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This research concerns the perceived sidelining of civil society in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). In 2004, INTRAC assessed the participation of civil society organisations (CSOs) in the Kyrgyz PRSP process through a series of workshops funded by the Central Asia Programme.
The skills from these workshops enable these organisations to critically assess their involvement in the PRSP in Kyrgyzstan. The workshops have laid the foundations for future projects that seek to develop the involvement of NGOs and CSOs in the PRSP process.
Related publications:
Ontrac 31 focuses on PRSPs.
Creativity and Constraint: Grassroots Monitoring and Evaluation and the International Aid Arena
Putting Policy into Practice: Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation in Ethiopia - a study of 8 international NGOs
INTRAC has recently completed a review of the experiences of international NGOs of using the LFA (commissioned by Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency).
The research found that while many of the NGOs contacted use the LFA, many are unhappy with it and see it as an imposition from donors. However, even those NGOs who claim not to use the matrix of the LFA, use planning systems that rely on its underlying thinking, as there seem to be few practical alternatives.
The paper suggests that a major problem with the LFA is its insistence on stakeholders reaching consensus on the overall plan for the whole project. Instead, the authors argue that it may be more useful to focus on stakeholders agreeing only on the goal and initial activities. The emphasis should then be on monitoring the impacts of the work, and changing direction accordingly.
This paper contributed to the debate at a recent workshop which fed into INTRAC’s 6th Evaluation Conference in April 2006.
Alternative Monitoring and Evaluation Practices
'While many people are talking about rights-based approaches, it is always difficult to establish how far they are discussing the same things. There is still the danger that the notion of rights-based approaches could come to mean all things to all people: a loose and ill defined idea, which everyone can adopt as they can interpret it to fit their own interests.' (INTRAC Occasional Paper No. 41)
The rights-based approach (RBA) to development has identified the failure of the international community to recognise and uphold people’s human rights as the core problem of development. INTRAC’s research looks at how different Northern NGOs interpret RBA, and focuses on the particular challenges individual international NGOs face when translating rights policies into operational reality.
Related publications
The Implications for Northern NGOs of Adopting Rights-Based Approaches, Occasional Paper No. 41 - November 2005, 80pp, £8.95
Please visit our NGO Partnerships page to read about INTRAC's research in this area. You will also find information about the resulting book, Autonomy or Dependence.
INTRAC completed some research with the World Bank in Ethiopia on building capacity to strengthen the participation of citizens' associations in development. You can download the report and case studies below.
Study on Effective Empowerment of Citizens in Ethiopia.pdf (117Kb)
Annex of WB Case Studies.pdf (1114Kb)
Ensuring Civil Society Participation.doc (798Kb)
INTRAC and South Asia Partnership International prepared 2 case studies on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Sri Lanka: