Comments for Evaluating Katine

Comment on “The Worst Question to Ask About Charity” by rickjdavies

rickjdavies — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:55:16 +0000

Hi Lydia
The software used for this network diagram is Visualyzer. See my comments on it here http://mande.co.uk/2008/topic-bibliographies/networksanalysisandevaluation/visualyzer-software-for-visualising-and-analysing-networks/
The software is expensive, but I have used it for some years now, and think it is amongst the best, especially for developing network diagrams on the screen (versus from imported data, which it can also do)
I would be happy to talk about aid supply chains (before Xmas, or from mid-March)

Comment on “The Worst Question to Ask About Charity” by Lydia

Lydia — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:21:44 +0000

What software did you use for the network diagram posted? I love it!

We are looking at supply chains (value added of different mechanisms including pros and cons, costs and benefits) of DFID funding to Civil Society so maybe good to discuss this more at some point.

Best wishes

Lydia

Comment on Reviewing Katine: What’s happening with governance? by rickjdavies

rickjdavies — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:53:41 +0000

(Please excuse this late response)
The NTR was carried out by Hazel Slavin, an external consultant contracted by AMREF. The ToRs did not include a requirement to analyse the project in the light of wider sets of aid activities on the national level. But they did ask for attention to coordination issues with other aid activities within the Soroti district. The ToRs can be found in the annexes to the MTR, published on the Guardian website, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine/2009/sep/03/mid-term-review-annexes

Comment on Reviewing Katine: What’s happening with governance? by Stephen Shaw

Stephen Shaw — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:56:25 +0000

Rick

I realise that this posting is a couple of months old but something that interests me as a good possibility with the Katine project and the Guardian’s participation is the option to provide a considerable depths of information and comment. You raise the question here of whether AMREF are taking a rights based approach. But whether they are or not it would be good to see some connections made between the Katine project and its own objectives and the wider aid programme in Uganda in which DFID is a major partner. As many of the Guardian’s readers will be based in the UK it will be interesting for us to see what links there are from the centralised DFID aid agreements with the Uganda government and the resources that go into ministries such as Health and Education and how much of that gets down to the people of Katine. The Guardian’s Katine project is very small by development standards. It probably has too many, too ambitious objectives. But it is not the only source of development aid. Can your evaluation put the Katine project into the bigger aid picture?

Comment on Opening up the Mid-Term Review process by rickjdavies

rickjdavies — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 06:03:47 +0000

Please read Martyn Roebuck’s informative comment on the education goals of the Katine project here http://evaluatingkatine.wordpress.com/about/#comment-81

Comment on Welcome by Martyn Roebuck

Martyn Roebuck — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:32:54 +0000

Eliza Anyangwe made some very pertinent points in her article in March, particularly on sustainability. In my recent reading of Madelaine Bunting’s comments, particularly on education, and the earlier article by Anushka Asthana, I am struck by the lack of reference to the national and local contexts in which education takes place or tries to take place in Uganda.
Where are the references to Government priorities, and to working with the Districts and its development plans, with the introduction of the Thematic Curriculum into primary schools, and working with the school communities?
In April 2008 the Netherlands Government published an impact evaluation of Primary Education in Uganda. (http://www.minbuza.nl/binaries/en-pdf/iob-evaluatie/rapporten/41808_iob_uganda_compleet.pdf) . This report was used by the Ministry in Uganda (MoES) between 2007 and 2008 in planning a series of interventions across five years, in 12 of the poorest districts including Soroti (Quality Education Initiative), which is now underway (2009). It is attempting to address adverse effects of pursuing UPE. Furthermore the Impact Report highlighted (whole of chapter 6) the effect of the close working relationship between an NGO (Link Community Development), the District of Masindi, the schools, the Ministry, the national inspectorate (ESA now DES), the county and sub-county stakeholders, and the school communities, on the management of schools and educational processes, over time (since 2000). This systemic collaborative approach, focussing on the effective management of schools, has raised the educational performance in Masindi, by 2005, from being one of the very poorest in Uganda to being in the top 10%.
Sustainability needs a systemic approach, to build upon what already exists, to support local development, and to promote change as collaborative ventures, These have to be tailored to the budget and other capabilities of the community, county, district, and central government; but moving the bar gradually higher.

Postscript (27th June 2009): Martyn says “The report was published by the Dutch Government IOB in April 2008, but a confidential draft was made available to the Ministry of Education and Sports (and other key stakeholders) from May 2007, and you will note that in the last paragraph on page 2 there is a reference to a stakeholder conference in Uganda in September (2007) “to validate the findings of the study”. That conference preceded and fed into the October 2007 (annual) MoES Sector Review proceedings, at which, not surprisingly, there was a particular Ministerial focus on quality, which led to the setting up of the QEI interventions programme to which I refer.”

Comment on August 2008 Visit Report by the external evaluator by rick davies

rick davies — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:36:53 +0000

Re paragraph 6 above, please read “Amref urged to cut back on training in Katine” article on the Guardian Katine website, posted on Thursday 5th March, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine/2009/mar/05/ochola-amref-criticism

Comment on Evaluating the Guardian’s role in the Katine project by Bookmarks about Guardian

Bookmarks about Guardian — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:30:12 +0000

[...] – bookmarked by 3 members originally found by qaswa on 2008-12-03 Evaluating the Guardian’s role in the Katine project [...]

Comment on How well is the KCPP doing? Compared to what? by Learning from other projects? « Evaluating Katine

Learning from other projects? « Evaluating Katine — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:02:45 +0000

[...] This post also builds on the argument in a recent posting: How well is the KCPP doing? Compared to what? [...]

Comment on Appropriate goals? by Katine, one year on « ICTs for Development

Katine, one year on « ICTs for Development — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:15:16 +0000

[...] the extended form of his blog to debate a number of interesting development issues, such as project aims and goals, openness of implementers and the jargon of [...]