Creative & OAS partner to boost electoral monitoring

March 30, 2015

3 min read

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Creative & OAS partner to boost electoral monitoring

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Creative and the Organization of American States signed an agreement to develop handbooks and training to identify and eventually mitigate electoral threats, violence and malpractice, it was announced March 25.

Speaking at the signing ceremony on March 25, Creative President Leland Kruvant praised the partnership as another significant step toward ensuring electoral integrity and promoting good governance for Organization of American States member countries.

The Creative-OAS agreement will result in new handbooks and indicators to better asses threats to electoral integrity. — Creative President Leland Kruvant and OAS Director of the Dept. of Electoral Cooperation and Observation Gerardo de Icaza sign an agreement to boost electoral monitoring in OAS member states.

“It is an honor for Creative Associates to be a part of this important project and apply our electoral expertise to develop training curriculum to allow OAS delegations to better assess the impact of violence, malpractice and fraud on election outcomes among OAS member states,” Kruvant said.

At the partnership signing ceremony, Kruvant emphasized the importance of safeguarding elections from violence and malpractice as part of a larger mission to ensure democratic governance and meaningful citizen engagement.

Creative’s Director of Electoral Education and Integrity, Jeffrey Carlson, echoed Kruvant’s comments and stressed the importance of these new materials.

“The resulting handbooks will provide important guidance to those conducting electoral observations and to those implementing subsequent recommendations in the OAS region and beyond throughout the electoral cycle,” says Carlson.

Creative will support OAS Electoral Observer Mission teams in developing the Handbooks on Electoral Violence Observation and Malpractice Observation, which will contain integrated qualitative and quantitative indicators for assessing threats to electoral integrity, including electoral violence and malpractice.

Information gathered through these tools will better equip the OAS in making recommendations to countries whose elections it observes, says Creative’s Senior Electoral Advisor Jeff Fischer.

“This methodology will include a vulnerabilities assessment in order to identify structural, procedural or behavioral weak links in electoral integrity so that the consequences of these vulnerabilities can be flagged for scrutiny,” says Fischer.

Fischer says the methodology will help overcome challenges to identifying and tracking electoral malpractice, which is often harder to detect than electoral violence.

“While electoral violence can be monitored in real-time, that is incidents are reported when they are observed, electoral malpractice may not be obvious on the surface. Its perpetration can occur early in the electoral cycle, for example during voter registration,” says Fischer. “As a result, the consequences of fraudulent registration are seen on Election Day, but the original crime took place months before.”

In 2014, the OAS deployed nine electoral observation missions throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean. In the first three months of this year, the organization has already deployed electoral observation missions to St. Kitts and Nevis, El Salvador and Bolivia.

Electoral security expertise

Having conducted electoral security assessments in environments as diverse and challenging as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Colombia, Guatemala, the Philippines, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Creative’s Elections team has experience developing practical and accurate electoral monitoring and security frameworks.

Creative staff has also engaged in two internationally supervised electoral audits in Afghanistan and Haiti.

In partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the team, led by Fischer, published two handbooks on Best Practices in Electoral Security and an Electoral Security Framework.

These handbooks lay out approaches to identifying risk factors for electoral violence, and designing and implementing strategies to prevent, mitigate and mediate it when it does occur. Creative’s Elections team will draw on these best practices in its support to the OAS electoral violence observation methodology.

The methodology will also employ features of Creative’s “Monitoring and Observation for Violence in Elections” (MOVE) template and incorporate insights from the global survey of experts in the development of the Primer on Electoral Malpractice.

The Primer was created in collaboration with Sarah Birch, Ph.D., of the University of Glasgow, the developer of the Index of Electoral Malpractice[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Temper Your Expectations for Post-2015 Reading

March 24, 2015

4 min read

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Temper Your Expectations for Post-2015 Reading

By Jennifer Brookland

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]The successes of early grade reading programs have created among some a sense of unbridled enthusiasm that rapid and significant change is not just possible, but expected.

Global education experts are now advocating to have reading indicators and learning outcomes included in the world’s next set of development goals. But agreement that these goals should be included does not cancel out controversy about what can be reasonably achieved.

Experts at the 2015 Comparative and International Education Systems conference reminded that while some early grade reading pilots have shown impressive success, these “hothouse” experiments have no guarantee of achieving similar results once taken to scale.

The environment matters

Parental enthusiasm, educational policies that support reading instruction and practice time and even the pace at which printers can create new materials are all factors that shape the success of pilot projects that grow up.

Not to mention circumstances that affect education systems in drastic ways, such as conflict, corruption and systemic weaknesses like poor supervision, teacher absences, and poor teacher preparation.

Karen Tietjen, Technical Director of Creative Associates International’s Education for Development Division, pointed out that no matter how promising a pilot, results may be harder to achieve when faced with the realities of weak institutions, large class sizes, inefficient inspectorates and chronic underfunding.

She added a surprising factor that should be considered in setting expectations for the pace of change: Ministry of Education support. While government ownership is critical for scaling-up reading programs, it can have unanticipated consequences if turnover is high or budgets constrict.

“MOE ownership is essential to progress but it also may slow it,” said Tietjen. “As more people own it, there are more voices, more stakeholders, the political stakes get higher, and we need to factor that into our scheduling for the development and rollout of these programs.”

An honest look at reading gains

A girl in Chipata, Zambia practices reading with her mother. The impressive results of some pilot reading projects might be replicable at scale, but are not guaranteed.

USAID made reading a priority in 2011 when it set improved reading skills for 100 million children in primary grades by 2015 as Goal One in its education strategy, and outcomes from some early grade reading programs have been impressive.

Young students in Egypt who participated in reading programs were able to read meaningfully more words per minute, according to another panelist at the CIES conference.

“We were basically able to turn second graders into third graders,” said Amber Gove, Director of Research at RTI, which implemented the Egypt project. “For Liberia it was about twice that. We turned the second graders into fourth graders.”

Tietjen presented the results of Creative’s USAID-funded early grade reading projects in Yemen and Zambia—projects she said had “gratifyingly high” effect sizes in children’s listening comprehension and ability to identify sounds and letters.

In Yemen, for example, after four months of instruction under Creative’s early grade reading program, first and second graders could read 16.3 correct words per minute, compared to students in control schools who managed just six.

However, Tietjen pointed out that positive changes dropped off at more advanced skills such as word decoding, reading fluency and reading comprehension.

“We’ve had really huge increases, we’re proud of ourselves for being able to move them from where we were at baseline,” said Tietjen of the first cohort of second grade students evaluated in Yemen. “But nonetheless we’re woefully under what we could consider acceptable.”

Lower your expectations?

Taking interventions to scale is key to USAID’s efforts to achieve Goal One. It’s All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development partnership continues to work toward creating cost-effective reading interventions that can be grown from classrooms to countries.

But panelists agreed from experience that promising results in small-scale projects should not lead to assumptions about anticipated success when those initiatives are scaled up.

“We’ve not really looked across all these projects to see what it would take to really move the needle on reading, said Audrey-Marie Schuh Moore, Director of Monitoring, Evaluation and Research at FHI360.

“Each project has targets, but we need a more comprehensive cross-donor look on what actually works and what really influences education outcomes.”

As more evidence is collected from reading pilots, practitioners will be able to better understand why gains that were high in a pilot may not play out in the same way when taken to scale. The duration of the project, the “dosage” students and teachers received, and the context in which the project takes place are critical variables that development organizations must tease apart when evaluating what works.

Until then, expectation management is key.

“Maybe expecting half as you move from 60 schools to several thousand might be reasonable, maybe it’s a third,” said RTI’s Gove. “I think we’ll have to let that play out and see.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Despite gender gap, mobile still a smart tool

March 13, 2015

3 min read

Mobile phones are making learning more accessible, but women and girls are still more likely to miss out.

UNESCO convenes Mobile Learning Week annually to allow international development implementers, funders, researchers and corporations to share research and best practices for using mobile learning to support everything from basic education and workforce development training to health, agriculture, and elections education.

More than 1,000 participants from 70 countries attended this year’s event, which focused on an area where increases in mobile learning are highlighting an important gap. In a world where education, training and other resources are increasingly available digitally, these resources remain more available to men and boys than to women and girls.

Mobile learning should be a great equalizer. After all, any person with a mobile device or access to the internet can find books, courses and information easily and discretely. Instead, the availability of mobile technology is throwing today’s large digital divide between men and women into sharp relief.

In low- to middle-income countries, women are 21 percent less likely to own a mobile phone than men, according to UNESCO and mobile phones statistics gathered by the GSMA and the Cherie Blair Foundation.

Intel found in their report Women and the Web that, on average, 25 percent fewer women than men in developing countries have access to the internet, with this gap at nearly 45 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.

In addition to access challenges, barriers that keep women and girls’ from taking full advantage of mobile learning opportunities also include low literacy and technology skills and the need for more gender sensitive content and pedagogy.

Mobile learning at work

Despite these barriers, those at the conference agreed that given the ubiquity of mobile devices, and the rapid growth in smartphone ownership worldwide, they are one of the best tools we have to help women and girls learn, gain skills and live healthy and empowered lives.

Conference presenters shared creative ways they are using to lower the access barriers for women and girls, and programs that are having an impact.

Several groups, for example, discussed how they are using voice platforms for learning to ensure they can reach both literate and illiterate women. Media Matters for Women in Sierra Leone has developed a model where trained media professionals develop and record audio segments on topics such as human rights, reproductive health and Ebola.

The segments reach communities through listener-distributors who receive the segments on a mobile phone and then transfer them to women using Bluetooth, a technology that today is found even on very low-end phones. Women then are able to continue sharing the audio segments through Bluetooth or play them for listener groups.

VOTO Mobile in Ghana uses both SMS and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology to reach women with information about maternal and newborn health. Those who subscribe to the voice service receive regular calls, which play pre-recorded health education messages in the local language.

Creative’s Technology for Development team presented its mobile reading model, which empowers women to be more involved in their children’s literacy education by delivering mother tongue, early grade stories via SMS to parents. These SMS stories are being developed to be gender sensitive by including empowering female characters and themes such as girls schooling.

The model will be piloted in Zambia through support from the All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development partners: USAID, Australian Aid and World Vision.

Creative also demonstrated its mobile and online learning platform CreativeU—a platform that is helping to make high quality education and training opportunities more easily accessible for all people in development.

Girls who are educated marry later, have fewer children, healthier families, better understand their rights and gain the confidence to advocate for them.

Leveraging mobile technology for greater education parity and empowerment will help narrow the digital divide between men and women, and lead to more of the development, gender and human rights gains we all want to achieve.

Why breaking up the household improves understanding

March 12, 2015

3 min read

In this industry, we know well that what we can’t measure, we can’t improve. And right now, we often don’t do a great job of measuring women’s economic contributions.

This is in part because we look at the “household” as a single unit, ignoring the people within it. In other words, we don’t take separate account of what work women and men do, what women earn or if they earn at all. Yet these are important pieces of information that can guide and transform our programming.

Over the past 20 years or so we’ve learned the power of disaggregating data beyond the household level.

For example, disaggregating household data by sex revealed that women contribute significant amounts of labor to farm production and, more interestingly, did not get paid for it even when their spouses did.

This kind of analysis can help us understand roles and responsibilities in health, agriculture and education, create more nuanced and effective development programs and gain a deeper and more honest understanding of the changes that result from our work.

It can lead us to insights about how and why men and women adopt and use technologies, invest in their children’s learning, save or spend and an almost unending list of other questions that shape the way we do our jobs.

Research shows, for example, that when women earn, control and allocate income, the whole household benefits: children are more likely to go to school and to be better nourished.

We know that men and women often approach economic decisions differently, and are affected differently by the outcomes of those decisions.

In a talk called Creating Shared Value: The Role of the Private Sector in Agricultural Development, Macani Toungara, Senior Manager for Program Development at TechnoServe, reported that when women and men in coffee-producing households in Ethiopia were encouraged to speak to each other and share in business decision-making, a follow-up survey showed that more women shared in the proceeds from coffee sales and reported feeling more empowered.

When it comes to economic empowerment, we know from speaking directly to women farmers that they care about the earnings.

So what have we done with the powerful information that separating our data by individuals within the household leads to completely different understandings? Sadly, not enough.

Although it is getting better, many development researchers and practitioners still talk about households as a unit and not about the individuals within it. Even though disaggregating our data by sex would go a long way in fostering a “gendered” understanding, most aren’t doing it.

Some believe it would increase the costs of data collection, although there are easy ways to avoid this when conducting surveys. Others have misconceptions about what collecting this kind of data means, or what its purpose is, wrongly thinking it focuses only on women, or compares male and female-headed households.

The true purpose of sex-disaggregated data is to “to identify differences in the needs, roles, statuses, priorities, capacities, constraints and opportunities of women and men, and to use this information in the design, implementation and assessment of research, policy and programs,” according to a study I directed for the International Center for Research on Women.

The lesson here is simple and powerful but not always practiced: Both women and men are development clients and beneficiaries, and their needs, interests and contributions often diverge.

And of course sex is not the last area where data could be broken down to make it more informative. Age, education level, cultural background and any number of factors can help us see which differences matter, and how. Maybe in this age of “big data” we will get closer to complete disaggregation and micro-level analysis.

For now, let’s take the first step of looking into and within the household. We can only know, understand and act on these differences if we disaggregate the household, speak to and take account of both women and men, and report our results accordingly.

Let Girls Learn is U.S. & global priority

March 10, 2015

4 min read

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Let Girls Learn is U.S. & global priority

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text] i-KQQ4NrK Globally, 62 million girls are out-of school, according to UNESCO. Limited access to education, and cultural and economic barriers preventing girls from attending school, cost the world 62 million untapped opportunities to improve family income, a community’s prosperity and national growth and stability.

To change this situation, the Obama Administration announced its new Let Girls Learn initiative to boost school attendance and graduation rates for adolescent girls globally.

“This initiative is particularly critical in light of recent and ongoing attacks against girls who simply wish to attend school and receive a good education,” says Cris Revaz, Senior Education Counsel at Creative Associates International, which commends and fully supports the Administration’s Let Girls Learn initiative.

Revaz says community-led solutions that protect girls attending school are critical, citing recent attacks like the abduction of school girls by Boko Haram in Nigeria last year. “A safe and secure school where girls and boys are free from bullying, violence and other human rights abuses is a fundamental prerequisite for learning,” he says.

Studies have shown that the more time a girl spends in secondary school the more likely she is to achieve a higher level of economic stability and the less likely she is to enter an early marriage, contract HIV/AIDS or get pregnant as a teen.

“Adolescence is a formative time for girls when they have a chance to equip themselves for a better future. Education is vital” says Rekha Mehra, Gender and Development expert at Creative.

In partnership with the U.S. government, multilateral development organizations, local, national and international partners, Creative has for decades advanced access to quality education for women and girls from Afghanistan to Malawi to Uganda, recognizing that the benefits of girls’ education are reaped by the individual, her family, her community and her country.

Long-lasting & communal benefits

i-2jBhp93 The knowledge an adolescent girl gains in the classroom goes beyond textbooks or even technical job skills and can have a profound positive effect on a girl’s future, including her sexual health and physical safety.

“Research has proven that girls who complete secondary school gain self-confidence and are able to understand and defend their basic rights and navigate relationships where they become less exposed to gender-based violence,” says May Rihani, a global leader in girls’ education and women’s rights and former Co-Chair of the UN Girls’ Education Initiatives.

In fact, the spillover effects of an educated girl reverberate throughout her community, says Creative’s Mehra, noting that just a couple years of additional schooling can bring significant improvements for women—better health outcomes, better work options, higher earnings and delayed marriage age. It even brings positive changes for the next generation from lower rates of infant mortality to higher education attainment for the children of educated women.

Closing the gap at adolescence

IND09191427 In recent years, gaps between girls’ and boys’ primary school enrollment have narrowed in two-thirds of countries, according to UNICEF. But as students move to secondary school, girls drop out at greater rates than boys and the gender gap widens, which will have significant detrimental effects on countries’ economic progress as their potential workforces are, in some cases, operating with half as many workers as they could be.

“We still have a way to go in women’s economic participation, which has been virtually stagnant since the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference,” says Mehra. “Only 55 percent of women are in the workforce compared to 82 percent of men. Women’s work is mainly in the informal economy—low-paid and unstable. Education is the route for adolescent girls to be prepared for better paid and more stable work in the formal economy.”

Community-led solutions

With a focus on capacity building and sustainable local solutions to bridge the adolescent gender gap in education, the Let Girls Learn initiative will focus on community-led solutions.

“Community-led solutions are definitely smart and, perhaps, even necessary,” says Mehra, noting that complex, interrelated factors often combine to keep girls from attending school. These factors include poverty, lack of understanding of the value of education, religious or cultural restrictions on girls’ mobility, concern for girls’ safety and norms that favor boys’ education.

In many places, when girls reach puberty, cultural norms lead them to drop out of school and get married, says Rihani. The Let Girls Learn initiative, she says, aims to support these most vulnerable girls at greatest risk of dropping out who are up against societal pressures.

Part of the solution to overcoming these societal pressures, says Mehra, is to secure community buy-in in for programs that keep their daughters and sisters in school.

“In order to get more girls to school, we need to change attitudes and norms that pose barriers to school attendance,” says Mehra. “We need to educate parents, families and communities about the value of girls’ education, and get their buy-in so we can support them in devising their own solutions to local barriers.”

With Let Girls Learn in full swing, the international development community can expect more investment in adolescent girls’ education, says Rihani, noting that the private sector will also have a key role to play in these efforts.

These is a great need for this concerted effort with the Let Girls Learn initiative, says Mehra. As an example of this need, she cites that of the 126 million illiterate youth (15-24 years), 62 percent are female, which is almost the same proportion as adult women who are illiterate, according to UNESCO.

“We don’t want female disadvantage to continue,” says Mehra. “We want change that promotes equality and gives girls access to the many benefits of education.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

A personal journey for social change from Monrovia to D.C.

March 10, 2015

3 min read

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I can still remember the night of Dec. 21 when I boarded the Air Maroc flight to Dakar, Senegal. My mom traveled seven hours from rural Liberia to see me off. I had just celebrated my daughter’s second birthday the day before, and Ebola was still in full swing throughout the country.

As I boarded the flight, I kept asking myself, “Is the Atlas Corps Fellowship worth my entire 2015? Will my daughter remember me when I get back? How easy will it be to reintegrate into Liberian society when I return?”

I was painfully aware of how big this decision was, and just how much it could have an effect my own life—as well as the lives of the people I was leaving behind.

But this journey was about more than just living in another country, far away from the people and places I know and love. This journey would help me get the tools, knowledge and experience I needed to ramp up the technology for development and social change revolution back home in Liberia.

Arriving in D.C. was a total culture shock– the cold weather, the always available electricity, the people and the simple things like transportation systems.

Liberia has endured 14 years of on and off civil war, during which the country experienced one of the largest recorded economic collapses with national Gross Domestic Product falling by more than 90 percent from 1987 to 1995. Although the war ended in 2003, it left a legacy of extreme hardship—with almost two-thirds of Liberians living below the poverty line—severe capacity constraints, significant under-employment and a vast infrastructure deficit.

In fact, the first elected post-war government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had to begin from scratch because all banking institutions, including the Central Bank of Liberia, were completely looted during the war. Even hospitals were looted, sometimes resulting in the destruction of doors and windows.

During the last 10 years, the World Bank has consistently ranked Liberia as one of the world’s poorest countries. There is no round-the-clock electricity and good governance, quality health delivery systems, access to education and employment opportunities still remain huge challenges.

Growing up as a Liberian in the last two decades hasn’t been a smooth road at all. I have had to listen to gun shots as though they were music. I have tasted hunger and hardship, living part of my life in refugee camps in the Ivory Coast and Ghana.

And now, far from the refugee camps of West Africa, I am here as one of 17 Atlas Corps Fellow in Washington, D.C., where I’ll be supporting the Technology for Development team at Creative Associates International. Previously, I was Training Director at iLab Liberia.

Since my arrival in February, the most interesting part of this journey has been getting to know my fellow Fellows from different countries and continents, listening to their stories and learning about their cultures while sharing mine.

Living in the United States, joining the Creative team and being part of this fellowship is awesome, but even though everything is going well I am also constantly reminding myself that there will be challenges ahead. As exciting and promising as fellowships or studying abroad can seem (and usually are), the experience doesn’t come without its obstacles.

I am now facing the reality that I am in a foreign place, a new environment and a different culture. I am trying to enjoy every bit of it and to make my experience at my host organization, Creative, worth remembering.

I am certain that there are and will be obstacles.

However, the mission for which I came to the U.S. remains constant—learn, share, network and return to Liberia to support my country by using new and old technologies to inspire social change.

In the end, my personal journey will be one that not only brings about change in my life, but also changes the lives of hundreds and even thousands of my fellow citizens back home.

How Tablets Transformed our Monitoring & Evaluation in Zambia

February 25, 2015

4 min read

In the fall of 2012, nine teams set out across six provinces of Zambia, visiting 200 schools. Their task: collect data that would serve as a baseline against which to measure the success of a USAID-funded early grade reading program. The undertaking involved tracking the progress of a sample group of 4,600 students and teachers in 18 districts—and the teams arrived for their duties with just pen and paper.

They travelled to remote provinces; the project school closest to the capital city Lusaka was a seven hour drive away. When they reached these schools, the teams manually recorded the information on stacks of paper-based questionnaires. Then, with at least a week’s worth of these papers in tow, it was back to Lusaka where data entry clerks would manually enter the information from the completed questionnaires into spreadsheets.

It was a tedious system with some key drawbacks for Creative’s Read to Succeed project, which works in 18 districts of Zambia to address the poor learning and literacy among primary school students.

Chief among them was the realization after-the-fact that completed questionnaires from the baseline study were missing from some regions.

We had to send data assessors back to the field to re-collect information they had already gotten. As a result, a phase that was supposed to take no more than six months ended up taking a year.

When the process is on paper

Creative isn’t alone in our reliance on old methods for data collection in the field.

Development organizations accustomed to scrimping often worry about the costs of incorporating new technology—especially if it doesn’t work the first time.

They doubt that digital data collection and analysis will work in poor, rural environments where delicate equipment won’t hold up and reliable internet connections are a rare find. They may be unsure if data collectors can easily be trained on mobile data collection.

And as much as Creative would have liked to use mobile technology as soon as Read to Succeed started—indeed we had planned for it from the beginning—the timeline just didn’t allow for the long procurement procedures for getting digital tablets or testing them in the field.

Taking our data digital

For our midline survey two years later, we had enough time to develop an action plan.

First we gathered all technical information about the use of tablets/notebooks, selected a survey-friendly tablet device to suit our needs (Nexus 7 tablets which are compatible with Tangerine, an open-source electronic data collection software developed by RTI International), and worked with technology experts from our home office to digitize survey questionnaires.

Next we trained our monitoring and evaluation staff on using Tangerine to enter and view data, and download reports. We also provided a 5-day training workshop to our 45 data collectors in Lusaka.

When our data assessors fanned out to the field sites, they collected data electronically from our sample of 4,000 students, 200 head teachers and 400 second and third grade teachers, randomly selected from 200 schools across 18 districts, including four where Read to Succeed was not active.

We found that even without an internet connection, our data collectors could log quantitative information and upload it later. Tablets could be charged using car chargers so that we weren’t reliant on having power in remote villages. None of this was being done just a year or two ago.

Immediate benefits

Using the tablets helped us achieve data collection and data entry concurrently—a significant time-saver compared to doing each of these steps sequentially as we had during the baseline phase.

A paper based system involved a lot of people- collectors, assessors, and clerks with dedicated computers. They take up conference rooms for months as stacks and stacks of paper occupy tables, cabinets and corners. Switching to digital data collection freed up salaries and space.

The system also has built-in anti-error mechanisms that reduce data entry errors. This ensured, for example, that a school in one district would not appear in another, which happened when we used the paper-based system.

With such a far-flung list of project schools, our monitoring and evaluation director had previously spent hours and hours driving around the country to monitor data collection—a recurrent and strenuous task during the baseline phase.

With the use of tablets, he was able to monitor the data as it came in live from screens in our main office in Lusaka. This not only reduced the stress that comes with travel but also contributed to better data quality since errors were corrected as soon as they were detected.

Of course our greatest benefit was eliminating the potential loss of hard copies.

Using tablets came with their own challenges such as the impossibility of editing entries once saved electronically. In addition, tablets as we used them cannot collect qualitative data. Furthermore, Tangerine software only allows data to be download in CSV Spreadsheet format. It’s not directly downloadable in other statistical programs likes SPSS, STATA or SAS.

But overall, thanks to our new approach we were able to collect higher quality data at a more reasonable cost and within a short period of time, plus reap the benefits of live monitoring. The process also had fewer errors than the paper-based approach and we did not need to physically store huge volume of documents in the office.

Even accounting for the upfront investment in software devices (we spent about $20,000 for equipment), internet connection and training-related costs, overall over the life of the project we saved time and money and—most importantly—came away with reliable information we can use to measure our project’s impact and make it better.

Creative’s Monitoring and Evaluation team in Zambia, led by Director Rhodwell Chitanda, contributed information for this piece. Photos by: Nephas Hindamu and Imasiku Wamuwi

Is Non-Inclusive Economic Growth Sufficient for Stability and Competitiveness?

February 25, 2015

4 min read

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In Egypt’s case, the short answer is no! Although it was the top reformer in 2008 and among the top ten reformers in 2009-10 as listed in the World Bank’s Doing Business reports, Egypt’s economic, social and political conditions were not ripe during the late 2000’s for spurring real economic stability and competitiveness.

Egypt’s potentially large market size, proximity to key global markets, location, natural resources, human capital and potential markets can significantly contribute to higher level of inclusive economic growth rates.

So why, despite these factors and its membership in many trade and investment organizations such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Asia (COMESA) and the Arab League, has Egypt not realized its economic growth potential?

Exclusion does not breed competitiveness

Prior to 2011, Egypt’s economy was not inclusive, despite enjoying relatively high growth. The non-inclusive nature of economic growth rates of above 5 percent was insufficient to both reduce poverty and create enough decent jobs. It also didn’t reach women, youth or disadvantaged groups.

During past decades, women and youth have suffered high rates of unemployment and less participation in the labor force. Moreover, disadvantaged groups in rural areas and Upper Egypt have even higher poverty levels. The national poverty rate in 2011 (25.2 percent) was actually higher than it was more than 10 years ago in 2000 (16.7 percent).

In 2012, official estimates of the unemployment rates for youth ages 15 to 24 were around 25 percent and rising, and higher among females—over 35 percent. The informal sector is a huge part of Egypt’s economy, constituting nearly 82 percent of the total number of firms and employing nearly 40 percent of the labor force.

Prolonged unemployment, marginalization of youth and women, huge informal economies, extreme poverty and an uncompetitive private sector, among other factors, were drivers of instability.

The Egyptian economy today

In the recent 2014-15 World Economic Forum ranking, Egypt dropped to a rank of 119 out of 144 countries in a competitiveness ranking. This reduced competitiveness has negatively impacted trade and investment in goods and services, and hence slowed economic growth even further.

Political and social transitions in 2011 and 2013 deeply impacted Egypt’s economy. Currently, Egypt faces substantial new challenges related to investment outflows, falling tourist arrivals, an unstable macroeconomic environment, an increasing informal sector and pervasive job loss.

These issues are compounded by pre-2011 economic challenges, many of which had been the driving forces behind major political shifts, including the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood, a newly elected government, and a planned parliamentarian election in 2015 after a long-lasting non-democratic regime.

The country’s microeconomic policies, including the over-regulated and costly business regulatory environment, are binding constraints to private sector domestic and foreign trade and investment.

Trade and customs barriers, ease of doing business, tax policy, labor laws and regulations are current challenges. The higher the level of trade and investment in goods, the more opportunities emerge to help create jobs for the almost 800,000 new labor force entrants every year.

The macroeconomic environment has worsened over recent years because of a widening fiscal deficit, growing public indebtedness and continuing inflationary pressures. But Egypt’s macroeconomic policies seem to have had less of an impact on long-term political stability than typically attributed.

Though good macro-economic policies may be important for stimulating development, socioeconomic equality and inclusive growth are more influential long-term contributors to long-term stability.

How can Egypt change its course?

Egypt should focus on the inclusiveness of economic growth strategies by addressing employment issues of youth and women, supporting the informal sector and micro, small and medium enterprises and alleviating poverty, particularly in disadvantaged areas of rural and Upper Egypt.

It needs to put special focus on youth and women because they not only represent disadvantaged groups in terms of unemployment, but also represent largely untapped human resource potential. Supporting rural areas, Upper Egypt and other geographically disadvantaged areas will be a real challenge, but is critical for success.

The country also needs to foster a low-risk and low-cost business regulatory environment for both the formal and informal sectors in order to increase trade and investments, both of which will lead to the creation of new jobs.

Egypt will have to make it easier for businesses to operate, get permits and licenses, comply with laws and regulations and exit the market when they opt to—key factors to increasing productive economic engagement.

If Egypt can capitalize on its many advantages, accompanied by inclusive economic growth with a focus on improving labor skills and productivity, advancing micro, small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurship development, streamlining business processes, eliminating barriers to trade and investment and endorsing the formalization of the informal sector, the country will be able to create more jobs and provide for its continual flow of new entrants into the labor market with enhanced opportunities.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

With Surprise Nigerian Election Delay, Civil Society Promotes Peace

February 12, 2015

5 min read

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With Surprise Nigerian Election Delay, Civil Society Promotes Peace

By Jennifer Brookland

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]On the heels of a surprise announcement that postponed Nigeria’s hotly anticipated elections by six weeks due to insecurity in the North, local groups are working hard to prevent an escalation in violence and a loss of national confidence.

They could be effective in mitigating electoral violence among political rivals or inspired by sectarian interests, according to Jeff Fischer, Senior Electoral Advisor at Creative Associates International.

But good outcomes are far from guaranteed.

“Having impact requires participation by the competing civic society sectarian interests,” Fischer says: Muslims, Christians, and various ethnic groups, for example. “Where civil society would not have an impact is in the electoral violence caused by Boko Haram, which would be unresponsive to any civil society initiatives.”

Boko Haram, and the havoc it has wreaked in Northern Nigeria and now its neighbors, is the stated cause of the elections delay: Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Attahiru Jega announced the postponement after security officials stated a six-week counterinsurgency operation in Borno, Yobe, Adamowa and Gombe States was necessary before troops could guarantee the safety of voters, election officials and volunteers there.

“It’s a psychological and political victory for Boko Haram,” said Pauline Baker, President Emeritus of The Fund for Peace.

Doubters in and outside of the country were quick to point out alternatives to the state’s explanation that insecurity drove the decision.

Challenger Muhammadu Buhari’s political party, All Progressives Congress, accused the government of using security as a pretext for delays that would benefit Jonathan. Other theories insinuate that the postponement is a ploy to stall elections until Jega steps down, or to set the stage for an interim government that would allow Jonathan to remain in office.

As conspiracy theories ripple through Nigeria as to the reasons behind the decision and its political consequences, experts say civil society groups and the media have another role to play beyond promoting peace: dialing down Nigeria’s infamous rumor mill.

“The role these organizations play in mitigating misinformation is growing,” said Eniola Mafe, Program Manager at the Niger Delta Partnership Initiative Foundation.

Beyond increasing transparency and holding electoral institutions accountable, Mafe said these organizations can also “engage with communities physically and online in order to bridge that important communications gap.”

Celebrities and civil society on a mission

Several of the civil society groups active in preventing violence in this year’s vote were set up prior to the last presidential election in 2011—which resulted in around 800 deaths.

The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, which was created in 2010 to address electoral problems and challenges, now coalesces 63 organizations to share election-related information, anticipate problems and rapidly respond.

The Enough is Enough Nigeria Coalition traces its birth to a 2010 speech by internationally-recognized economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala that challenged the 70 percent of Nigeria’s population that is under the age of 30 to take charge of their futures by advocating for good governance and public accountability.

Flashier actors than they are promoting the nonviolence message as well.

Civil society groups and celebrities and stepping up the call for nonviolence as a surprise election delay heightens tensions. Photo by David Snyder

Celebrities and young activists joined a documentary project launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the International Republican Institute called Dreams4Naija, which profiles youth in Nigeria and their hopes for the future.

Iconic Nigerian singer, songwriter and producer “2Face” Idibia launched a Vote Not Fight campaign with the Youngstars Foundation, the National Democratic Institute and other partners, making pledges of nonviolence “cooler” with a theme song in two languages including Hausa, most commonly spoken in the North.

A campaign video calls on people—especially youth—to set the agenda for their futures instead of letting local “big men” and politicians shape the agenda by inciting violence. Nearly 7,675 have submitted the online pledge to remain peaceful so far.

U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria James Entwistle has been personally calling for nonviolent elections in talks with leaders and celebrities by asking them to take a public pledge to avoid using violence and to stop it if it arises.

And at the highest level, Nigeria’s 11 presidential candidates agreed to a non-violence policy in the presence of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in January 2015, including incumbent Goodluck Jonathan and his primary opponent Muhammadu Buhari.

“The nonviolence pledge is a start,” says Fischer, “but its effectiveness depends upon enforcement of the pledge and penalties for breaking it.”

Coordinating for peace amidst escalated violence

Enforced or not, this promise of nonviolence may not trickle down to the masses, especially those living in remote areas with weak social contracts with the state, according to Mafe.

“Youth have a lot to gain but find themselves in a very vulnerable position,” she said, pointing out that organizations working for nonviolence need to look to young people at the fringes, and continue using celebrities and social media to reach them.

Fischer points out that INEC has recruited youth as poll workers in order to dampen their vulnerability to being recruited to commit acts of electoral violence.

A similar initiative in 2011 led to young people being targeted and killed as they volunteered at the polls.

These young people need to be reached with quick-impact projects, suggested Patricia Taft, a Program Director with the Fund for Peace. She said besides initiatives such as job training and community-oriented projects, civil society and the media needed more support to carry out voter education and nonviolent messaging.

According to Mafe, Nigerian civil society needs much better coordination and communication if they are to succeed in the critical task of contributing to peace rather than violence.

“One key thing I’ve been hearing is that there needs to be a coordination between all these organizations,” Mafe said. “Discussion between them doesn’t always happen.”

Growing urgency of the call for nonviolence

As many of these organizations focus on their own missions and fail to coordinate with each other, experts pointed out worrisome signs that the peace many are calling for may prove elusive this time around.

Taft presented data that showed levels of violence across the country have been higher this year than they were in the run-up to the 2011 presidential election, when about 800 people were killed.

Baker noted an exodus of Southerners who were returning from residences in the country’s North—a demographic shift she says is ominously reminiscent of the lead-up to the Biafran war in the 1960s.

Boko Haram has stepped up attacks on Nigeria’s neighbors in Cameroon and Niger. The African Union is considering sending up to 8,750 troops to combat the group. The announcement postponing the vote came on the eve of the 300-day anniversary of the kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls from a secondary school in Borno State; 219 remain in captivity.

Political violence could easily result with cajoling from local actors dissatisfied with the eventual outcome of the national election, and Buhari’s party has threatened to establish a parallel government in the event of an election defeat that seems manipulated.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Proposed 2016 USAID Budget Includes Targeted Investment in Central America

February 6, 2015

4 min read

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Proposed 2016 USAID Budget Includes Targeted Investment in Central America

By Jennifer Brookland

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]The President’s 2016 fiscal year budget proposes $1 billion for the U.S. Agency for International Development to improve economies and resilience of Central American countries.

These account increases “aim to advance economic prosperity through reducing poverty, improving education and workforce development, and strengthening resilience in the region, all of which address underlying factors responsible for the continued flow of migrants from the region to Mexico and the United States,” according to the budget request.

The proposal seeks funding for a “whole-of-government” approach especially targeted at El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, with $541 million in development assistance funding designated for programs that promote prosperity, governance and security.

Guillermo Cespedes, a crime and violence prevention advisor with Creative Associates International, says this is an important move for the United States.

“USAID has recognized the need for data-driven, place-based differentiated approaches that include tertiary, secondary and primary prevention along with community policing, all implemented simultaneously in geographic locations with the highest levels of violence and focused on those individuals most at risk of being victims or perpetrators,” Cespedes says.

The expert, who was the Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles before joining Creative, says “the science supports that this is the most effective strategy to reduce violence and those of us in the field are very encouraged by the adoption of this approach by USAID.”

A three-pronged plan with a focus on youth

HON100814119 USAID’s development assistance to Central America will fall along three overarching “lines of action,” according to the budget request.

To promote prosperity, USAID seeks to integrate regional markets, promote better education and vocational training, and create more inclusive economic opportunities for women and vulnerable groups.

It hopes that nurturing healthy business environments that include youth will encourage entrepreneurs who can operate above board, instead of contributing to the region’s swollen ranks of illicit groups that undermine security and government institutions and dampen legitimate economic activity.

The budget request makes specific mention of the need to boost opportunities for entrepreneurship and job placement for vulnerable youth to provide alternatives to violence and greater resilience for households and communities.

(Read about the young winner of a business competition who’s turning his life around with hamburgers.)

The agency’s other two focus areas are on enhancing security and promoting improved governance, which includes bolstering government services and providing support to civil society and the media.

All three lines of action are ultimately key to reducing the region’s endemic violence, economic inequality, poverty and corruption.

According to Cespedes, USAID is smart not to attempt to drive down violence as if it existed in a vacuum.

“USAID has stated clearly that violence reduction is a cross cutting theme that is interrelated with all strategies including economic development, education, and governance. It is a critical component of the overall (approach in) Central America,” he says.

The budget request points out that these initiatives will complement the work of national governments and multilateral development banks, and support national and regional priorities and plans.

“Without significant progress, the region will continue to face extreme violence, severe economic inequality, social exclusion, and widespread corruption and poverty, thus compelling many Central Americans to flee their homes each year,” according to the budget request.

Budgeting for a change

The request for development assistance in the Northern Triangle of Central America shows the administration’s continual attempt to thwart thousands of migrants fleeing violence, corruption and economic insecurity at home.

Gang violence and narco-trafficking has resulted in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala having some of the highest homicide rates in the world outside of active war zones, and the region been a major source of unaccompanied minors immigrating to the U.S.

Last year’s budget included no reference to Central America.

Other USAID focus areas will include Asia and Africa, as well as initiatives to strengthen democracy, maternal and child health, and science, technology and innovation.

Together with the funding for the State Department, the federal budget request comes to $50.3 billion—a 6 percent increase over the 2015 enacted level and a nearly 9 percent increase over the 2015 request.

“The Budget proposes targeted investments in international programs that will help mobilize collective action to meet global challenges, counter terrorism and violent extremism overseas, strengthen the U.S. economy, and support United States citizens and the U.S. presence overseas,” according to a fact sheet released by the State department.

Altogether the amount makes up around 1 percent of the entire federal budget.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

SMS brings local tales to Zambian school children

February 4, 2015

3 min read

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SMS brings local tales to Zambian school children

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]A mobile reading project that will bring reading to Zambian children who often have no access to books at home is one of 14 winners of a literacy innovation competition under the U.S. Agency for International Development’s All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development, Creative Associates International announced today.

Developed by Creative Associates International and called Makahalidwe Wathu, the mobile storytelling project will complement its current Read to Succeed program in Zambia.

“Winners [of the competition] represent the most promising, creative and impactful solutions in literacy innovations and were chosen from a competitive process that elicited 213 proposals from 50 countries,” according to a USAID press release.

Makahalidwe Wathu, which means “our way of staying” in the local Chinyanja language, will use crowdsourcing to collect local stories, folktales and original content from community members in Zambia and the diaspora using cell phones, voice messages and a web-based submission form.

From this story bank, 54 selections will be edited to be language and age appropriate and sent via SMS to the parents of 1,000 primary school students—which will increase the children’s ability and improve their attitudes toward reading.

“There is a passion for storytelling in Zambia, and a strong desire to help children preserve their linguistic heritage while learning to read,” says Tassew Zewdie, who directs Creative’s Read to Succeed program in Zambia. “This innovation brings young people their own timeless stories as it capitalizes on their digital lives.”

Few resources means poor reading performance

In Zambia, limited access to reading materials, especially in local languages, has inhibited children’s ability to master foundational literacy skills.

With so few mother-tongue books and materials at home, parents and community members rarely find ways to support children in reading outside of school. As a result, children do not have adequate opportunities to practice reading.

It shows: The South African Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality noted in 2010 that only 27.4 percent of sixth graders could read at a basic competency level.

“Where children’s books are rare, it follows that literacy is low,” says Creative’s co-founder and CEO Charito Kruvant. “But we can look beyond these old limitations and innovate to bring reading to children and communities. That’s what Makhalidwe Wathu is doing.”

Although literacy is low in Zambia, rates of mobile phone usage are quite high. Makhalidwe Wathu capitalizes on this mobile technology to create and disseminate recreational mother tongue reading materials to families with early grade children in Zambia in a way that is community-based and scalable.

Local language, local stories, local partners

Creative is piloting Makhalidwe Wathu in cooperation with Read to Succeed, a USAID-funded program already working with Zambia’s government to improve early grade reading through more effective teaching and school-community partnerships.

Along with community mobilizers and Parent Teacher Associations, formal local partners are taking a leading role in implementing this innovation and ensuring Zambian ownership over the process and results.

In addition to Zambia’s Ministry of Education, Science, Vocational Training and Early Education, associates include Lubuto Library Partners, the University of Zambia, technology hub BongoHive, community radio station BreezeFM and tablet-based education provider iSchool.

By collecting these stories from community members and sending them out via SMS to parents of school-age children, Makhalidwe Wathu raises awareness about the importance of early grade literacy, and encourages a culture of mother-tongue storytelling and reading that will excite and energize students.

The added time spent reading with family members also creates a stronger support system for young students to continue practicing reading outside of school.

The cost-effective model for Makhalidwe Wathu could eventually put reading materials into the hands of more than 8 million native Chinyanja speakers— and eventually every rural and urban schoolchild’s home in Africa.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Holding out Hope for Children and Youth

January 20, 2015

3 min read

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As I safely tuck my 6-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter into bed, I am still thinking about the 2015 UNICEF report on the State of the World’s Children that I read this morning. As a youth development professional and advocate, and as a parent, it is difficult to read the remarks of Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director, declaring 2014 a dire year for the 15 million children that fell victims of major conflict and crisis globally.

“This has been a devastating year for millions of children,” Lake wrote in the report. “Children have been killed while studying in the classroom and while sleeping in their beds; they have been orphaned, kidnapped, tortured, recruited, raped and even sold as slaves. Never in recent memory have so many children been subjected to such unspeakable brutality.”

The situation is especially heartbreaking given that 2014 marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most important declarations for children globally: the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The results of the Convention have been tremendous, from lowering infant mortality to raising school enrollment. However, the UNICEF report serves as a reminder and a call to action, imploring us to not rest on our laurels.

A more helpful way to address youth issues

There is still so much to be done, especially for the children and youth in conflict and crisis environments where the violation of their rights often has irreversible outcomes as they transition through adolescence to adulthood.

In Central African Republic, where 2.3 million children are affected by the conflict, armed groups are believed to have recruited up to 10,000 children with close to 500 deaths. In South Sudan, an estimated 235,000 children age 5 and younger are suffering from severe acute malnutrition with close to 750,000 children displaced and more than 320,000 living as refugees, according to the report.

Yet, in spite the terrible figures revealed in the report and the challenges for youth in so many countries, there remains hope for millions of children and youth effected by conflict and crisis.

If we assume all children, especially those who are marginalized, should and can have the same opportunities as those in safer or more developed countries—and we build community support to make those opportunities real for them—we can still give children and youth pathways to positive futures as we enter the Post Millennium Development Goals era.

Creating more asset-based youth initiatives, which build on assets instead of honing in on risks and challenges, can enable young people to change their life’s trajectory and become responsible contributors to their communities. It’s a much more positive, and we think effective way of addressing issues affecting youth.

For example, at-risk youth living in violent, crime-affected communities in Honduras have explored viable life alternatives through Alianza Joven Honduras (Youth Alliance) program, which is funded by USAID and implemented by Creative.

Here, where violent crime and gangs rule the lives of families and neighborhoods, this program countered the risk factors by providing more than 20,000 children and youth with computer literacy, job training, tutoring, life skills and leadership opportunities—first and second chances to build resilience and engage in something positive.

Creative’s Northern Nigeria Education Initiative fostered enabling environments for orphans and vulnerable children and youth, particularly adolescent girls and boys in informal Qur’anic schools. In these environments, vulnerable youth learned core academic concepts, received job and life skills training and accessed critical psychosocial support in one of today’s most confusing and violent environments for children.

Making new statistics

These two initiatives show us that, although children and youth around the world are too often victimized, they don’t always have to be victims.

Young people who find opportunities to engage their minds, learn new skills and involve themselves in their communities can form the ranks of another kind of statistic—the numbers of youth who are successfully using their own assets and resources to withstand so much negativity and create a positive future for themselves.

As the UNICEF report suggests, 2015 is a pivotal year for the field of children and youth development, and we must renew our commitment to the protection of their rights and creation of hope and opportunity.