Tuinuane Women Project

Background

The aim of TWP was to enhance Kenyan poor women’s ability to secure a better livelihood for themselves and their families by offering them access to savings and loans through credit associations based on the time- bound Accumulated Savings and Credit Association (ASCA) model. (PYM). The project has been running for 10 years which were divided into two 5 year phases (2005-2014). The first phase was the start-up which involved sensitization, training and formation of initial groups. The 2nd phase was mainly for training of field agents, promoting members involvement in income generating activities and replication of groups through field agents.

Purpose/objective

The evaluation specifically sought to assess the project in 3 main areas; Impact and performance, program design, relevance and sustainability, and key lessons and implications for the future of Tuinuane in FPFK. It also gave some recommendations for the possible processes that the project owner, FPFK, could undertake to sustain the project as an institutional program.

Methodology

The evaluation involved extensive literature review of relevant material, field work, analysis of collected data (quantitative and qualitative) and a validation workshop with key stakeholders of the project.

Key findings

Overall, the project achieved the expected results in relation to the planned objectives and quantitative indicators. Some of the greatest successes of the project were in its influence on the socio-economic aspect of the beneficiaries’ lives .There were a great number of testimonies of how women’s lives and those of their families have been transformed from struggling to meet their basic needs, to having IGAs that have enabled them to have a sense of economic security.

Women talked of the confidence they have because they can look after their families, pay for their children’s school, run their businesses comfortably as well as contribute to the family income. The evaluation indicates that gender relations at family level have improved greatly as a result of Tuinuane; women and men who are members of Tuinuane stated that they are able to plan together for their families; share family responsibilities, and there is less conflict at family level.

Women’s leadership capacity at the local level has been enhanced through the leadership they provided at group level and as field agents hence strengthening the potential for women to. The deep commitment, dedication and professional expertise of the project team, plus the support they received from the PSC and PYM were the backbone of the effective implementation of project. However, the lack of institutionalised mechanisms for internal networking, sharing and learning in FPFK, limited learning opportunity for FPFK to sufficiently benefit from implementing at the institutional level. Most of the learning and experiences remained at the level of the direct implementers.

In addition, the lack of, consistent and detailed documentation of field experiences limited the availability of benchmarking and institutional memory about the project.

Recommendations

Strengthen decentralization , re- define the target , re-assess FAs capacity and commitment to supporting groups, identify their training needs, design and deliver comprehensive training (both new and refresher) that address both the technical and ethical aspects of leadership. Clarify, redefine and document the local leaders’ role in Tuinuane, enable a shared understanding of these roles by all and provide training for them where appropriate. In addition, organize events for them to share experiences, learn from, and support one another. For those groups still not able to open bank accounts for various reasons; explore what CARE did in Tanzania in 2010- approach a mobile money company like M-pesa to design a package that ensures safety of the group moneys.

Design a project local networking and linkage strategy to facilitate formal relationships between FPFK and local authorities and other community based initiatives in order to maximise local initiatives and reap the benefits that come from networking.

Develop and institutionalize organizational learning systems and processes that will enhance organization wide learning from projects like Tuinuane.

Develop mechanisms, systems and tools to have consistent, scheduled monitoring processes (that include non-project staff to facilitate ‘external’ learning) whose results are documented and embedded into the wider organizational learning systems.

FPFK needs to have a strategic thinking process to redefine and manage Tuinuane as a program of FPFK. This process needs to be well facilitated and should involve good representation of the women at all levels, as the key stake holders. Local, and regional consultative processes need to be organized leading to a national strategy making process to define and design the program.

Comments from the organisation

The evaluation gives good insights and useful recommendations that will be taken into consideration when planning further initiatives both with Tuinuane and other projects with the same partner and for project work in general.