Mid-Term Evaluation Report of the Master Plan; Empowering people

1. Project Description and Background to Evaluation:
Strømme Foundation’s vision is to see people living in freedom of poverty. SF is committed to empower people to overcome root causes of poverty. It implements programme through local partners. The main aspect of SF Asia’s development approach is building the partner capacity in facilitating empowerment of the Poor- to establish a strong civil society mechanism to upgrade the living standards of the marginalized, vulnerable and poor people.
The MP of SF Bangladesh program has been developed in collaboration with local partners and based on the experience and the lessons learned in the past focusing on the following intervention lines to include- Empowerment community for democratization, Provide holistic pro-poor financial and non financial services, Strengthen formal and non-formal education (including dropouts), Empower Adolescents on their rights. The Program is governed by an extensive Logical Framework Analysis (LFA) with several indicators to assess changes in the lives of the target people. By end of 2013, about 180,000 households of Bangladesh are satisfying their livelihood needs in a sustainable manner.

2. Purpose/objective:
The overall purpose of this evaluation is mainly learning and improvement. SF Bangladesh anticipates that outcomes of this mid-term evaluation will provide relevant information to the ongoing scope of work of the partners; explore why the interventions implemented by the program succeeded or not; and provide guidance for subsequent implementation of the program during the next two years.  The evaluation will also assess whether or not the programme plans were fulfilled and resources were used in a responsible way.
 
3. Methodology:
The Evaluator reviewed secondary data through desk work at SFDO and partner field offices. A total of following 4,537 participants attended in the MTE process at various levels and made their contributions:
o A Household Survey of 3,705 Beneficiaries conducted;
o 34 participatory FGDs attended in different working areas by the beneficiaries of various categories and community leaders for non-beneficiary views;
o 10 FGDs and 2 workshops for 237 program personnel of local partner-NGOs for sharing learning and experiences;
o 3 discussions sessions with 16 Govt. Officials of district and sub-district levels;
o A pre-evaluation briefing/planning session and a final presentation of field finding to SFDO team 

4. Key findings:
Overall achievements of targets of 2009-2011 are impressive, 80% and more for Micro Finance and Peoples Organizations and hopefully other objectives’ achievements will fulfill their targets in the remaining 2012-2013 period. However, the integration of all 4 components in one family found essential for creating synergy effects of interventions. A single component creates some changes, but not significant.

In addition, the beneficiaries also expressed their needs of some other important requirements like- i) primary healthcare education for the poor and marginalized households and ii) support for addressing Disaster Risks Reduction (DRR) through preparedness and Climate Change adaption efforts to be address appropriately as some parts of the country are continually vulnerable viz. the Coastal-Belt, the Haor-Region and the socio-economic vulnerability of Adivasis and minority communities require special care and attention. Thus, selections of beneficiaries and working areas were very appropriate and deserving.

5. Recommendations:
o Continue the MP as per plan and consider the period of 2012-2013 as the “Period for Preparation of the Next Phase”; so that the Next phase can be started well-planned and well-prepared to appropriately address Specific 5 Recommendations for Integrated Family Development (Aalokita Paribar Gothan) in achieving proper synergy effects by the MP, including HealthCare Education and DRR-Preparedness.
o  Place primary emphasis on expanding opportunities of income-earning skills, self-employment, developing proper business plans and having financial support by Women members and Adolescents for improving their livelihood conditions.  

6. Comments from the organisation, if any: (this section to be filled by the staff responsible in SF’s Regional Office)
The MTE of MP Bangladesh ensured participation of the different stakeholders through organizing workshop, FGD, individual interview with the program participants and incorporated their views and comments in the report. Recommendations of the report are very logical and practical which can be addressed within next two years of the MP and some can be incorporated in the next MP. SF will share the report with PNGOs and prepare action plan for each recommendation to achieve the results accordingly.