The evaluation of the Badilika project

Background:

The Badilika project stemmed from the realization that violence against women needs to be addressed with curative and preventive measures simultaneously. Badilika was created as a programme aimed at preventing violence against women by promoting greater empowerment and accountability within households and change in mentalities. Badilika was a pilot project that took place between January 2013 and July 2014 with funding from Swedish Postkod of about USD$300 000. Badilika describes itself as an advocacy project, although up until now, it remains mostly an awareness raising project, targeting communities in three different provinces of eastern DRC (North and South Kivu and Maniema) about women’s empowerment and protection, prevention of sexual and sexist violence through discussing household-level governance and citizenry. In that sense, Badilika, which translates from Kiswahili as “mentality change”, aims to generate a behavioural change at the household and potentially community level in the relationship between men and women, and households and governance institutions.

Purpose/ Objective:

The evaluation of the Badilika project, which took place in December 2015, had two objectives: 1) Assess the quality and effects of the Badilika project whilst using a qualitative evaluative approach based on the analysis of the project against OECD-DAC criteria and 2) Assess the potential for a partnership between the Badilika project and Norwegian Church Aid on matters of advocacy, particularly with regards to gender protection and peacebuilding.

Methodology:

The evaluation was conducted in December 2015 for 31 days by Olivia Lazard, Director of Peace in Design Consulting Ltd. The consultant spent 18 days in the DRC where she conducted 10 interviews and 9 focus groups between North (Goma) and South Kivu (Bukavu, Minova, Bagira, Walungu, Kabare).

The methodology was exclusively qualitative and characterized by a participatory approach, including members of the Panzi team and project beneficiaries. The consultant used an evaluation matrix which predetermined certain information to be collected and triangulate the interviews and focus groups, based on the OECD-DAC criteria. However, the matrix served partially structured interviews, also leaving room for anecdotal information in order to identify possible areas of impact, whether negative or positive.

The interviews were often held in Kiswahili, and the consultant worked through a translator. Roger Buhendwa (responsible Badilika program) has generously supported the consultant in discussions with beneficiaries for this task, which the consultant believes did not impact the neutrality and impartiality of the discussions.

Unfortunately, the methodology on the ground partially lacked consistency in the layout and logic interviews and focus groups. Indeed, in each intervention locality, the consultant often met the Badilika Action partner. It was then expected to meet the "target beneficiaries", but often there were duplicates among the participants of the first panel discussion and participants of the second.

The choice of regions visited during the assessment was made on several criteria: accessibility in the allotted time; sample as large as possible in the allotted time; focus on areas where Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) also works; sampling between urban and rural areas.

Key Findings:

Relevance: Due to its Congolese identity, Badilika can credibly tackle the issue of S/GBV in a culturally sensitive manner; Coherence: Badilika does not have a solid sensitization/advocacy strategy to rely upon – it provides its partner organizations with a lot of autonomy, some of which have obvious technical and organizational shortcomings. The autonomy was meant to make Badilika flexible and adaptable to each localized context; Effectiveness: Badilika failed to produce essential project cycle management tools such as a workable logframe, backed up with an M&E system. The evaluator had some trouble identifying against what indicators Badilika should evaluate the level of “mentality change” as a result; Efficiency: The choices made during the pilot phase have resulted in methodological weaknesses, variable results that are highly dependent on partner quality rather than a fully-identified Badilika approach, and staff over-extension. Ambitions, means and organizational capacity have been mismatched within the Badilika project, and remain so until today; Effects: Effects are unclear, and it has proved difficult in most circumstances to attribute them directly to Badilika. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that Badilika has some effects regarding women’s rights of inheritance, female education, domestic violence, and family planning.

Recommendations:

To Badilika:

• Reduce geographical scope to South Kivu, and focus on methodological improvements whose lessons can then be replicated and scaled up to other regions.
• Establish a clear, visible and solid programmatic strategy for the next 5 years.
• A third Badilika’s overall budget in any given year will need to be allocated to the establishment and maintenance of a solid M&E system.
• Badilika should strengthening its approach towards awareness raising first, giving clear guidance to its partners whilst remaining relevant to each localized context of intervention.
• On advocacy: Define solid and credible strategy based on partnerships and previous actor and activity mappings in the advocacy sector in eastern DRC.
• On HR: it is crucial to recruit an expert in advocacy and gender empowerment, possibly as part of a partnership with NCA.

To NCA:

The consultant recommends establishing a partnership between NCA and Badilika, as long as Badilika is capacitated with greater organizational, programmatic and HR structure. If NCA decides to go ahead with the partnership, it must do so following two simultaneous strands of reflexion/action:

1. How to support Badilika’s organizational and programmatic professionalization;
2. How to create a synergic partnership on gender and advocacy between NCA and Badilika.