The groups gathered to discuss effective evaluation approaches and methodologies of programs to advance women’s “empowerment” and what key lessons have been learned over the years. USIP is now applying those lessons in designing an evaluation of two such programs supported by the office of the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan.

USIP, which adopted a new evaluation policy last year, organized the workshop on Oct. 22, 2013, with experts from the special envoy’s office, Oxfam - Great Britain, the Institute for Inclusive Security, the National Democratic Institute, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, Partners for Democratic Change, and Search for Common Ground. The main findings of the session dealt with designing programs, clarifying the purposes of evaluations for either learning or accountability, defining success, and identifying mechanisms for improving evaluation methods.

On the issue of how to design effective programming, participants largely found that most projects were focused on practical skills women need to engage in social, economic, and political life, such as training in advocacy and leadership and in creating strong, self-sustaining networks. The theory has been that these kinds of skills will underpin their ability to advance gender-related concerns.

Yet, as discussed during the workshop, training and coaching for these capabilities, while necessary, isn’t sufficient. In many cases, it has limited impact on women’s lower status in the society. Programs need to not only target the disempowered but also those in powerful positions. It is critical to engage  key institutional processes that affect those dynamics, including the legislative and judicial systems. This means that women’s capacity-building programs should also incorporate men into their activities. Such engagement may allay distrust among men, and in turn encourage them to become proponents of the program’s objectives.

Programs also need be designed in a way that brings women participants into direct contact with key social, economic and political players and institutions to help influence change. These lessons parallel a shift in terminology from “empowerment” to concepts of inclusivity and leadership development. Participants in the workshop made clear that “empowerment” was not an end in itself, but rather a means toward a broader goal, whether that is a more inclusive peace or more equitable political participation.

Workshop participants also took an in depth look at the purpose of evaluations, noting the tendency to focus on meeting stated objectives that often are defined by the need to justify activities to donors. This emphasis on accountability, however, has often precluded evaluations from serving as a tool for learning, to make programs more effective.

Participants noted that donors often commissioned evaluations to show simply whether the program worked or not, instead of examining why it worked or allowing for mid-program adjustments and improvements. Ideally an evaluation would do all of these, but different methodologies often only allow for one or the other. Striking a better balance should be a priority for implementing organizations and the donor community alike.  

Another challenge of evaluating the effectiveness of programs for women is how to define success. Expectations need to be realistic, as often those countries where such programs are being implemented offer limited opportunities for women to play an active role in social, economic, and political life. Incremental and subtle social changes, even as basic as women feeling independent enough to make friends without prior approval of their husbands, need to be appreciated and recognized as achievements in their own right. Without such incremental changes, the larger institutional and social changes that such programs ultimately aspire to achieve cannot be accomplished.

The importance of project monitoring was also a focus of the workshop. Participants noted that evaluations often are only as effective as the monitoring that goes into them. Process and outcome indicators can give key insight and are important to track, along with standard outputs. In other words, the monitoring of the program should look beyond the bare data such as numbers of trainees, workshops held, etc., and should seek to answer if and how tangible changes in the lives of women actually took place.

The bottom line is to design monitoring and evaluation so that it goes beyond skills and basic accountability for specific objectives and adds substantively to knowledge on how to improve existing and future programs. USIP’s evaluation of two cross-border programs for the special envoy’s office will be geared not only to assessing those specific projects but also to learning from them for similar endeavors going forward.

Osama Gharizi is USIP’s program officer for learning and evaluation. For more information please contact him at ogharizi@usip.org.