Final evaluation for Coordination in Development Inc. and Lutheran World Relief -- African women : community development and combined technologies

The project was administered by Coordination Development, Inc. (CODEL) until 1995 when the Lutheran World Relief (LW) assumed the contract because of CODEL's financial difficulties. Five CODEL partner agencies implemented the project. Results of the pilot projects, which did not begin until 1994, were as follows. In Kenya, the Kenyan Institute for Organic Farming (KIOF) trained 38 women farmers in Muranga and Machakos Districts in various organic farming techniques, resulting in increased agricultural outputs. While a few beneficiaries supplemented their existing organic farming skills, the majority learned new skills for linking their own knowledge with organic agriculture. In Uganda, The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) trained over 30 women in afforestation and use of the fuel efficient cook stoves and charcoal briquettes made from agro-wastes. In Nakawa and Makindye divisions in Kampal District, women learned to use the stoves in their home and increased income by selling stoves and charcoal briquettes in their communities. The stoves helped reduce their cooking time (by allowing users to cook more than two dishes at a time) and to conserve energy and heat. The Bannakaroli Brothers provided children orphaned by AIDS and living on a banana plantation in Kyotera, as well as their 45-50 female-headed guardian families, with skills in traditional and modern methods for producing bananas, the staple crop in Uganda. In the Hai District of Arusha/Northern Tanzania, TechnoServe taught approximately 40 women farmers how to produce and use indigenous vegetables for seed production, sale, and home consumption. Seed production has filled a market demand. Some of the women farmers have plans to sell millet for brewing and to grow and sell maize. For the ethnological case study, the Maryknoll Sisters in Iringa, Tanzania established the Women Trust and Development Association (WTDA), an umbrella association of three women's groups to create a revolving credit fund to improve local women's social and economic situation. To date, the fund has provided over 200 women from varied backgrounds with credit for home-based or small-scale enterprise activities. The following lessons were learned. (1) The pilot projects demonstrated that income generation directly bears on improved health and education for children, by providing extra income for basic needs; and also enhances women's status in their families and communities. (2) The NGOs, which were involved in project identification and design, have indicated their commitment to contribute to the project beyond its conclusion in 1996. A few have already integrated the program within their ongoing activities. (3) The pilot projects mobilized women to tap their existing skills and motivated them to improve their lives. However, if these projects are to be expanded, objectives and evaluation criteria will need to be established to build on the lessons learned. (4) For women to carry out productive work and take care of their families, investments should be made in literacy, health care, family planning, and nutrition. In the future, links should be made between women's welfare and their productivity and economic development during project design. (5) The transition of the contract from CODE to LW in 1995 was a rushed process during which some management files were left incomplete or were lost, affecting the evaluation process. Moreover, CODEL's philosophy of monitoring has always been to leave primary monitoring to the local implementing agencies. LW continued this reporting system when it assumed the contract. While in many cases the system worked well, a systemic feed back mechanism should have been established to measure each project's impact, and results should have been properly documented.