Midterm evaluation : USAID/CRWRC [Christian Reformed World Relief Committee] matching grant (FAO-0158-A-00-4062-00)

The evaluation covers the period 9/94-4/96. Project activities are based on the Appreciative Inquiry approach developed at Case Western Reserve University. Trainer/consultants from Case have conducted workshops with CRWRC staff in four regions world-wide. That staff has in turn visited a large number of CRWRC partner organizations to learn their views about capacity-building and sustainability in a joint attempt to begin to identify characteristics of a capable and sustainable organization through shared inquiry into past experience. An important question in this inquiry has been the effect of the local context on this organization-building process. Activities in the field have taken place as planned (chiefly training conferences and "listening visits") and have been highly successful, except in the Latin/Central America region, where difficulties unrelated to the grant activities have hindered full and enthusiastic participation. The other three regions have gathered a large amount of raw data from their partners, setting the stage for productive regional conferences (to be held over the next few months) at which partner representatives and CRWRC staff will work together to analyze the data, attempt to draw some preliminary conclusions, and revise existing indicators and/or formulate new ones for field testing. Partner feedback about the process has been overwhelmingly positive. The process has already done much to improve working relationships between CRWRC and many of its partner organizations. The institutional strengthening component of the project is on or ahead of schedule in all respects except formal research. The proposed manual is already taking shape, staff training has been completed, and a bibliography regarding capacity and sustainability has been developed. Some of the knowledge gained from the field implementation portion of the project activities has contributed to capacity building within CRWRC itself. While some remedial work must be done regarding formal research and field implementation in Latin/Central America, on the whole the project is accomplishing what was expected and more. At this point all indications are that the project will be successfully completed and that the larger PVO/NGO community will profit from the experience of CRWRC as it presents its findings at the final conference projected to take place in the final month of the grant period. (Author abstract)