Research for Haiti

Project Management: Free Basic Course on Projects in Developing Countries

A free online course at the group PM4DEV (Project Management for Development Organizations) is worth giving a look. The total course time is estimated at about 120 minutes (although it is designed for self-paced learning); extra materials are available as PDFs through links on the training slides.

I fear that people, especially those with a good education, often eschew or even look down on management training, perhaps because the topics can often seem mundane. However, given all the ideas and suggestions that are floating around and given how often projects fail, a bit more training (especially when free) is well worth looking into. Of particular interest (and resonance with many of us) in this workshop is the identification of (a) common constraints on our work and (b) common reasons projects fail.

Evaluation Resources: Free Introduction and Guidance on Impact Evaluations

The Network of Networks on Impact Evaluation (NONIE) has a very readable and fairly brief introductory text, Guidance on Impact Evaluation, available for free on its web site. (Note: Keep in mind that impact evaluation is not the only kind of evaluation, so this is not a review of the broader field of evaluation.)

From the introduction:

The purpose of NONIE is to promote more and better impact evaluations among its members. Issues relating to evaluations in general are more effectively dealt with in the parent networks, and are thus not the primary focus of NONIE. NONIE will focus on sharing of methods and learning-by-doing to promote the practice of IE (impact evaluation). The current Guidance document was developed for supporting those purposes.

The Guidance is structured around nine key issues in impact evaluation:

1. Identify the (type and scope of the) intervention
2. Agree on what is valued
3. Carefully articulate the theories linking interventions to outcomes
4. Address the attribution problem
5. Use a mixed methods approach: The logic of the comparative advantages of methods
6. Build on existing knowledge relevant to the impact of interventions
7. Determine if an impact evaluation is feasible and worth the cost
8. Start collecting data early
9. Front-end planning is important

Evaluation: Community Organizing in the U.S.

The Alliance for Justice is a nonprofit in the U.S. that maintains a free community organizing web site which includes Resources for Evaluating Community Organizing(RECO).  Although these resources are about community organizing in the U.S., they may be of interest to people evaluating organizing in Haiti. Evaluating organizing can be tricky to think about at first as organizing operates in a very fluid environment where goals often shift and by definition often missed (i.e., if it was easy to win a policy change, you would not need organizing), so these may be worth a look. 

Note: while RECO nicely summarizes and organizes the resources it tracks, some of them are from journals; thus, you may have to track a resource down at the library or contact the authors (many resources are directly linked, however).

If people have documents related to evaluating organizing in Haiti, please post in the comments or email to me (see the top post of this site for contact info).

Some recent resources reviewed on RECO:

Ranghelli, Lisa. 2009. Measuring the Impacts of Advocacy and Community Organizing: Application of a Methodology and Initial Findings. The Foundation Review. Volume 1:3.

"Analyzing and Evaluating Organizing Strategies" by University of Massachusetts-Boston Labor Resource Center (this is available from the UM-B website and was originally a tool for students to use).