Adjabu Advisors, evaluators of the second phase of the STAR-Ghana Programme found that the programme produced significant outcomes in five themed areas: Access and quality of public services; Economic rights and empowerment; Gender equality and social inclusion; Improved accountability and transparency; Free and peaceful elections. This was contained in the report of the evaluation of the STAR-Ghana 2 programme (2015-2020) commissioned by Christian Aid to learn from the experience and point to useful directions for the STAR-Ghana Foundation in the future.
Themes of Change
What Changed
The evaluation noted that nearly two thirds (77 out of 113) of the outcomes were in Policies and Practices. Policy changes included new laws at national or district level, such as passage of the Land Bill or the Right to Information Bill, or new administrative regulations or procedures that had direct effects on people’s lives, such as inclusion of women in District Assembly decision-making processes. The outcomes were evenly divided between national and local level. While the national level outcomes were of course significant because they set frameworks for the entire country, many local level changes were in fact systems changes as well, such as District by-laws affecting women or people with disabilities. The programme and its Grant Partners used a wide variety of tactics to achieve these results. The most common approaches were meetings with duty bearers, alliance building, training and awareness raising, and engagement with the media. Most outcomes were the product of multiple tactics used by several stakeholders, and most required considerable time to come to fruition. Pathways to change for some of the more difficult results – such as passage of the Land Act, or increased funding for mental health – were actually quite complex, and did not follow any linear route to success. The diagram below shows the most impactful stakeholders, their contributions and outcomes at a glance.
These changes in Policy and Practice were split nearly evenly between the national and local level – 49% were national, 47% were local, with the remaining 4% at the regional level. It could be argued that national level changes were more important than local, since they set a framework for the whole country and affected far more people. While we found that to be largely true, many of the local level changes were also in fact systems changes. Local level changes such as new district by-laws were more likely to have a direct and more immediate effect on people’s lives than national polices, that would take a long time to filter down to the local level.
Sustainability/Ongoing Impact
STAR-Ghana Foundation - The programme also created the STAR-Ghana Foundation, a 100% Ghanaian organisation that will carry the work forward now that the programme has ended. The Foundation is an experienced civil society support organisation which uses a strategy of deep engagement with Grant Partners to build capacity, strengthen networks, and make a sustained impact. Its profound knowledge of the work of civil society in Ghana for citizen influencing that advances democracy, accountability, and social inclusion make it an ideal partner for funders and partners who share those goals. This is the Unique Selling Point of the Foundation
Recommendations
- Expand the scope of engagement to non-traditional and informal Civil Society Organisations to expand the boundaries of inclusion and support citizen-led initiatives. Adapt partner engagement, grantmaking practices, and technical assistance to better support a movement building approach: adaptive management, built-in flexibility in grant agreements, technical support more oriented to strategy, tactics, and relationships than to compliance.
- Adapt the monitoring, evaluation, and learning system to track complex social change events: methods such as outcome journals and Most Significant Change can work, especially if they are done on an ongoing basis, and not generated externally after long periods of time have passed. The system needs to balance learning with demands on time for staff and Grant Partners.
- Revisit the strategy of Convening, Catalysing, Coordinating, and Learning to retain its key values while operating on reduced budgets. Adaptations might include doing fewer Grant Partner visits after original trust is established, and use of external auditors and organisational development specialists built into grant budgets. Staff have sufficient experience to work out how to retain the core functions with reduced resources.
- STAR-Ghana Foundation makes grants to numerous Civil Society Organisations small and large, local and national, across the country. Going forward STAR Ghana should develop a strategy and criteria for identifying and growing citizens organisations which are playing a catalytic role for citizens in specific selected issues and places.
- Publicize the legacy documents that document the programme’s achievements on social inclusion, Political Economy Analysis, learning and related documents both in Ghana and abroad. Develop accessible presentations of them and seek out as many opportunities to share the work as possible.
- Founding donors should continue to use relationships with other donors to pave the way for Foundation staff to approach new donors for at least the next two years.
About STAR-Ghana 2 Programme
The STAR-Ghana 2 programme was a five year (2016-2020), £21.1 million programme funded by the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), and the European Union. It was managed by a consortium led by Christian Aid. The programme’s ultimate objective was to contribute to a well-informed and active civil society, able to contribute to transformational change around key challenges of poverty, inequality, and inclusion for all citizens.
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