Regions: Latin America & Caribbean
Reducing pervasive poverty and inequalities remains a key challenge.
Home to 535 million people, the region is made up of mostly middle income countries and is the most urbanized region in the developing word. Agriculture and natural resources are nevertheless critical to the economies. Despite tremendous resources and vibrant societies, deep poverty and inequality persist in the region. Key development challenges include public sector reform, increasing the participation of women, indigenous people and other marginalized groups, fighting urban and rural poverty, tackling HIV/AIDS and solidifying gains in health and education, especially for the poor. Environmental management and protection of fragile forest ecosystems are important transboundry challenges.
Since the early 1990s SI has worked in the region with the Pan-American Health Organization to strengthen its country and regional programs. More recently SI has worked with USAID, the British official aid agency (DFID), World Bank and various NGOS to strengthen environmental, health and governance programs and with government ministries and local NGOs to build institutional capabilities to fight HIV/AIDS.
- PROJECT details
-
El Salvador-Impact Evaluation Design & Implementation Services for Infrastructure Components of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA): Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), 2007-2012
-
Colombia - Strengthening SINERGIA, the M&E System of the Colombian Government, 2007-08
SI is working with the Colombian government to improve the rigor, sustainability, and capacity of their government-wide M&E system SINERGIA, recognized as one of the leading M&E systems in Latin America. To this end, SI will review and rate the evaluation methodologies currently employed, and will offer additional techniques to strengthen their evaluation work. SI will develop a system for prioritizing evaluations based on the magnitude of expected effects, the number of people affected and the budget. SI will also review the adequacy of the current incentive system and will provide recommendations on how to promote greater utilization of M&E information by all government entities. During this entire process, SI will work closely with SINERGIA and help build their evaluation capacity to improve public sector performance.
-
El Salvador Watershed Management Project: USAID, 2006-2008
Improved Management and Conservation of Critical Watersheds is the cornerstone of USAID efforts to promote improved management of natural resources, improve the lives of local residents, and conserve biodiversity within two major Salvadoran watersheds, Barra de Santiago and Rio Grande de Sonsonate. The objective of the DAI-implemented project is to support the effective management of selected areas of high biodiversity importance while promoting responsible economic growth. Interventions focus on the conservation and managed use of biodiversity, water, forests, and other natural resources contained within activity areas. SI supports the DAI team to ensure that the project takes a "gender-balanced" approach to deliver benefits to both men and women and to look at the separate roles that women and men play in biodiversity conservation. SI also provides technical assistance to ensure that the project monitoring and evaluation system provides timely and accurate information for management decision-making and demonstrating results to USAID and other stakeholders.
-
Amazon Basin Conservation Initiative: USAID, 2006-2010
In the Amazon Basin, a growing array of threats to biodiversity is crossing borders and verges on irreparable damage to the Basin's resources. Conflicting priorities and historic, linguistic, and cultural barriers have blocked regional cooperation efforts in the past. Growing awareness of the role that natural resources play in sound development, as well as increased political will to engage these issues, provide a strategic opportunity to address this array of threats.
To build local capacity to tackle these challenges, move toward long-term sustainability, and foster collaboration among stakeholders, USAID has designed its Amazon Basin Conservation Initiative (ABCI), one of the first truly cross-regional conservation programs, with sub-Basin partner consortia implementing diverse projects that will cooperatively address conservation threats and capitalize on opportunities for sustainable development and conservation of natural resources. As part of the IRG team, SI designed and manages the ABCI-wide monitoring and evaluation system to ensure a result-orientation, communication among the ABCI consortia and other key regional stakeholders and the furthering of the Initiative's conservation objectives.
-
Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina—Evaluation of Development Marketplace: World Bank, 2004
The Development Marketplace (DM) supports innovative grassroots development ideas which can then be expanded or replicated. SI evaluated the DM's global 2002 grants program assessing 30 projects from 26 countries spread across 10 sectors, including on-site assessments of health and micro-enterprise projects in Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina. SI evaluated projects according to: realism of objectives; knowledge generation and dissemination; partnerships; capacity building; sustainability; results spread and replication; and social entrepreneurship. As a result of the evaluation DM has extended the duration of grants and is making other improvements in building program effectiveness through better capacity-building support for grantees.
-
Strengthening Health Partnerships: Pan-American Health Organization, 2004
PAHO increasingly relies on relationships with other donors, foundations and private sector groups to help support its work in Latin America. SI worked with PAHO's executive management team to create and deliver an innovative training program on Designing and Managing Public-Private Partnerships in Health. Thirty senior managers and department directors gained skills to plan, manage, monitor, evaluate and sustain health partnerships. As a result, each technical division made significant progress in building new or existing partnerships with foundations, donors, Ministries of Health and pharmaceutical companies.
-
Building Commitment to Environmental Policy: Inter-American Development Bank, 2004
SI worked with the Environment Division of the IADB to design and facilitate a public consultation with environmental NGOs and aid agencies in Washington concerning its draft environmental policy. Over 50 groups provided input on policies for environmental safeguards and mainstreaming the environment. Separate consultations were held by IADB in the LAC region. As a result IADB's new strategy is better grounded and enjoys support from key actors within, and outside of, the LAC region.
-
El Salvador—Strengthening Projects for Economic Change, Poverty and Environment: World Wildlife Fund, 2002
The purpose of the five-country ECPE project is to help countries develop more "win-win" environmental and poverty reduction policies. Working with the World Wildlife Fund in El Salvador, SI led training and technical assistance activities for project teams from El Salvador, China, Zambia, South Africa and Indonesia to strengthen the design of and set realistic goals for the ECPE projects. SI also worked with the teams to strengthen their skills in use of tools for implementing policy change. Each of these projects and the lessons learned from the ECPE program are part of a new book on poverty reduction and natural resource management, aimed at influencing current policy debates by donors and governments.
-
Jamaica—Building Capable Local NGO Partners: Family Health International, 2002
SI worked with two local HIV/AIDS NGOs (ASHE and JN+) to strengthen organizational capacity. Each NGO participated in a customized participatory strategic planning process that mapped out directions for strengthening internal operations, external programming and partnerships with outside organizations and donors. SI provided leadership training and coaching to management staff, strengthened team work, personnel procedures and accounting systems and helped to develop the executive boards. As a result, both groups were able to better manage their growth and quality of services. Each continues to use AI for organizational development and partnering work.
-
Jamaica—Resource Mobilization for Local NGO's: Family Health International, 2002
SI worked with Family Health International's Uplifting Adolescents II (UAP II) project to strengthen the fundraising skills and financial sustainability of the 15 local education NGOs. SI's tailored workshops, coaching and virtual assistance ensured that the NGOs gained important skills in strategic planning for fundraising, resource diversification, budgeting, and proposal writing. As a result of the SI training and support, participants drafted stronger proposals and were able to access additional funds from new sources.
-
Dominican Republic—Participatory Design of National HIV/AIDS Program: USAID, 1999
SI led a national strategic planning process resulting in a new national HIV/AIDS/STD strategic plan for the D.R. The MOH National AIDS Control Program recognized the need for a heightened response to the AIDS pandemic and the need for community involvement and donor coordination. SI involved several hundred stakeholders, including the MOH, people living with AIDS, local and international NGOs, CBOs, churches, district health officials, the private sector, community groups, USAID and other international donors in developing the national plan. The strategy document produced by the SI team was quickly adopted by USAID and the MoH. SI also developed a module for district level HIV/AIDS planning in the D.R., widely used to strengthen the district response to AIDS.
-
Strengthening Design Latin America and Caribbean Programs: World Bank, 2000-02
SI provided project design and technical monitoring and evaluation advisory services to World Bank teams working to design roughly 20 LAC projects and programs. The advisory services led to measurable improvements in project quality at entry (project design), a key determinant of project effectiveness. Projects that SI supported include: Mexico Bio-Corridor Protection, Nicaragua Municipal Reform, Peru Water Sector, St. Lucia Social Fund, Argentina Maritime and Argentina Coastal Protection Project.