CARE Failing Forward

Square Pegs and Round Holes: Fitting research to community needs

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).

Hurry Up and Wait: How Working With Young People in VSLA Changes the Pace of Programming

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.

Exciting Times: Creating Urban Savings Groups With No Experience

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.

Mobility, Instability, and Crisis: Creating Savings Groups in Emergencies

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.

Embracing Imperfection: Rapid Gender Analysis and Knowing You Don't Have All the Answers

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.

Soyez Courageux et Realiste: Le lecons pour la creation des projets qui marche

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.

Be Bold and Realistic: Creating space for project plans that will work

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.)

(English Version) Tell Yourself You Don't Know Everything: Lessons Learned and Near Misses from 25+ years of VSLA

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.

Tell Yourself You Don't Know Everything: Near Misses and Lessons Learned from 25+ Years of VSLA

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.

Communities Creating Plan B: How Sanitation Approaches Failed in Benin, and Communities Found a Solution

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.

Three Months to Turn Things Around: When Innovation Becomes Necessity

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.  

The Learning From Failure Report: A Systemic Look at What Goes Wrong

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.

Making People Suffer: The Perils of Partnership and Budget Delays

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.

It's All About Backup: When Experimental Systems Go Wrong

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.

The Art of Humility: Accepting Reality and Learning From Failure

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.