Today started the DCED seminar on current trends and results in private sector development, bringing together 101 participants from more than 30 countries and 50 organizations.
Impressive achievements of the DCED
The day started with an introduction by Peter Tschumi, (SDC's e+i network's focal point). He recalled that it all started in 2007 with the recognition that more was needed to prove the results and relevance of Private Sector Development (PSD). Today, there more than 200 projects implementing at least partially the DCED standard. And hopefully this will be more than doubled in the next years.
We were then all invited to a World Café to get to know each other and discuss our expectations. From my conversations at the different tables, it seems than many participants were keen to find and meet their peers, to learn what other projects are doing elsewhere and how to deal with specific challenges like attribution. Another recurring expectation was to learn how to convince one's donors, superiors or staff to implement the standard!
The DCED: source of information on PSD
The newly revamped DCED website was then presented to us. It's the most comprehensive source of information on PSD, with all the latest news, debates and publications on a variety of themes. You can have a look at their presentation to know all about their portal and knowledge offer. Their offer will continue to be developed, and you can always contact them if you want to share anything. The DCED is keen to hear from your experiences!
Jim Tanburn: Current trends in PSD
Jim Tanburn, the DCED coordinator, gave an interesting presentation on the current trends in PSD. One of the points he highlighted was the fact that although PSD is now mainstream, it is difficult to communicate it to our constituencies. We need to drop our jargon, and communicate the values of our work, and not our tools. And to communicate that, we need results! Which is what the DCED standard seeks. During the process of creation of the standard, 3 main lessons were learnt: that monitoring has to be an integral part of management (and learning), that the logframe is not the management tool we need to manage multiple interventions in complex markets, and that effectiveness is not just demand-led. Monitoring is a process, not one-off activities, and needs to explicitly deal with attribution, to capture the wider system changes and to allow communicating the results and impacts. All of it documented of course.
Jim Tomecko: how to design PSD projects
The afternoon started with a presentation by Jim Tomecko on the design of projects in PSD. Throughout his presentation, he highlighted that results measurement (RM) needs to have a prominent position in the design phase of a project, dealt with from the beginning, as a necessary compliment to log frames. The latter should be general and changeable too. An early mapping of your opening portfolio of interventions is very useful to get an idea of what impact you can expect (with adjusted projections), which can already help you choose interventions. You want a process flow to identify the steps from design to pilot to scaling-up. This should allow you to identify which assumptions you want to validate, which hypothesis to test, etc. He also highlighted that interventions need to be designed for scale right from the beginning. All the details are in his presentation.
Peter Roggekamp: results chains are good
The second presentation of the afternoon was by Peter Roggekamp, entitled “we are in good shape and a practical M&E system is in reach for many of us” ! On the website, you can find very vivid and detailed handout notes of his presentation, which I can really recommend. In short, results chains are good, but the tricky part is to build a good management system around it, from the very beginning! As we often are what he calls 'economic acupuncturists”, analyzing results, and adjusting to them, is as important as the interventions. In his handout, you will find very interesting, useful and practical lessons and tips.
Markus Kupper: experiences of Katalyst
Who hasn't heard of Katalyst? Well, if you ever wondered how they measure the results for their around 30 sectors, 70 intervention areas and over 200 interventions, then their presentation, the last of the day, is what you are looking for. The main point driven home by Markus Kupper in his presentation is the need to ensure the traceability of the figures. Whatever method you use to measure attribution, calculate outreach, estimates the overlaps, etc., the most important is to document it and be transparent about it. Katalyst has also developed a classification to assess the systemic changes by grouping their observations: according to scale and sustainability, they distinguish 4 cases: adopt (initial innovation is picked up), adapt (independent investment), expand (other players join) and respond (crowding-in of functions, rules and interconnected markets).
That was all for the day, stay tuned for tomorrow's update and interview of the day.
