Health communication, HIV/AIDS, social mobilisation, learning evaluation, capacity building

Full report:Exchange lunchtime discussion 11 April 2002

The Effectiveness Initiative (EI) was introduced by Babeth Lefur, a member of the EI coordinating team, and Arelys Moreno, team leader of the EI Peru study. The EI links 10 Early Childhood Development programmes around the world in an ongoing dialogue. The initiative aims to build a sense of the diversity of local circumstances, but also to link this to broader common themes, without losing the local context.

Exciting areas of EI work in early childhood programming include:

Babeth introduced the Effectiveness Initiative as a process of action learning over time, aiming at the ongoing refinement of methods and tools for early childhood development. The EI links 10 different sites around the world in an ongoing cross-site dialogue. The initiative aims to build a sense of the diversity of local circumstances, but also to link this to broader common themes, without losing the local context and reducing the qualitative data in the process. While they keep the process of dialogue and reflection open, they attempt at the same time, to systematise the methods and learning used.

Arelys introduced the EI partnership with PRONOI in Peru one of the earliest initial education programmes in Latin America. She described some of the tools used to tackle language barriers between Quechua and Aymara speaking people: the ‘river analogy’ was used by people to draw their perceptions of the history and development of the project, and was striking for the diversity of drawings that it produced; the use of cloth pictures and characters proved valuable in helping youngsters of 3-6 years of age to express themselves.

Issues of translation

In the discussion it was acknowledged that it was not possible to fully break the barrier of language, and that any technique always involved a ‘translation’ of sorts from people’s experience. However techniques such as the river analogy built on what was already in use locally and allowed more room for visualisation, and open-ended exploration. Beyond their value in helping overcome language barriers the empowering character of participatory methods was key, and it was recognised that such techniques were as important for the way they provided a ‘space for reflection’ and horizontal dialogue, as they were for any particular issues that came up. Arelys noted that in such a space, ‘tension points’ might emerge, capturing the conflicting priorities in people’s situation. In this way tensions could be identified, made visible, and next steps could begin to be considered.

A learning emphasis

Arelys added that it was important that techniques were not applied rigidly, but that they should be used interactively, adapted and learned from in the process. A stumbling block for EI in Peru was that many people perceived their involvement as an ‘evaluation’ at first, and they had to struggle to promote the notion that what was more interesting was learning from whatever people did and that there was value in exploring ‘mistakes that worked’. The ‘living document’, in which EI tried to synthesis a range of different experiences and methods of documentation, is an example of something that did not work. In this case the interesting thing is to see why it did not work.

By looking at ‘effectiveness’ the emphasis was not meant to be on what was definitively effective, but rather to consider ‘what did we do’ in a particular setting and learn from it. Similarly rather than focus on ‘best practice’ it was important to attend to the useful processes involved in people’s work. Babeth pointed out that rather than just focusing on ‘lessons learned’ it was useful to look at what was consistently not being learned. An example was the transition periods when funders withdrew from a project; in the case of one well-funded project, this had meant that they did not build the local connections and relationships that they might have done otherwise.

Drawing lessons from the case studies without losing local insights and relevance

Discussion turned to the perceived tension between the importance of lessons from local contexts in their diversity, and any more generalised notions of ‘effectiveness’ that could be drawn. It was noted that the UNAIDS definition of ‘best practice’ had shifted to also emphasize the learning process, and its ongoing revision. There was agreement that packaging learning and experience could remove it from context, something that was always a risk in producing documents and the ‘products’ often required by funders. There were also different lessons for people at different levels. However, elements of how to sustain the process of dialogue, and perhaps some supportive characteristics of programming could be generalised.

The EI approached the diversity/generality dilemma by sustaining a dialogue across the 10 country sites over time, and by bringing the ‘two insiders and two outsiders’ making up each EI project team together periodically. The impetus for engaging in cross-site analysis had come from the local teams themselves, and in this way EI provided the framework to share the learning from each site and engage the sites in a continuing reflection on aspects of effectiveness.

Elements of Effectiveness

Common themes that pointed to ‘elements of effectiveness’ across the EI sites had emerged. Initially 47 themes were identified, and by last year these had crystallised into 12 main themes. Examples of cross-site learning included, for a number of the projects, ‘trans-culture’ and the tensions involved in cultures coming into contact. People’s adjustment to living in an encompassing culture, saw them wanting their children to have a good formal education, particularly in the dominant language, but also wanting to maintain the strength of their ‘traditions’. This provides an example of one of the ‘tension points’ noted by Arelys.

Elements of effectiveness emerging cross-site included; the need for credibility and trust, something first highlighted in work in Colombia. This hinged on people being able to continually negotiate the findings and analysis emerging from project work over time, and also to feel that their voices and values were heard and respected.

Another example was the value of providing ‘spaces of reflection’, in whatever form, so that people could begin to develop their own understandings and set their own agenda.

(See Early childhood Matters No. 99 for the ‘first fruits’ of all the EI projects at www.bernardvanleer.org - go to publications-periodicals, ECM issue 99.)

Evaluation of the Discussion

Participants appreciated the interesting and wide ranging discussion and the knowledge and commitment of the presenters. Participants were split around preferences for small group or full group discussion, and also between wanting more focus on the pre-circulated discussion questions and enjoying the flexible and wide-ranging discussion. The depth of the preparatory material was appreciated. A number of participants felt they wanted to have more examples of ‘effectiveness’.

Using qualitative inquiry to enhance effectiveness in early childhood programming