Outcome Harvesting in the Georgian Dairy Industry: LEO Report #43

The program operates in the dairy, beef, sheep, and honey sub-sectors in the Kvemo Kartli (KK), Samtskhe Javakheti (SJ), and Ajara (AJ) regions in Southern Georgia. These regions are highly dependent on livestock production and have been the focus of ALCP's efforts since the program's inception in March 2014. ALCP's goal is to contribute to poverty alleviation and the transition to a durable market economy for the livestock sector in the selected regions. The program has been audited according to the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) Standard and is committed to the successful implementation and measuring of women's economic empowerment. The program's focus on women's empowerment is a key aspect of its strategy, as it aims to improve the economic status of women in the target regions. In May and June 2016, a researcher with the Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) activity, in collaboration with the BEAM Exchange, used the Outcome Harvesting (OH) technique to identify and analyze unintended outcomes arising from ALCP's efforts to improve the dairy industry in Kvemo Kartli, Georgia. The research team found that the province of Kvemo Kartli had witnessed a broad increase in prosperity, with several fundamental changes to quality of life and the perception of opportunity. The analysis revealed several instances of systemic changes among the 16 outcomes "harvested." Two systemic changes - change in expectations of quality of life and changes in business diversity - do not easily fit into existing systemic change frameworks but are clearly important. Additionally, the analysis noted a manifest change in women's agency over revenue from milk collection, contributing to a change in expectations of quality of life and women's self-esteem, as well as a change in institutional biases around milk collectors' solution-seeking versus extractive practices. The research team found that the OH technique is a useful tool for helping mature programs understand the range of unintended consequences to which their work has contributed. It is also a useful tool for identifying and evaluating the significance of other contributing factors to observed outcomes. However, the OH technique is not sufficiently rigorous to make conclusive statements about the specific extent to which its findings are representative of an entire population, and a quantitative follow-up survey would be useful. The ALCP staff learned the methodology and have already started to apply it in several other regions where its programming had already run for several years, lending weight to the idea that it is not so technically challenging as to require expert support. They have also used insights gleaned from the survey to enrich the questionnaire of upcoming impact assessments. The LEO activity also explored the utility of four tools - Standard Measurement Tools, Outcome Harvesting, SenseMaker, and Social Network Analysis - conducting trials of each on field-based projects. Full reports from those tool trials are available at www.microlinks.org/leo, along with a synthesis report. The synthesis report identified the growing interest among practitioners to measure indications of systemic change, but also the lack of well-recognized tools and frameworks for doing so. The Georgian dairy industry has experienced significant changes since the implementation of ALCP's program. The province of Kvemo Kartli has witnessed a broad increase in prosperity, with several fundamental changes to quality of life and the perception of opportunity. The analysis revealed several instances of systemic changes among the 16 outcomes "harvested." The research team found that the OH technique is a useful tool for helping mature programs understand the range of unintended consequences to which their work has contributed. The ALCP program has been successful in contributing to poverty alleviation and the transition to a durable market economy for the livestock sector in the selected regions. The program's focus on women's empowerment has improved the economic status of women in the target regions. The research team's findings suggest that the OH technique is a useful tool for market systems practitioners and evaluators, and that it can be applied to help mature programs understand the range of unintended consequences to which their work has contributed.