An assessment of Response Network

Background:
The aim of Response Network is to provide information and encouragement for sustainable self-help education projects of local community priority. Response Network aim to empower local communities to initiate self-help education activities, which are planned and implemented by the local people. Response Network believes that sustainable development must mobilize peoples own human and environmental resources, and therefore they offer facilitation for self-help projects.

Through  community meetings Response Network provides encouragement and information concerning self-help education activities to satisfy the needs.  The community is also informed about their rights and where to go to ask for advice and support towards their self-help activities after forming a board and recruiting volunteer instructors.  RN volunteers, in the position of Area-coordinators, follow up and visit each village. They provide motivation, factual information and encouragement to the community leaders during the process of establishing the self-help education activities.

RN distributes  relevant self-help resources manuals, in English or ChiTonga, covering  the areas of community school,  community sports club,  community literacy class, community skills training, women’s group, organic vegetable growing, community HIV/Aids support group, community health and nutrition club, know your rights club, community alcohol awareness and support group, Mental Health Club, Community Participation (Governance) Club and community support group for children with special needs.

Purpose/ Objective:
The evaluations was to endeavoured to find out:
1. What contributed to or restrained the establishment of self-help  education activities in the RN targeted villages? 
2. Is the RN method and implementation practice sustainable?
3. Did individuals and the communities benefit from the RN self-help education facilitation project?
4. What was the community and individual benefit after the education phase of the community education initiatives ended? Did the community  co-operation end there, or did an entrepreneurship or “co-operative”    phase follow?
5. What were the major challenges the communities experienced when  initiating and running the self help activities?
6. What role did the community self- help resources manuals play in the RN self help facilitation strategy in the villages?
7. What role did the RN encouragement and information approach in the targeted villages play to achieve the UN millennium goals on a micro perspective?
8. Did the RN community self- help approach in the targeted communities contribute to achieve the Norwegian Parliament’s overall development goal of “reaching the poor”?
9. The evaluation team should recommend improvements to the RN method  and implementation practice.

Methodology:
The two consultants spent one week each in the field, visiting six communities, participating in one village meeting/
sensitisation each and conducted interviews with district authorities and chiefs.

Key Findings:
The evaluation revealed that RN is an organisation that puts visions into practice, really making an attempt at reaching the poorest of the poor in the rural areas of Zambia’s Southern province.  It is a small organisation with what seems to be a relatively cost-efficient modus operandi, and a good understanding of the ways and means of rural life in Zambia. The evaluation further found that RN clearly reaches the poor, in a way that most Norwegian organizations rarely do.  RN actually puts their vision into practical activities in the rural communities in Kalomo and Kazangulu districts.  The evaluation verified that RN beneficiaries are the poor, in remote rural villages, that lack access to markets and basic social services such as schools and health clinics. It further revealed that approximately 70% of the activities/ groups started due to RN facilitation and were still operational two-three years later  and that RN creates real and committed ownership at community level.  The evaluation team found the manuals in Kalomo Community Development offices, and RN was well known and recognized by district authorities interviewed.

Recommendations:
Questions have been raised about the quality of the community schools because many do not have qualified teachers and some have not been registered with the District Education Board.  Nevertheless, their provision is part of a larger process of expanding educational opportunities in Kalomo District and it is envisioned that ultimately the schools will be upgraded.  The Ministry of Education includes community schools when reporting on progress in meeting the MDGs for education. The District Education Board of Kalomo district was positive towards RN and its program, and are doing their very best to register community schools established through RN activities.  They would, however, like to see RN facilitating a slightly better (mainly larger) blueprint for the community schools, and this has been taking into consideration by RN in their latest schools projects.

Follow up:
RN should initiate cooperation with other development actors and district authorities where sharing of data would be the main focus.  RN has such an outreach that they could easily gather huge amounts of information that would not only act as verification for their own work but that could also be used as basis for more informed public planning and planning of other developmental interventions. RN is already doing a lot of work on facilitation and networking, but this is such an essential part of the sustained positive impact of its work that it needs to be strengthened even more in the future.