End of term project evaluation

Background

Women Against AIDS project (WAA) is implemented by Pentecostal Churches of Uganda (PCU) in partnership with PYM Norway and Digni. PCU is a faith based organisation in Uganda that also belongs to the worldwide Pentecostal movement.

WAA started in 2002 with the aim of addressing issues of HIV and AIDs among women and children in 9 local communities in selected districts of the Eastern part of Uganda namely; Mbale, Busia, Butaleja, Pallisa, Bugiri, Manafwa, Malaba and Tororo.

The main target group of the project is children between the ages of 8-14 years, both school going and non school going children who are reached through their caregivers, teachers and other local leaders.

WAA works through groups of volunteer Community Resource Persons (CRPs: 25 women+5 men) to reach the communities and children most WAA activities revolve around CRPs capacity building.

The work of WAA has been implemented through 3 year phases with the most recent one being 2014-2016. HCD/SALT and HRBA approaches have been adopted as a way of enabling sustainability of its work beyond external funding, but also to enable the communities take ownership of their development processes.

However in the course of implementing this last phase, the need for an exit strategy emerged, it was also felt that an evaluation of the phase be done to enable surfacing of key issues that the project may need to strengthen or do differently as it winds down.

Purpose/objective

WAA opted for an ‘early’ end of project evaluation in 2015 whose overall aim was to assess the project’s impact on the target groups, communities and PCU as an institution; the extent to which it achieved its intended objectives and any unforeseen results both for the direct and indirect beneficiaries, the efficiency and effectiveness of the project design and delivery in relation to achieved results, the implications of these on the projects’ sustainability beyond external funding and give recommendations on the way forward for the future of WAA.

Methodology

The evaluation was done through extensive literature review of project related documents. Field activities involved discussions with PCU National Executive Committee (NEC), Project Steering Committee (PSC), WAA staff and project advisor, local leaders, government and partner institutional representatives in the project areas, focus group discussions and participatory exercises with selected stakeholders including CRPs, children, teachers and pastors. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected.

Key findings

1. The various capacity building processes enabled the CRPs to develop competence and confidence in supporting communities to address and manage issues that expose them, (especially women and children), to risks of acquiring HIV and the resulting vulnerability. The CRPs are therefore an asset for local community (and PCU at the local level) HIV and AIDS interventions that can be relied on in a sustainable way.
2. CRPs’ networking and partnerships with strategic and relevant organizations enabled spread and impact of WAA’s work in the communities, added value for the project beneficiaries and increased local capacity to address issues of HIV and AIDS in the communities. 
3. Group IGAs, including SACCOs (for the groups that have them), facilitated group cohesion, enabled holding of consistent meetings in which project objectives were integrated. They also changed livelihoods of families, and enabled children to stay in school and thus protected them from risk to HIV infection and vulnerability to its effects. However some groups didnt have them at the time of the evaluation.
4. The HCD/SALT approach showed its potential to enable the groups have confidence in themselves, the capacity to identify their challenges, inspire creativity, and increase commitment to address the challenges in a sustainable way. 
5. Reaching the children through kids clubs has proved to be a successful and strategic way of contributing to efforts of preventing risk behaviour that predisposes children to HIV infection. 
   5b. Schools have played a key role in enabling the capacity building activities for children to take place. The methodology of bringing in new members from primary 3 when the ones of primary 7 have left, maintains a steady group of well equipped children in the schools and community. 
6. Introducing the sustainability planning workshops was a strategic process that has enabled groups to begin to come to acceptance about WAA phasing out. 
7. Lack of an overall project M and E framework, and systematic learning and documentation processes has limited the project’s opportunities to effectively monitor and document progress on the objectives, share experiences and facilitate knowledge creation. 
8. Introducing the groups to key project aspects and leaving the implementation to them without consistent, substantial follow-up support around the issues has affected the extent to which groups have taken on the activities as well as influenced the capacity for sustainability of these initiatives. This is especially for interventions like networking, identifying IGAs, and training group leaders with the hope that they will pass on the information to their group members. 
9. All project staff implementing one field activity at a time limited opportunities for efficient and effective coverage of the project areas, and for staff to sharpen their skills further as well as denied those being mentored from having practical experience of facilitating training processes. 

Recommendations

1. To consolidate the capacity of CRPs in addressing HIV and AIDS issues, by supporting the groups identify their key capacity gaps with regard to knowledge, facilitation methodologies, strengthening kids clubs and provide appropriate training. And give the national SALT team a deeper hands on experience with the aim of enabling them have both the theoretical and practical skills to provide ongoing support to the groups.
2. Build on the already existing potential of networking to enable wider outreach and added value for communities in addressing issues of HIV and AIDS with regard to women and children by; supporting the groups through a process of assessing the status and quality of their current networking efforts including relationships with schools and pastors (of churches that are involved) identifying the gaps and addressing them. 
   2b. WAA national office will also need to identify strategic institutions to partner with at the national level for learning, and sharing experiences.
3. Considering the role of IGAs/SACCOs in facilitating group cohesion and their potential to address one of the project objectives in a sustainable way, WAA needs to strengthen its support to enable each group integrate an IGA or VSLA in its activities.
4. WAA needs to strengthen its monitoring, and learning by instituting processes and systems that will enable systematic and regular reflective learning and documentation of the entire project’s progress and experiences. The existing data collection tool will need to be reviewed in a participatory way so that the groups can feel a sense of ownership to it. 
5. Need to revisit the current practice of implementing field work as one group, to working in smaller teams so that the process can be more effective and efficient. It will also give opportunity to the SALT team members who are being mentored to play a more active role in facilitating.
6. Considering the strategic purpose of the sustainability workshops, WAA should revisit current strategy of reaching leaders so that they will reach their groups and re-design the methodology.