Joint Programme Evaluation final evaluation report august 2016 DanChurchAid (dca) Jhamsikhel, Lalitpur Nepal Dr. Prakash Bhattarai and Dr. Dhruba Gautam

2.5.2 Inclusive Citizenship for Accountable Governance

The evaluation team identifies five major areas which has potential to be sustainable practice even after the termination of this programmatic cycle. First and foremost, ICAG programme in project launched communities has set a trend where women, Dalits and the people from marginalised groups have started participating in formal and informal governance structures at the local level. some of the favourable government policies towards promoting inclusion and political participation of women, Dalits and marginalised groups and increased public awareness and rights consciousness on this issue can be considered as other indicators to be established this as continuous practice in the future.
Second, ICAG programme has contributed to capacitate hundreds of community based women in Nepal and Bangladesh with leadership skills. The increasing trend of women taking leadership roles in local governments, political party structures, and other social institutions indicates that trained women political leaders will continue their engagements in party politics and eventually get elected in local government bodies and parliaments.
Third, growing practices in making the political and social structures from local to national level inclusive is another indication of sustainability of ICAG programme’s approach to ensure the inclusion and political participation of women, Dalits and marginalised groups.
Fourth, growing practice of reporting the untouchability incidents either in police posts or community mediation centre can also be considered as usual and continuous practice even in the future. Finally, human rights defenders who are trained with essential skills under will continue their human rights protection and promotion work even after this programme phases out.

2.5.3 Resilient Livelihood and Sustainable Food Security

Among four thematic programmes of DCA, RLSFS programmes related interventions are more potential to be sustainable practices than others. This is mainly due to its linkages with income and resources as well as willingness of duty bearers to promote income generating activities at the local level. One key objectives of this programme is to create sustainable livelihood opportunities for poor, marginalised, and excluded groups in programme countries. If the existing best practices are continued even in the future, then this programme will contribute significantly to ensure fundamental rights of marginalised people. In the meantime, the evaluation team has identified four key areas which is potentially going to be sustainable practices even after the completion of this programmatic cycle.
First, RLSFS programme has facilitated to establish community based groups of poor and marginalised people at the local level, and develop those groups as small cooperative or link them with the existing saving and cooperative group for sustainable business promotion with easy loans. Cooperatives have developed a flexible instalment payback system and loan payment system, thus more people are taking loans from these cooperatives for small-scale enterprises. It is expected that the upward trend in taking loans from cooperative will eventually assist poor families to initiate locally viable livelihood programmes and get income out of it. Interestingly, the trend of registering agriculture marketing cooperatives is also increasing.
Second, one of the key achievements of DCA’s RLSFS programme is facilitating small and poor farmers’ access and linkages with duty bearers. Particularly, use of government technicians as resource person in different capacity building training assisted small and poor farmers’ coordination with government offices working on agriculture, livestock, forest, and soil conservation issues. Likewise, farmers built good rapport with government officials through the Federation of Farmers’ Groups formed at the district and local level. Local farmers’ groups formed at the local level are now registered with District Agriculture Development Office, further contributing to obtain seeds, mini kits, and micro irrigation support provided by the government. Since the government (particularly in Nepal) has focused its efforts towards promoting resilient livelihood and sustainable food security, it can be expected that poor and small land holders will be benefited from the government-farmer linkages established through this programme. Strong RfF networks at the national and regional level will be an additional advantage for convincing the governments to work on issues around livelihood and sustainable food security.
Third, increased skills and knowledge of farmers through capacity building initiatives is considered as another sustainable practice emerged out of RLSFS programme of DCA. Outreach of capacity-building initiative was high because capacity-building was seen as a ‘means’ rather than the ‘end’. This initiative helped in changing people’s mindset to influence and lobby for claiming their rights and entitlements. As people are equipped with technical knowledge and advocacy skills, they are now able to harvest government resources for the continuation of livelihood based initiatives. Because the partners NGOs of DCA are from the local area, it is expected that they continue to work in the same areas in similar development themes with funding from other agencies as well.
Finally, the sustainability aspect of RLSFS programme is also evaluated from the increased trend of resource leveraging in programme locations. Community groups, CBOs, and CSOs have been successful in mobilising the government resources in productive sectors. Local governments are also agreed to allocate the available fiscal budget as per the thematic sectors. This shows that leveraging the resources for small scale initiatives for local farmers will not be problematic.

2.5.4 Humanitarian Response

The evaluation team found three potential areas of humanitarian response programme to be a sustainable practice in the future. First, due to effective humanitarian response provided by DCA in Nepal after the devastating earthquake of April 2015, the traditional livelihood practices (mainly agriculture) adopted by local communities have been quickly restored. No such strong evidence found from the DCA programme areas where earthquake affected communities has discontinued agriculture profession due to the lack of seed and other agriculture inputs.
Second, linkage established and strengthened between the disaster affected communities and the CSOs for humanitarian response in Nepal as well as in Bangladesh is considered as another sustainable practice. This linkage will have long-term impact for the timely and adequate response of humanitarian disasters that programme countries may have to face in the future because right-holders have claimed their rights. Both CSOs and the government agencies have appreciated the role of DCA for its consolidated and tangible support during emergency response, recovery and its subsequent phases.
Finally, the practice Linking Response to Recovery and Development (LRRD) approach from DCA in its past and ongoing humanitarian response is considered as a best practice that has potential to be continued in the future. DCA have used its whole efforts to build the capacity of DCA staffs, its partner NGOs, CSOs and disaster management committees on LRRD concept, where relief work was not considered in isolation, rather this phase was also linked with recovery and long term development initiatives in programme countries, specifically in project locations. Now disaster affected people have built rapport with the CSOs and relevant government agencies and started to fetch services that are entitled to them.