We implement landscape, feasibility and needs assessments, all leading up to the design of development interventions. We believe design is a significant factor in the effectiveness, impact and sustainability of such interventions. We create designs using human centered design and participatory approaches, incorporating learning from successful stakeholder interventions. We specialise in designing:
Programmes and projects
Models
Social enterprises and social business
Schemes (Government)
Organizations
Institutions and networks
We use established design and planning frameworks, like Results Based Management (RBM), and are our own proprietary frameworks. Our work includes:
Theory of change
Log frame
Results assessment framework
Strategic plan
Business model
Business plan
Action plan
Road map
Costed plan
Redesigning midway during periods of crisis or unplanned change, is also part of our design work. Some key examples of our work in this area:
Some key examples of our work in this area:
National Drug Control Master Plan (NDCMP) for Government of Nigeria and UNODC, involving 37 Ministries and Departments
Design of India's HIV Programme for Global Fund – Rounds 7,8,9,10
Design of the 3-fold model for smallholder farmers – for a three-fold increase in their incomes
Design of invest for wellness (i4we) primary healthcare model
Capacity Assessment and Performance Index (CAPI) for Community Organizations (COs)
Why
Internal - To con tinuously assess areas of improvement and strengthen
External - To understand the strengths, weakness and potential of organizations to partner with
What
Measures maturity and performance of Community Organization (CO)
Measures the institutional capacity of the COs in delivering impact and achieve sustainability
Composite score arrived from assessment of critical dimensions of institutional capacity
Scope
Community Organizations – Members, Office bearers
Other Stakeholders – Funding agencies, Banks, Financial Institutions, Business partners, Resource Institutions
Village-level monitoring can play an important role in fostering knowledge and peer review sharing across villages in the same region (Gram Panchayat, Taluka, Zilla Parishad).
The ADI presents a new method of monitoring village development, because it expands the scope of understanding rural development– going beyond measuring physical infrastructure and livelihoods outcomes in isolation– to embed them within the multi-faceted context of SDGs inspired holistic development. Being able to focus closely on individual dimensions is an important way to find the aspects of village development that need attention, facilitating planning of policies. In other words, at a national level, ADI will provide data for policy planning and intervention.
Why
Indicators are reinvented, poorly built and ds not stack up to larger goals
What
CMS has collated and categorised 2000 indicators from various sources for the following sector/topics:
Health
Primary Education
HIV
Adolescent Health
Social and Behavioural Change Communication
And others
How it Works
Indicators are organised on - Aspect, type, source, frequency, disaggregation, link to SDGs, ease of collection, cost of collection, numerator, denominator, description.
For Projects/Programmes working in this area, the bank has been used to:
Select indicators for M&E for existing proven bank
Understand how they link up to their RA
15 programmes have used the bank successfully to decide on indicators or modify them. Example in next slide
The cycle of ill health and poverty is kept intact by system inefficiencies, episodic treatment seeking behaviour of the poor, and minimal focus on prevention and non-medical determinants of health. The poor lose up to 1-2 months of productive time in a year to an illness of self and family. Almost 50-80% of them live with some form of undiagnosed illnesses and die earlier than those who are economically better off. About 50-60 million people in India have been pushed to poverty, in the last decade, because of health related expenditure.
Invest for Wellness (i4We) is a system innovation in primary healthcare, which combines health and wealth interventions, and focuses on wellness for the poor in an affordable, quality assured and scalable way. The programme ensures the primary care of members, navigates them through a range of existing secondary and tertiary providers and uses a blended financing model. The model combines medical, behavioural and social science with an appropriate mix of technology and health financing. It is currently delivered in four settings – Urban, Rural, Factories and Sex Workers’ collectives.
In any setting, a household becomes a member by saving a minimum of ~ 0.8-1 USD per week in a local health group. When a family member is ill, they get free, prompt, convenient and empathetic care in the local clinic by a nurse and a dial-in-doctor. When they are well, they are screened systematically for 10 high burden conditions. In the case of chronic conditions, continued support to adhere to treatment and other changes is provided. When the condition requires hospitalization or advanced treatment, they are referred to a quality assured network of providers and treatment adherence.
The i4We model is guided by the philosophy of “work with what works” and complements the existing network of health providers by making them more effective and efficient, with a customer focus.
Members get health advice, assured screening and treatment for 20 diseases and conditions, and priority access to health services.
To know more - https://swastihc.org/our-work/i4we/
Research studies which are carried out in rural setting have contextual issues like illiteracy, and hence written forms of data collection cannot always be used there. While participatory methods like maps, drawings, pictures and diagrams are recommended in these scenarios, the sensitive nature of research queries often render participatory exercises ineffective.
Acknowledging this, we conceived a “polling booth” methodology which balances confidentiality concerns, information requirements and ease of data collection. This methodology uses ballot boxes and coloured cards for recording responses that are mostly of a “Yes” or “No” nature. It thus ensures confidentiality and anonymity of respondents, thereby facilitating uninhibited responses.
Inspired by the Sustainable Rural Livelihood framework, Measure of Livelihoods is a participative monitoring tool for assessing livelihoods.
The tool has three parts:
An iconised reference tool – which lets the community identify themselves with five kinds of persons within their village. The tool is derived from a series of indicators of five capitals, which are locally relevant.
Detailed case studies of select families. Choice of families is based on analysis of data from the iconised reference tool.
Understanding of the vulnerability context,which largely refers to factors affecting people’s livelihood and vulnerability.
The first part provides quantitative data and trends on how the five capitals behave within the project area. The second part provides the qualitative aspects, within the same sample, so that managers can take critical decisions such as re-strategising. The third part provides contextual information which validates the first and second part and also addresses the attributability of changes in livelihoods.
The tool has been used across multiple villages and has helped programmes assess the progress on outcomes easily. Please reach out to [email protected] for more information.