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Reflections on transferring to the international evaluation space

December 3, 2019/in Blog / Latest News /by Kaisha Crupi

Kaisha Crupi is a consultant at Clear Horizon and has recently made the move from the domestic Sustainable Futures team into Clear Horizon International. Below is a reflection piece from Kaisha, discussing her learnings and observations in her new role.

Before joining Clear Horizon 18 months ago, I had only a small taste of the international working world. However, since I made the full transition into ‘Clear Horizon International’, affectionately known as CHI (pronounced chai), I feel as if I have jumped into the deep end with each team member supporting me to learn how to swim, and to swim fast. I also feel that the rest of the organisation is on the sideline cheering me on. Below are my reflections and learnings from the last few months of being part of the CHI team.

Working in the international space is tricky

When I was in the domestic team I was exposed to many different industries, types of work and ways of working and met so many people who are passionate about their work through workshops, interviews and product development. Now starting to work in the international space, I am learning about things outside my home country, and in countries that I am working in (and not necessarily living in). Trying to understand different cultural customs, to work around language barriers, across different time zones and to understand different political systems and social contexts is proving to be quite tricky. I am learning a lot more, am asking a lot of questions and reading wider than my easily accessible news. I am also being kind to myself – I know that I am not expected to know everything and am not putting pressure on myself to do so, especially in a short amount of time!

The work is the same, but different

When I first joined the CHI team, I thought this would be great to learn a whole new skill set and challenge myself even further by learning something different and working in a different way. To my surprise, my first task when I joined the team was to conduct a document review against the monitoring and key evaluation questions for an upcoming workshop, which is something that I had finished doing for a domestic project a week earlier to feed into a report! The questions were similar and the way to go about it was the same. The only thing (which was quite a big thing, mind) was that the language and jargon was different, and instead of talking about an area or region, the project was focusing on a whole country! My biggest challenge in joining the team so far is getting used to all the acronyms in reports and discussions with my peers and our clients. I am slowly getting there; though someone should quiz me in the early stages of next year.

Understanding complex challenges

By going to a destination for an international holiday versus going for work, you learn about a country in a very different way. There is the saying that you should not discuss politics when you are in polite company – this is very different in the international working space, particularly when working in design, monitoring and evaluation. You learn about a country’s context on a more granular level, ask the difficult political questions and try to understand the country as much as you can, as fast as you can, especially whilst in-country. I have been exposed to the complex ways of working, what the client deals with and small spot fires they must put out on a day-to-day basis (which are quite different than in the domestic space). These issues also do not have quick-fix solutions. There is at time a feeling of helplessness – now that you know about this information, what are you going to do with it? I believe that doing design, monitoring and evaluation work helps with this, as knowledge is power and can be a communication tool to change someone’s life for the better.

I feel very fortunate to have landed where I am today. Not many people can say that they have ended up with their dream job, especially in such a great values-driven organisation in a very niche area. I have a great team of people supporting me and putting up with my insurmountable amount of questions and reflections, whilst also looking back fondly at my time in the domestic team, where I was able to build my strong foundational knowledge and be supported in every direction. I am looking forward to continuing to swim out toward the horizon and reflecting on the successes and challenges that are happening in such a complex world.

Human Development Monitoring and Evaluation Services contract for 2019-2023

July 30, 2019/in Blog / Latest News /by Damien Sweeney

Clear Horizon in partnership with Adam Smith International has been awarded by the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade the Papua New Guinea – Human Development Monitoring and Evaluation Services contract for 2019-2023. We are really excited to be working with the HDMES team to be based in Port Moresby, along with ASI, DFAT, the Government of Papua New Guinea, and the partners across the health and education sectors.

Health and education are central to PNG’s sustainable development. The health system struggles to meet the needs of it growing population, while the country’s education system lacks sufficient funding, well trained teachers and administrators, and the planning and management necessary to effectively utilise its limited resources. Australia, as the largest donor to PNG, aims to make a positive contribution to the health and education systems. Between 2015 and 2018, $264.4m was specifically allocated to education and $276.9m to health investments. In health, this focuses on workforce planning, communicable diseases, family planning, sexual and reproductive health, and maternal and child health. While, in education, Australia’s objective is to support teachers to improve the quality of teaching and learning, improve primary school infrastructure, and reduce the barriers that prevent children attending and staying at school for a quality education.

Through HDMES, Adam Smith International in collaboration with Clear Horizon will provide external, independent M&E Services to DFAT and GoPNG regarding health and education investments at the program and portfolio levels. Support will include developing portfolio level strategies, performance assessment frameworks and annual reports; advising on baselines and M&E frameworks for programs; quality assuring design, monitoring and evaluation deliverables; and conducting independent evaluations of DFAT investments.

DFAT Evaluation of Investment Monitoring Systems

January 23, 2019/in Blog / Latest News /by Kaylie Burrows

At Clear Horizon, we have been grappling with how to effectively – and efficiently – improve the monitoring, evaluation and learning of programmes. Over the many years of experience, and across the range of programmes and partners we work with, one thing remains abundantly clear: the quality of the monitoring is the cornerstone for effective evaluation, learning and programme effectiveness. In the international development sector, which has some quite large investments that operate in extremely complex environments, monitoring remains even more important.

At the end of 2017, Byron’s new year’s resolution for 2018 was to “dial M for monitoring”, and to put even more emphasis on improved monitoring systems. Having conducted stocktakes of MEL systems across a range of aid portfolios, and being involved in implementing or quality assuring over 60 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade aid investments, really clear messages about what works and what doesn’t have emerged. This culminated in the presentations at the 2018 Australian Aid Conference and 2018 Australian Evaluation Conference, where Byron and Damien presented on how to improve learning and adaptation in complex programmes by using rigorous evidence generated from the monitoring and evaluation systems.

So we at Clear Horizon welcome the findings and recommendations in DFAT’s Office of Development Effectiveness Evaluation of DFAT Investment Monitoring Systems 2018. Firstly, we welcome the emphasis on improved monitoring systems for investments – it is essential to improving aid effectiveness. Secondly, we strongly agree that higher quality MEL systems are outcome focused, have strong quality assurance of data and evidence, and where the data services multiple purposes (i.e. accountability, improvement, knowledge generation). Thirdly, that partners and stakeholders that have a culture of performance oversight and improvement are essential – this needs to continue to be fostered both internally and externally.

To achieve this, as recommended, it is essential that technical advice and support is provided to programme teams, investment managers, and decision makers. This need not be resource intensive, and must be able to demonstrate its own value for money. However, what is extremely important in this recommendation is that the advice is coherent, consistent and context specific. Too often we see a dependency on the programme team providing a singular generalist M&E person required to provide a gamut of advice – covering a range of monitoring approaches, evaluation approaches, different sectors, and sometimes even different countries. Good independent advice often requires a range of people providing input on different aspects of monitoring, evaluation and learning – a reason at Clear Horizon why we have a panel of MEL specialists, with some focusing on evaluation capacity building, others on conducting independent evaluations, or those building MEL systems.

Standardising expectations and advice across aid portfolios of what constitutes good monitoring, evaluation and learning that is fit for purpose is essential for all of us. We have been fortunate enough to be involved with developing different models of providing third party embedded design, monitoring and evaluation advice. The ‘Quality and Improvement System Support’ approach provides consistent technical advice across entire aid portfolios, such as what has been developed for Indonesia; ‘Monitoring and Evaluation House’ in Timor Leste in partnership with GHD is based on a neutral broker approach to improving the use of evidence in programme performance; and the ‘Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Advisory Role’ in Myanmar places a stronger emphasis on supporting programme teams through technical and management support.

This report echoes our belief that more monitoring and evaluation is not necessarily the answer, but rather collaborating to do it better and breeding a culture of performance is ultimately what we are striving for.

Posts

Reflections on transferring to the international evaluation space

Kaisha Crupi is a consultant at Clear Horizon and has recently made the move from the domestic Sustainable Futures team into Clear Horizon International. Below is a reflection piece from Kaisha, discussing her learnings and observations in her new role.

Working in the international space is tricky

The work is the same, but different

Understanding complex challenges

Human Development Monitoring and Evaluation Services contract for 2019-2023

DFAT Evaluation of Investment Monitoring Systems

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