Haor Initiatives for Sustainable Alternative Livelihoods (HISAL) Project

Haor Initiatives for Sustainable Alternative Livelihoods (HISAL) Project Final Evaluation February 2012 By Martin Whiteside (Team Leader) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.1 Background Concern Bangladesh has been implementing the Haor Initiatives for Sustainable Alternative Livelihoods (HISAL) Project starting October 2006 and ending December 2011. This is the final evaluation of the programme. The evaluation draws information from quantitative baseline and endline panel surveys, that also included non-participants; monitoring data, key informant interviews, workshops with implementing partner staff, focus group discussions with a wide variety of participants and direct observation. At the time of evaluation in November-December 2011, the final report from the quantitative endline survey had not been produced, so some data had to be added retrospectively. HISAL was implemented by four partner NGOs, reaching over 22,000 households, organised through women s self help groups (SHGs) and apex community based organisations (CBOs). This implementation was supported by a research and advocacy partner (PPRC), a micro-finance partner (Padakhep) and an agricultural partner (BAU). Implementation was coordinated by a small Concern team. 1.2 HISAL Relevance Working in the Haor is consistent with Government of Bangladesh priorities and Concerns Bangladesh Country Strategy. The HISAL participants fit with Concern s understanding of extreme poverty and the project design is consistent with Concerns mainstreaming of equality and rights based approaches. HISAL objectives are relevant to what is known of the needs and wishes of the participants. 1.3 HISAL Efficiency Implementation by partner NGOs was always adequate and sometimes of a very high standard in difficult working conditions. Support by the technical partners was mostly adequate and sometimes good. Support by the Concern field team has been generally very good, but there were weaknesses in planning for the project closure and sustainability of the achievements. The proportion of the overall budget directly reaching the participants was rather low. 1.4 HISAL Effectiveness and Impact The logframe objectives and indicators were not quantified, so the evaluators have made value judgements on the degree of change it would be reasonable to expect. 1 P a g e

Result 1 of empowering households through development of sustainable community organisations has been largely achieved. Vibrant SHGs and CBOs have been developed with ongoing savings and loan activities, reliance on moneylenders has reduced; however sustainability is a critical issue that needs to be addressed to avoid losing many of the gains of the project. Result 2 of improving livelihood options has been largely achieved. More poor women and their households are involved in a variety of income generating activities (IGAs), although the vast majority of these are traditional to the Haor rather than new IGAs. Women have increased their skills in vegetable growing and livestock; and new recommendations are available for improved cropping patterns, although these are not yet widely adopted. Productive assets have not increased and more needs to be done to consolidate livelihood gains. Result 3 of effective and sustainable village protection has been partly achieved. Some participant HHs have benefited significantly from high quality village protection walls, but the cost of these structures means these are still the minority. Survey data suggests that wave erosion and loss have increased for the wider participants over the lifetime of HISAL. The system of disaster management training does not appear to be sustainable because capacity is lost as local government changes. Result 4 of increasing government resources and services has been partly achieved. Local government has been in considerable flux during the lifetime of HISAL. Access to services remains weak despite some improvement; allocation of safety nets has improved. Some fisher groups have won leases but remain dependent on moneylenders; khas land allocation has hardly started. The CBOs are strong and well respected and 23 of their members have been recently elected onto Union Councils and more are on standing committees. There is significant opportunity for progress post-hisal with appropriate support. The Overall Objective of improved livelihood security and Specific Objective of reduced vulnerability and increased livelihood options have been largely achieved. Income and savings of participants have increased, but assets do not seem to have changed. Many households have additional livelihood activities and government safety net coverage has increased. Diet diversity and adequate intake throughout the year seems to have improved. The confidence, standing and capacity of women participants has increased, with positive outcomes for gender equality. Much that is positive has been achieved and overall the project is judged as satisfactory. However sustainability of these achievements is a critical issue. 1.5 Sustainability and Exit Strategy HISAL exit strategy seems partly based on a static analysis of closing the project while hoping the organisations and institutions created will continue largely unchanged. Analysis suggests that this is unlikely and that without some further support the CBOs and SHGs will stagnate or be re-invented by the next NGO project that comes along. The proposed development of the CBOs into an arm of a Padakhep micro-finance enterprise reflects a more dynamic approach, but has different risks as analysed in section 1.8. Another future is possible, with the solid achievements of HISAL being used as a foundation for the 20,000 empowered women, 1,500 SHGs, 30 CBOs and 23 elected councillors to become agents of change. This requires a revised vision of sustainable transition rather than exit; the new ESEP project and the Haor context approach can provide a framework for achieving this. This would operationalise a programme approach to institution building that goes beyond a single project. Issues and Opportunities 1.6 Advocacy and Research Some competent research was done on water body leasing and khas land allocation, supported by Bangla leaflets; but the work planned but not implemented on power structures and gender might have also been helpful. The HISAL newsletter could be used more creatively to discuss lessons learnt and bridge the sustainable transition to post-hisal action. 2 P a g e

The research on cropping patterns produced three recommendations for improved cropping on the higher Haor land; there were some demonstration plots, but adoption is still at the early stages. For wider and sustained promotion it is necessary to register the research with the Department of Agricultural Extension, which has not yet been done. Further work on varieties suitable for the deeper Haors and resistant to cold may be appropriate. The HISAL advocacy objectives were not very clearly prioritised and the strategy for achieving them not clearly defined. However the advocacy context was also changing over the life of HISAL, with the changes in Government. Advocacy opportunities at local level were constrained by local government flux during much of the project the opportunity has opened up recently since local elections, and particularly with project participants elected onto local councils. Advocacy opportunities at the national level have changed with changes in Government; there are particular opportunities to be grasped with the current cabinet. 1.7 Sustainable Social Organisation SHGs and CBOs have proved effective organisations during the HISAL project. However the vision of how they can develop post-hisal is weak. Concern needs to see these organisations, and the human capacity embodied within them, as the starting point for equitable development, not the end point. There is a tremendous opportunity to build on the foundations of HISAL rather than to move on to another location. The development of SHGs needs to become more bottom-up, the saving and loan methodology needs to become more flexible and easier for new members to enter. Bottom-up, member driven SHGs and CBOs may diverge in priorities and activities, giving more opportunity for facilitating learning between them, rather than constant input from the community organiser. New organisational models, such as village development Committees, may be tried and evolve over time. The newly elected women councillors are the starting point for change, not the end point. They need appropriate support to enable them to be effective, to avoid being co-opted into the system and to remain true to the extremely poor women who elected them. Fisher groups with leases are the starting point for a new approach. Lack of savings and credit has sent them back to the moneylenders, improved fishery management opportunities are being missed and some groups may be starting to behave like the elite they were supposed to replace, in hiring out their water bodies to other fishermen. When any of these processes really start challenging the existing power structures a backlash can be expected. Concern needs to be ready for this as part of a longer-term process, it will not be easy or quick, but the opportunity for real change is there. 1.8 Micro-finance risks and opportunities Two very different micro-finance approaches exist within HISAL both are appreciated by participants. The internal savings and loans of the SHGs have been going from near the start, is bottom-up, flexible and largely trust based. It is the foundation of much of the solidarity, savings, empowerment and IGAs of the majority of the women members. The amount of savings of project participants has risen dramatically, an astonishing 98% of participants now save, which is a major success of the project. The PKSF/Padakhep/CBO loan scheme started late and is thus very recent, top-down and management intensive. Highly subsidised wholesale funds through PKSF and subsidised support from Padakhep and the Community Organisers have meant it has developed outside of the normal MFI disciplines of cost recovery. It has been able to offer extremely low interest loans, with the promise of bigger loans as long as people repay, and is generally popular with good repayment rates. A critical time arrived, with the project ending, and the consequences were not addressed early enough by Concern management. To ensure sustainability, Padakhep understandably wishes to increase the number 3 P a g e

of women with loans, the size of loans and the interest rates. In order to achieve this it wants to end SHG loans, which they see as a low cost competitor, and transfer the SHG savings from their own bank accounts to the accounts of the CBOs to increase the CBO loan capital. The sustainability approach of the PKSF/Padakhep/CBO micro-finance enterprise would therefor risk ending the long-standing savings and loan approach of the SHGs. The bottom-up empowerment of women participants that had been achieved by HISAL could be undermined and the debt burden of extremely poor households might increase.the evaluators understand that this issue is now being addressed in a revised approach.. 1.9 Gender significant success HISAL has made significant strides in gender empowerment and is the most successful aspect of the programme. This involves a number of interlocking changes - group solidarity (in the SHGs); a degree of financial independence (through savings, access to loans and involvement in an IGA); confidence from training and experience of tackling issues like children s education, dealings with the UP etc.; gaining the right to free movement outside the house (though involvement in the SHG, CBO and IGA); gaining respect from male members of the family (through accessing loans, IGAs and other benefits for the whole family) and in the wider community (e.g. being invited onto the Salish/community court etc.); increasing their own knowledge and skills; and pride in seeing other extremely poor women take-up leadership positions in the CBOs, being elected onto the UP etc. Major changes have been achieved however much more needs to be done, to reinforced and embed these changes in the community. Gender empowerment steps in a context like the Haor need too be better defined, monitored, learnt from and valued. The steps taken within HISAL have largely been within the SHGs, a foundation has been created to build on further. 1.10 Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Management Activities have been well monitored and this explains the good early progress. HISAL would have benefited from a smaller number of better-defined SMART outcome indicators that were explicitly tracked during the project, and used for management decision-making. This might have highlighted the critical issues of sustainability, the opportunities for more integration with the ESEP Project and the consequences of the micro-finance plans at an earlier stage. An earlier evaluation, at least six months before the end, rather than in the last month of the project, would also have meant that recommendations on these difficult issues could have been made in time to guide the sustainable transition on from HISAL. Recommendations 5a better phasing of different interventions would have increased effectiveness. Some interventions like the fisherman contracts and CBO loans were at a critical stage just when the project was being closed down. The endline survey was contracted too late. 5b Concern s overhead costs need to be kept down, with the more of the funds reaching project participants as directly as possible. 5c there should be a clear process of follow-up of recommendations from an evaluation, with allocation of tasks to individuals and with a specified timeframe and review process. 6 The logframe and monitoring indicators should be reviewed on an annual basis and revised if necessary. A smaller number of carefully chosen and rigorously monitored indicators would be preferable to a larger number that are less robust. Where possible, quantified SMART targets are needed. 6.1 the input grants (asset transfer) should have been larger to have had a significant impact on assets and income. 4 P a g e

6.5 physical village protection is expensive but brings clear benefits. Villages for flood protection should be prioritised using a robust analysis of flood risk and cost per household. At the Haor level there is a need for a broader strategic analysis of protection need and the likely cost, leading to informed public debate on what is possible. 7a opportunities for sustaining the results of a project need to be analysed and planned much earlier in the project cycle. It may be appropriate for the final evaluation to take place with at least six months still to run in order to facilitate this. 7b ways of encouraging some key staff to remain to the end of the project, or even after the end of the project, to enable a smooth transition to a different phase should be explored. Redundancy money for those that stay to the end may be appropriate. 7c - Concern need to develop a more positive approach to area-based continuity, regarding SHGs and CBOs as assets rather than liabilities. 8.1a consideration should have been given to distributing a copy of the HISAL newsletter to each SHG. The newsletter should also have been continued to the end of the project and used to report on the results and to give details of a clearly thought through exit strategy. 8.1b the results of the agricultural research should be formally registered with the DAE, so that they can become part of the government agricultural recommendations for the Haor. Following this it may be appropriate to produce a Bangla leaflet explaining the recommended cropping patterns. 8.1c Concern could look for ways to reduce the significant losses experienced by Haor farmers through cold damage to rice. 8.2 advocacy topics need to be chosen after analysis of their impact on the extreme poor and their likelihood of achieving significant change. A clear implementation strategy is needed for each topic with benchmarks and opportunities for reflection and learning. 9a Concern should change its exit strategy into a sustainability strategy, retaining a long-term programme commitment to a particular area and to the community organisations within it, beyond the lifetime of a specific project. This requires a new vision for project participants, with SHGs and CBOs treated as long-term agents of change. 9b SHG members should be offered Reflect type literacy. 9c the internal savings and loan system of SHGs should be modified to enable greater flexibility over time, including allowing new savers to join. Several different models could be tried, with Concern building expertise in what is appropriate in different circumstances. 9d after an initial top-down phase, support to SHGs and CBOs should become increasingly bottomup and responsive to their different needs and priorities. As experience grows, there will be more opportunity for SHGs to support and learn from each other. External support may become more specialised but less intensive and regular. 9e elected women will need training and support to be effective councillors. Systems can be developed for CBOs to provide ongoing support, while encouraging accountability back to their core constituency. Similar support is necessary for those chosen to be on the various standing committees. 9f Concern should plan its engagement with fishing groups beyond the winning of the lease, to include the financing of the payments, marketing of the fish and the sustainable management of the water body. There is significant opportunity for learning between different fishing groups. An apex body for fishing groups, possibly also channelling loan funding, would probably be appropriate. 5 P a g e

9g the opportunity to build the capacity of local (Haor based) NGOs, which have a long-term commitment to the Haor area, should be an objective of projects like HISAL and ESEP. 10.2a the interests of the overwhelming number of participant women involved in the SHG savings and loans should be paramount. The SHG internal savings and loan schemes should be supported to continue and evolve, and not sacrificed for PKSF/Padakhep/CBO interests. 10.2b - SHGs should not be pressurised to close their bank accounts and transfer their money to the CBOs; if they do so, it should be with all the members informed consent and with independent advice. 10.2c urgent transparent decisions are needed on the desired outcome from the PKSF/Padakhep/CBOs loan scheme, including analysis of break-even rates and appropriate amounts of debt for participants. Clear written steps are needed, including guarantees for maintaining the wider social and empowerment outcomes of HISAL. 10.2d - Concern should reflect how it allowed HISAL to get into a critical situation with its micro-finance operation in the final month of the project, with potential damage to the institutions of the extreme poor and the empowerment achievements of the project. 10.3a the option for households to take seasonal and enterprise specific loans should be looked into. 10.3b the total HH exposure to debt and ability to repay should be considered in loan approval. The discriminatory rule of not allowing a CBO loan if there is a current SHG loan should be ended. 10.3c micro-finance is broader than loans. Savings should always be considered as a priority. Other services like micro-insurance may be viable. Concern can learn from the experience of cooperative credit unions 11a future projects should include an analysis of what is understood by gender empowerment in the local context and develop indicators that give value to and measure the change. 11b the concept of women needing male guardians to represent them and to sign loan forms on their behalf should not be reinforced by the project. 12a The logframe is a management tool which should be used explicitly to track results and outcomes, not just activities. 12b a smaller number of clearly defined SMART indicators are required. The baseline values should be clearly identified in the baseline survey, tracked during the implementation of the project for management purposes and explicitly measured at the endline. 12c quantitative survey questionnaires should not be too long. Questions relating to key indicators need to be identical in the baseline and endline. Other questions can be different focusing on different key information needs at the start and the end of a project. It may be appropriate to consult the final evaluator on the questions used for the endline survey. 12d commissioned reports should be formally signed-off by an appropriate staff member confirming it meets the TOR and is of the required quality. 12e final versions of project and context reports and information should be stored on the communal hard drive. 6 P a g e