Using a Human-Centred Design Approach to developing M&E tools: A report from South Sudan

;

;

Global Women's Institute (GWI) and Trócaire are working to implement the “Making Progress Visible” programme to develop Monitoring and Evaluation (M&;E) tools that will help measure progress towards the Gender Based Violence (GBV) Minimum Standards. In South Sudan, we are partnering with TOCH – a local humanitarian organization – who implements GBV programs with Trócaire to create new, field-friendly M&;E tools. Two TOCH staff (Christine Puor Jurel and Yier Mayen) below reflect on their experience with the programme.

Field Report

In South Sudan, we have been working with the “Making Progress Visible” program to develop and pilot M&;E tools that will help us measure progress towards the GBV Minimum Standards.

We have been working to implement GBV programming with the organization TOCH since 2019. Our programming works to provide psychosocial support and counselling to GBV survivors and to improve the quality of referral services by supporting professional service providers.

In terms of monitoring and evaluation (M&;E), when we started in 2019, we had few M&;E tools to help us understand the progress and impact of our programs. While more tools have been introduced, we still felt we could improve the data we collected and how we used that data to make program decisions. As part of the “Making Progress Visible” program, we worked with Trócaire and the Global Women’s Institute (GWI) at George Washington University and prioritized which indicators we needed to develop the new tools for.

Once we had selected the indicators, we came together to begin to the design the tools.

This process was a bit hard because we had different perspectives from the many people who came together (e.g. Psychosocial Support facilitators, Case Workers, Field Coordinator, M&;E, etc.) to develop the tools. We worked together and made our recommendations for each tool. Because of COVID, the project team from Ireland and the US was not able to join us for the first workshop to develop the tools and so we shared with Trócaire and GWI through emails and written reports. They then worked to create tools based on our ideas and shared back with us.

Overall, this process worked well because, while the ideas we sent were good, they were not perfect since it was our first time developing M&;E tools. We were very happy with the tools that came back to us as we were able to see some great changes and improvements.

We then piloted the tools, which brought out what needs to be changed, what needs to be added to the tool and the value of the tool. For example, for the indicator on quality case management, the tool is able to clearly show the attitudes, the knowledge and the skills of the case workers.

Now we have come together for a 5-day workshop to reflect and make final changes to the tools. We have been discussing the challenges we have seen and what we can do to improve the final tools. For example, some of the tools were not capturing age – but we realize we want to be able to see how both girls and women are experiencing our programming – so a good change will be to add age to the tracking and analysis sheets. This time together has helped us make great improvements to the tools.

Overall, the new tools will make our work easier because they are simple to use and analyse. They are very useful for our daily activities, giving data and feedback to managers and senior management, and also they are helpful for frontline staff, to know how to improve the program and identify potential gaps. For example, when we use the tools to monitor the women and girl’s safe spaces, the tool gives us a clear picture of how safe the place really is. And helps us to answer questions such as, how accessible is the space? Is there inclusion for persons with disability? The data we collect is very useful for us as frontline staff to understand and make changes directly to our programming.

Overall, we believe the new M&;E tools will be really helpful for us in planning and programming and they will make our work here easier!

Written by: Christine Puor Jurel, GBV Case Manager and a national Trainer of Trainers in GBV, TOCH South Sudan Yier Mayen, GBV Case Management Supervisor, TOCH South Sudan