, and decolonization.
Dr. Tanmay Mahapatra and Dr. Shridhar Srikantiah from CARE India’s Bihar Technical Support Program explain how they use data to catch failures and make adjustments in real time with their Concurrent Measurement and Learning approach. Learn more at: bihar.care.org
"If you are not uncomfortable, you are not having the right conversations." Andres Gomez de la Torre from CARE talks about what we have to do in our work to be actively anti-racist. From the big changes to the small habits, from the individual to the organization, we need to accept that our work is built on a history of colonialism, and we all have to do the work to change our ideas about what it means to support social justice. "It's not just an HR issue. Thinking that is a mistake." We have to make changes across all parts of the organization, and do the work as individuals."
Fiona Cooper talks about her experience leading the research for round two of CARE's Learning From Failure initiative, and…I know this will surprise everyone…we haven’t stopped failures yet. We do have some hopeful signs that we’re failing better. Fiona talks about the importance of looking internally, acknowledging that everyone fails, and finding ways to be honest about failure in a sector that's not really comfortable with it.
Clement Bisai from CARE Malawi talks about what he and his team are learning about how to do better remote data collection. Focus, listen to communities, and reflect regularly are his key takeaways. Don't expect to outsource everything. Digital remote data collection may be the best way to work in COVID-19, but we're already learning how to do it better.
Hazem Fahmy from CARE Egypt talks about the journey from being a country office to becoming an independent member of the CARE family. What are some of his key lessons? First, don't spend all your time planning--test out actions and adapt. Second, learn to listen for what people aren't telling you; trust is critical for organizational change. Third, keep your principles firmly in mind as a north star. It can be easy to lose track of why we're transforming in the excitement of growing a business.
Tatiana Bertolucci--CARE's Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean--talks about what she learned closing the CARE Brazil office. We need to engage with curiosity and treat organizations in the global south as powerful allies, not people who merely implement our agenda. We also need to invest in more diverse boards. "There is knowledge everywhere if we will listen to it." Another lesson is "scream for help sooner" when something is not working.
Find out why Randy Villegas from UC Santa Cruz is rethinking is definition of vulnerability when it comes to undocumented youth in California. They certainly face extreme challenges, but what he has seen youth organizers do in the context of COVID-19 has Randy wondering, "what if it's elected officials who are vulnerable if youth keep being activist?" Learn more from Randy's work with young people, and lessons like "you need to be there even when it's not an election year," "stop the flyover organizing," and "youth are brutally honest."
Deyanira Nevarez Martinez from UC Irvine talks about the challenges of doing research in COVID-19, and the importance of contingency and risk management planning. How would you plan if you thought everything might go wrong? What are your alternatives for each step of your process? When COVID-19 turned everything upside down, Deyanira talks about strategies for moving research forward. Deya's research is in California, but she's got advice that can apply for everyone in the world.
Salah Hamwi from CARE Turkey talks about lessons learned in fighting rumors and misinformation about COVID 19. "We're fighting against time," he says. You have to get good information out first so that rumors don't have the space to grow and spread. Using digital platforms, getting leaders involved, and using evidence to shape your programs are all other key steps.
Ryan Shepard talks about launching CARE's first US-focused project, creating jobs and feeding kids impacted by #covid19. It wasn't an easy lift and "depended on a lot of things all going right at a very uncertain time." What are Ryan's takeaways? Listen for the truth that will make you stronger, even when people's feedback is discouraging. Believe in the core of what must work, constantly refine the details, and make decisions true to your principles.
Puji Pujiono of the Pujiono Center and Victoria Palmer from CARE Canada talk about their paper based on the Sulawesi response in Indonesia.This time, they talk about what organizations can do once a crisis has already started to have better success with partners, and help them achieve their goals rather than hurt them.
How do international NGOs create problems when they team up with local activists? It's the CARE of 1000 papers, where our processes are so focused on reducing risk that we bury local groups under the weight of our expectations, and don't give them the support they need. Puji Pujiono of the Pujiono Center and Victoria Palmer from CARE Canada talk about their paper based on the Sulawesi response in Indonesia, where we learned a lot about what we can do BEFORE we reach out to local partners so that we're truly helping response and empowering those partners. Stay tuned for part 2, where they discuss what we can do once a crisis hits.
Jay Goulden talks about designing a data system to collect information on pandemic response in 78 countries--a first for CARE. He says act quickly, iterate fast, and think what your system might need to be in two weeks or a month as the situation evolves. He also talks about reducing burdens on over-taxed staff, streamlining systems, and connecting data collection to data use. Oh--and make it beautiful to look at.
Holly Radice talks about how people have limited bandwidth to adopt new things in crisis, and how cash transfers in Ebola failed at digital solutions because of unrealistic expectations. Her recommendations: do everything you can to adapt and expand existing systems to push out cash safely, examine your context very carefully and frequently to see what market approaches work, and start planning now for cash transfers during recovery in a few months. Be empathetic to participants and financial service providers, and respect that everyone is affected. Finally, stay in touch with partners and cash working groups to find solutions that will support everyone.
In this translation from the French Episode, Sandra Georges from CARE Cameroon talks about the CHAMPS project, and how they have had to move from "make others do" to "do together" to "let others do." It involves changing the way we think about partnership, gradually handing over responsibility, and believing local teams and communities about what approaches work best.
Alfred Makavore, a key responder in CARE's Ebola response in Sierra Leone in 2014-2015, share's lessons about how to improve our COVID-19 response. "At first, we thought it was just a clinical problem, and we treated it like that." Alfred encourages teams to think beyond a clinical response, to understand what communities are facing, and to build trust. "We have to push aside the panic." Engaging governments, setting up local coordination, and trusting field teams to make decisions are some of his key recommendations.
Daniel Almeida from CARE's Latin America Regional office warns, "Don't lose sight of the real reason you are doing this work." He's talking about how to do advocacy more effectively in partnership with social movements. Do your political economy analysis, have clear communication with partners, invest for the long term, and expect to fail. He tells teams, "not to expect to have results that are 100% things that they showed in the design." Learn more about this work from the recent paper: CARE International Advocacy and Influencing.
Learn to act with imperfect information. Take calculated risks. Remember who is most at risk. Those are just some of the calls to action from Andres Gomez de la Torre, drawing on CARE's learning from Ebola response. Originally recorded in August of 2018, this podcast has critical lessons that CARE is using today in planning our COVID 19 response, and are an important call to action as we know some of the world's poorest countries are about to get hit with a crisis for which they are not prepared.
Melch Natukunda from CARE Uganda talks about trying to build the first ever financial services app that linked poor rural women to banks. What's the biggest lesson? "it’s not just financial services. Anything we do should be trying to lighten women’s burden and help her with the other challenges she’s dealing with.” It's also about remembering that, "at a bank, someone is looking at this project and saying, 'is this giving me profit?' That will never happen in 6 months." You need at least 5 years to build something that will really work, but once you've got it, it can work for millions of people.
Iain Dickson from Birdlife talks about his project, "Embracing Failures" which is developing a failure taxonomy that helps conservation organizations learn about the underlying causes of failure. What can we do to get better at learning from failure? "Just live it," says Iain. "We think about it as a complex overarching problem, but many of the solutions are simple." One of the key solutions they found was that there's appetite to talk about failure, but it works best when this is a conversation, and not an exercise filling out forms.
Episode Francophone:Sandra Georges de CARE Cameroon discute le projet CHAMPS, et la transition de supervision a l'autonomisation. Ils changeaient leur approche de "faire faire" a "faire avec" a "laissez faire". L'approche comprenne la transition graduelle, un changement d'avis sur le partenariat, et la confiance aux communautes.
French Episode: Sandra Georges from CARE Cameroon talks about the CHAMPS project, and how they have had to move from "make others do" to "do together" to "let others do." It involves changing the way we think about partnership, gradually handing over responsibility, and believing local teams and communities about what approaches work best.
Kylie Hutchinson, independent evaluator and author of three books about evaluation and program planning: Evaluation Failures: 22 Tales of Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned, A Short Primer on Innovative Evaluation Reporting, and Survive and Thrive: Three Steps to Securing Your Program’s Sustainability talks about how to learn from common evaluation failures to improve impact and social justice. Her two tips are learning how to engage stakeholders more effectively and understand context when you're doing an evaluation. Here are three questions to ask yourself before launching an evaluation: 1) What are we trying to learn? 2) What are we going to do about the answers? 3) When do we need to know?
If you want to learn more, you can read a free chapter in the book here, or find some tips on how to find evaluators here: http://evaluationforleaders.org
Peter Lochery from CARE and Matt Freeman from Emory University discuss how research showed our programs weren't sustainable, and how admitting that failure helped drive innovation and national policy transformation in Kenya. They talk about 13 years of research partnership in the SWASH+ project--and how influencing policy has to be based on a willingness to admit what's not working, and an understanding of entry points and how the system works.
Learning to be less dogmatic about answering the most important academic questions, but instead focus on the practical questions that would allow project teams to "innovate and push" around creating sustainable programs for WASH in schools. Matt Freeman from Emory University and Peter Lochery from CARE talk about what they learned trying to create research that moved programs forward, and allowed us to get better at the work--even when it wouldn't contribute to publications in prestigious journals. They talk about 13 years of research partnership in the SWASH+ project--and how lots of smaller, practical studies with rigorous methods were more useful than one big RCT.
"Fear of failure is the only thing that ensures your dreams won't come true." Hiba Tibi from CARE's Middle East and North Africa hub talks about what they're learning from programs that didn't work, and how they are using those lessons to improve sustainability and scale. A big lesson is that Women's Economic Empowerment programs have to focus on both gender equality AND solid business cases--but many programs only manage one or the other. You can check out more lessons in the recent paper: Bringing Gender Equality Closer to Women's Economic Empowerment.
Holly Radice--CARE's Global Cash and Voucher Assistance Advisor--talks about the most common mistakes she sees when people implement cash programming. Some of her tips? Pay attention to GBV, focus on women and engage men, and most of all--don't be afraid of cash! There are lots of resources that can help you get it right.
How can using the phrase Happy Families actually hurt women and set feminism back? Jayanthi Kuru-Utumpala and Zainab Ibrahim from Chrysalis--a CARE affiliate in Sri Lanka--tell us lessons learned from the EMERGE project engaging men and boys, and working with feminist groups. Some key lessons: let local groups take the lead, engage with respect and humility, and pay attention to your wording. Concepts need to translate not just in language, but also in ideology. Also check out the paper on working with social movements, and how we can improve women's rights by taking a back seat.
"You need to design for real people, not for experts." "Be ruthless with what you really need, and what's just nice to have" Isadora Quay from CARE's Gender and Emergencies work discusses CARE's Gender Marker, and all of the attempts it took to get to a tool that would actually work for the organization, not just the experts. It's about building tools that can turn everyone into a gender champion, and not tools that contain everything. The other secret? Design on a napkin!
Anne Sprinkel and Dipendra Sharma from CARE's Tipping Point project talk about the challenges in implementing RCTs, and the risk of sacrificing communities' needs to the methodological rigor that researchers demand. "Make sure you have a good reason for doing an RCT," says Sprinkel. Sharma adds, "Start with good programming, then build research around it." They also have some great tips for managing expectations, clear communication, and just how long it takes to do it right (Hint: it's a lot longer than you think).
Zegeye Bante from CARE Ethiopia talks about working with youth VSLA, and what changes that requires from our traditional models. Youth are visionary and impatient, and want to meet their goals fast, so we have to accelerate our programming. At the same time, making sure that young people really understand the model, and that their parents and teachers accept and support the work we are doing takes a lot longer than it does with adult groups. So we have to find ways to build in more time at the beginning, and then get faster results so youth keep coming back.
Grace Majara and Takara Morgan talk about starting savings groups in Uganda's cities in 2008, with no experience, and no one on the team who had ever done it before. We assumed that the city VSLAs would be exactly the same as rural ones, and we were wrong. Differences in financial literacy, poor access to services, and the need to bring in people who understood the context are all key lessons from Grace's decade of experience in the space.
Camille Davis and Barack Kinanga talk about the challenges of creating savings groups (VSLAs) in emergency settings. Barack works in Yemen, where they have been able to create savings groups, but only by making a lot of adjustments to our traditional model. Not every context works for VSLAs, and it takes longer for people in crisis to build up savings than in development settings. We also have to think about what happens if the people have to move again, and what they need to build resilience.
Isadora Quay talks about the process of developing CARE's Rapid Gender Analysis, and how embracing imperfection is key to saving lives. When we want everything to be perfect, that often means we delay or prevent sharing any information at all, which can be catastrophic in humanitarian (and development) settings. Making tools useful for a broader range of people, and focusing on practical, tangible suggestions, and analyzing results in plain language for non-experts are some key lessons to take forward. "Act fast, there's a huge need for real information in real time." Isadora argues that failure is inevitable, so we need to learn not to prevent it, but to manage it and learn from them.
Yawo Douvon et Barbara Jean Claude de CARE Haiti discute l'importance d'avoir le courage de dire quelque chose ne marche pas. Il faut du courage pour expliquer que les objectives ne sont pas realiste, et que nous risquons de ne pas tout accomplir. Avoir l'analyse du context--meme dans les cas d'urgence--le renforcement des rapports avec les bailleurs, la suivi des indicateurs, et la communcation sont tous les outils qui peuvent vous aider.
Yawo Douvon and Barbara Jean-Claude from Haiti talk about the importance of being bold when it comes to admitting that something won't work. It takes courage to point out that goals and expectations are unrealistic, and that we might not get everything done. Getting good context analysis--even in emergencies--building solid donor relationships, carefully monitoring data, and being proactive in communications when something goes off track are all tips that can help you through a rocky project implementation. (French version will be coming the week of August 26th.)
By popular demand, we've translated the August 1 Francophone episode into English. When CARE first started working with Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) in Niger, we nearly broke the model because we were sure that we knew what to do, and women were wrong. Field staff were afraid to tell us that women were sharing out the money--a practice that is now a cornerstone of a global approach reaching millions of people. Why? Because it went against all of our assumptions about economic empowerment. Dr. Fatma Zennou from Niger talks about how to create a culture where people are not afraid to highlight innovations and the unexpected, where money isn't everything in empowerment, and where we help women put their voices together for change.
Episode Francophone. Quand CARE a commence le travail avec les Associations Villageois d'Epargne et de Credit (AVEC) au Niger, nous avons presque casse le modele parce que nous étions sûrs de notre approche, et que les femmes villageois se trompaient. Les animatrices avaient peur de nous dire que les femmes partagaient la caisse--ce qui est maintenant une pratique cle pour l'approche pour les millions de personnes. Pourquoi? Parce que cela a defie nos assomptions sur l'empowerment economique. Dr. Fatma Zennou du Niger discute la creation d'une espace ou les gens n'ont pas peur de discuter les innovations et l'innatendu, ou l'argent n'est pas tous, et ou les femmes mettent leurs voix ensemble pour le changement.
French Episode: When CARE first started working with Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) in Niger, we nearly broke the model because we were sure that we knew what to do, and women were wrong. Field staff were afraid to tell us that women were sharing out the money--a practice that is now a cornerstone of a global approach reaching millions of people. Why? Because it went against all of our assumptions about economic empowerment. Dr. Fatma Zennou from Niger talks about how to create a culture where people are not afraid to highlight innovations and the unexpected, where money isn't everything in empowerment, and where we help women put their voices together for change.
In our second francophone episode, Huguette Sekpe Sossouhounto from CARE Benin/Togo talks about how CLTS (a common sanitation approach) failed in her project, and how communities helped them find a Plan B that works. What are the key lessons learned? Pay attention to signs that something is going wrong, and then, "talk to the communities about what their dreams are, and how they can achieve those dreams." Local partners can help you find a solution.
When it comes to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs, the approach is simple: find people who are at risk, test them for HIV, then link them to treatment if necessary. But what happens when the people most vulnerable to the virus don’t want to be found? Sandra Georges from CARE Cameroun’s PEPFAR-funded CHAMP program describes a time when “the usual approach” didn’t work, forcing their team to take risks and make big changes to avoid losing funding.
Katie Pons from CARE talks about a current research effort to learn from what goes wrong based on CARE's evaluations. Using a qualitative analysis program called MAXQDA, Katie and her colleagues have been doing a meta-analysis to give us a more structured way to talk about failure, not just case by case, but in the broader systems sense. Listen to the podcast, and then tell us what reports you would like to see from this data set. Shout out in the comments, or e-mail ejanoch@care.org.
Mike Mukirane from Uganda's West Nile team talks about an attempt to recruit and pay midwives for a CARE project through the local government system. Because we didn't know enough to set it up well, the midwives went for 6 months without getting paid, "working tooth and nail" the whole time. Learning more from other partners' experience, thinking more carefully about contract requirements, and understanding implications of our budgeting choices are all recommendations for how to avoid the problem.
In our first ever Francophone episode, Fanomezantsoa Randrianarisoa from CARE Madagascar talks about what happens when you launch an experimental monitoring system before partners are ready for it. Besides challenges getting the data you need, there are serious risks to sustainability. Investing in people's skills, creating back-up plans, and aligning with global systems are some of the solutions.
Dans notre premier épisode francophone, Fanomezantsoa Randrianarisoa du CARE Madagascar explique ce qui se passe si vous lancez un nouveau system d’évaluation avant que l’équipe ne soit prêt. Il n’y a pas seulement les difficultés de trouver l’information, mais aussi les risques pour pérenniser le system. Les leçons appris comprennent : un appui au personnel, l’appropriation du system, et l’harmonisation avec les autres systems.
Ian Lathrop from USAID’s LEARN project talks about how to show the art of humility, and learn from failures so we don’t repeat them. After action reviews, pause and reflect, and having leaders model behavior are all practical actions he suggests for getting better at this. Some of the resources he suggests to create space for learning from failure are USAID Learning Lab - CLA Maturity Tool Resources, the video on Community Connector and CLA: Proving the Concept, and Learning Lab’s failure blog.
It's more than a house; we are trying to provide dignity. Sam Okello and Alson Madrar from CARE Uganda talk about all of the ways they tried to build safe and dignified housing for South Sudanese refugees into Uganda. Rainy season, termites, riots, thieves, and hundreds of refugees a day were challenges that the houses couldn't stand up to--literally. Over a year of trials, house after house failed. By working with refugees with special needs to find out what would work, they eventually got to a housing model where 90% of refugees feel safer, and more than 20% cheaper than the original method. See their journey here. Read the project evaluation here.
Failure without learning is final. Otherwise, it's just part of the process. Walter Mwasaa from CARE's SHOUHARDO III talks about how cutting-edge work with youth highlighted gaps in our success metrics and how we hear feedback. Cultivating the art of listening, building acceptance of failure into our culture, and understanding that failure is everywhere are his key takeaways. It's in the smallest details--embrace when people are late, and see how that translates to new ideas.
Octavio de Sousa from CARE Mozambique talks about our recent post-project evaluation of agriculture adoption. Some practices the community never adopted—but didn’t tell us until 5 years later. Some they did adopt, but market forces made it impractical after the project ended. Octavio reflects on how power dynamics, safe spaces, and incentives can prevent us from making the best impact possible, and from applying our learning. Read the Learning Brief published with our partner FANRAPAN here.
Mark Malhotra from CARE’s Innovation team talks about the process of designing digital solutions, and the danger of trusting experts when it seems like they aren’t delivering what you need. Human centered design, frequent check ins, and setting clear expectations with consultants all feature as tips to make your next digital experience easier. Tip: just because someone else in an expert, it doesn’t mean you’re wrong.
Bob Rabatsky from Fintrac discusses his experiences as the Chief of Party for Feed the Future’s Partnering For Innovation, and what it teaches us about working with the private sector and market based solutions. Re-setting application processes to prioritize qualified local businesses, focusing on setting good milestones, and overcoming resistance to private sector solutions are some of his key takeaways.
Emily Janoch from CARE's Impact and Learning team talks about all the wrong ways she has tried to do learning agendas, why she kept repeating the same mistakes, and the counterintuitive solution that works for her.
Everett Harper from CARE's board talks about the role of the leader in learning from failure, taking action to correct problems, and creating psychological safety. Some tools he refers to in creating safe spaces to learn from failure are:
The Pre-Mortem: figuring out failures in advance, then building in mitigating actions before starting the project
Retros: short for retrospectives, a repeated process for projects, teams, initiatives or companies, to open up a blameless, psychologically safe environment for team members to learn, improve and mitigate future risks. For leaders, it is an opportunity to access information and knowledge from people closest to the customer / beneficiary.
Customer Development: articles from Steve Blank, Book by Cindy Alvarez , interview by Cindy (I love her work), 10 Things I've Learned about CD, and a basic "What is CD"
Hiba Tibi from Palestine talks about her favorite quote: "Fear of failure is the only thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve." Even in crisis and fragile settings, we must programs that create space for women's empowerment and will be economically viable in the long term. We can't let the changing environment prevent us from focusing on equality that will last. Check out the recent paper on how to do that with Women's Economic Empowerment programs, and the thinking on how to approach the Humanitarian and Development nexus for long term change.
Susan Davis of Improve International talks about how we can incentivize talking about failure so we can make new mistakes rather than continuing to make the old ones. She also talks about how we can resolve problems as we find them in the Guidelines for Resolving Problems with Water Systems. Some tools she suggests are the Nakuru accord, pre-mortems, and innovative financing mechanisms—what she calls “Mistake Money”. What's the key? Getting communities involved in the conversation.
Juan Echanove talks about how we fail at workshops because we have come to expect that most of them will be bad. It's not just a problem for people in the room, these low standards for workshops ultimately cost us in terms of program design, productivity, and local ownership.
"It's all about being slapped in the face by others" says Sofia Sprechmann--CARE International's Program Director--about how CARE misfired on its first effort into working with social movements in Latin America, and how we had to focus on listening and building trust.
Michelle Nunn discusses how CARE's FY18 budget missed the balance between audacious goals and operational excellence. She ends with a call to all staff to err on the side of candor and speak truth to power.
Sarah Eckoff from CARE USA's Gender Justice Team talks about why when most of CARE's projects work on gender, 0% of them are reporting against the supplemental gender indicators. User experience with our reporting forms, the complexity of measuring gender, and the way we roll out tools are all a part of the story.
In a two year period, more than 600 CARE projects closed without ever reporting impact data. Sofia Sprechmann, CARE International's Program Director, talks about why we've been failing to report all of our impact, and what we're doing to fix it. Two tools she references are the resources on measuring the impact of advocacy and CARE's unique Impact Map.
In a moment of transformation and budget crisis, a consultant's plan from completely failed to move the needle. Instead, CARE Sri Lanka's determination and ingenuity built a whole new way of doing business. They call it Chrysalis.
Gideon Cohen from Southern Africa talks about how we need to ask critical questions and give people the space to check in when things aren't working. How do we overturn power dynamics to get more honest feedback and improve our work?
Laurie Lee discusses what he learned from one of his early experiences responding to cases of sexual abuse, and how we need to balance tensions between power, reporting, privacy, and cultural contexts. In the end, the answer is simple: Put the survivor first.
Juan Echanove, the Senior Director of Food and Nutrition Security at CARE talks about how we can do a better job designing a portfolio of projects that use a systems thinking approach instead of creating a host of standalone projects that don't build on each other.
CARE International interview on how to learn from failure--what worked and what didn't in Ebola response, and what that teaches us about taking calculated risks.