Evaluation of the Andulia Community Health Development Project, External Evaluation Report

Background:
On 1989, The Salvation Army Bangladesh responded to need of the poor people of the Ragunathpur union of
Dumuria upazila, Khulna district where they had water logging of the adjacent low land areas. During that period for a long time this areas crop production had gone down and the infrastructure was very bad. Many people due to the crop loss had become poor and due to the scarcity of farm work day laborers became ultra poor. People did not have access to proper education and medical facilities and the community was economically going down. At that moment The Salvation Army put in an emergency
effort and made the medical and primary education services available to the poor community by launching the Andulia
Community Health Development project at Ragunathpur union. Over time according to the need of the community this project as changed its way of operation and also the activities. This phase of the project was started on 2005 and will be phased out in Dec ’09, completing its 5 years of implementation. This is the fourth external evaluation of the project. It became a need to look back at achievements and lessons learned in order to get future direction to create more impact in the intervention in community. This evaluation will assess the implementation process, status, effectiveness, impact, relevance and sustainability of the Andulia Community Health Development Project and make recommendations for further improvements for continuing work.

Purpose/objective:
• Evaluate project performance as regards to preparation and implementation of plans, follow-up on achievements of
targets and objectives (impact)
• Identify Project Strengths and Best Practices
• Make recommendations on possible improvements in project design and organisation and on modifications to targets, objectives and plans for future implementation
• Make recommendations as to whether the project should be discontinued, consolidated, prolonged or expanded
• Assess the future sustainablity of the different activities supported by the project after the phasing out of external
financial support.

Methodology:
A range of qualitative tools and techniques were used in order to collect more in-depth and insightful data.
• Document Review
Data Collection ,Walking Transects, Focus Group Discussion (FGD) on; Village level and Union Level, Key Informant Interview (KII), Observation
• Data Analysis
• Report Preparation

Key findings:
• Saving groups: So far project has formed 50 primary savings group. Ten for male farmers and forty women’s savings groups which are still functioning. Over ten years apart from working as a savings oriented credit group, primary savings groups do not learn other things and not really become empowered and capable to solve their own problems in the community. At the level of primary group there is no spill over effect of the trainings. Not only that those groups are fully depended on the project for managing the credit and all records. FIVDB adult literacy program were implanted among the group members, but still apart from writing their name over majority of women who received the training are not able to write and read. 
• Community Support groups: CHDP in all six villages has formed six mixed (Male, Female, Social worker, community
social volunteer etc.) Community support groups. CSG’s are holding regular monthly meeting and six executive committees are formed through electoral process. Following the participatory method with the help of project staff CSGs developed the draft constitution, which been approved by general members in majority CSGs in their annual general meetings. CSG have started saving money for them and formed a kallan shomity (welfare fund). All the CSGs have their own bank account and they are operating their own account. CSG have started providing loan from their own savings and also helping poor group members during their crisis. Training provided to the CSGs was not very effective. So far project do not tried to build any network between CSG and the local government institutions.
• Adolescent group: The adolescent group members are aware about, trafficking, human rights, HIV/AIDs and taking
care of adolescent reproductive health and sanitation. But they are not aware about child rights issues and the issue of child sexual abuse and child protection. These very stimulating and potential groups have not been given any lesson on moral and ethics and on their future role and responsibilities towards the community where they live in.
• Adult literacy: Over majority of group members are illiterate. Many saving groups involving community people from
different status are taking part in the adult literacy course. Illiterate group members completed the 8 months course facilitated by adult literacy community teachers. 100% group members can only sign their name and only 40% can read and can do simple calculation after receiving adult literacy training
• Child education: In Andulia project area there are three primary schools run by this project and the services of these schools are very good. These schools were free of cost for a longtime, but for the survival of the school project has started taking a small amount (Tk.10-Tk.25) of money as fees from the students. This amount has been gradually increased. School teachers are part of the main program as education is one of the key components of the project, but by the project management teachers are treated as paid employ only and not been involve in the process of decision making even regarding their own issues. The Salvation Army authority well informed the project manager about the future plan of phasing out these schools, but the project management did not take it seriously and did not try to figure out the education need of the community.
• Health care: In the primary health care program project is working jointly with govt. particularly they are helping the govt. health sector to implement the national events on EPI and family planning in their working areas. Group members are aware of benefits of hygienic environment, use of tube-well, pure water and sanitary toilets (slab latrine).  Villager people are aware of maternal health care and know how to take care during pregnancy. They are aware of nutrition and childcare. Project is running a clinic service where they have qualified staff and villagers are very happy with their service. This year like other program component clinic also increased their charge without holding a consultation with the people of their catchments areas. Even health sector staff didn’t take part in the decision of increasing the charge. Within the last two years the project has closed down their pathology and maternity services, due to lack of govt. registration for such services. These services have
big demand in the community and project management, without taking any initiative for registration had closed the units. Cost recovery from the clinic is satisfactory. They are able to run their clinic service cost from the service charges and project needs to pay the salary of the clinic staff only.

Recommendations:
The Evaluators strongly recommend that CHDP should redesign their activities focusing on Infant and
Maternal Health, Education, Children’s rights and Justice by considering poverty reduction and gender as crosscutting issues in the whole project. Also in the next phase CHDP needs to work with a clear guideline on role and responsibilities of the primary groups (women savings groups and adolescent groups) and CSG and the strategic plan to build the legal relation between primary groups, CSGs and local government bodies in the working area.

Comments from the organisation, if any:
The recommendations have been taken in to consideration when working with the re- design of a new project proposal for the continuation of the work in Bangladesh.