Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
01 July 2020
Post No. 150
The Week’s Contents
• Analytics Month
• The Next Issue of Summer Financial Updates (Summer 2020 Edition) will be entitled: Managing Nature and Covid-19 Accounts
• Mission Year and Project Tracking
… and much more!
Key Messages
~ Analytics Month
July is CENFACS’ Analytics month as it is the time of the year during which we conduct the impact monitoring, evaluation and review of our programmes and projects. Through this exercise, we analyse what we did over the last 345 days, seize the outputs and, if possible, capture the early impacts made.
It is the time we review what worked well, what worked badly and what did not work at all. We do it by bringing all together the programmes and projects as well as activities that made the preceding financial year. This is what we usually call All-in-one Impact Feedback and Assessment.
It is a feedback because we ask all our stakeholders to give their opinions about our work. We expect them to provide us with their true and fair reactions and feelings about our work. From what they feedback and what we have collected as data, we can assess our performance against aims, goals and targets we set up at the beginning of the financial year. This also guides us to adjust and redevelop our programmes and projects. In doing so, this gives us the opportunity to predict and plan future activities while rebuilding and reconnecting with stakeholders.
For more information about All-in-one Impact Feedback or Assessment and CENFACS’ Analytics month, please read under the Main Development section of this post.
~ The Next Issue of Summer Financial Updates (Summer 2020 Edition) will be entitled: Managing Nature and Covid-19 Accounts
How to capture financial information linked to the nature and Covid-19 into your household accounts
The 2020 Edition of Summer Financial Updates (SFIs) is a good insight that builds on the relationship between human harmony with the nature and the sanitation measures we need to take in order to protect ourselves against Covid-19. It deals with two types of accounts at household level which are: natural capital accounts and Covid-19 accounts.
Nature or natural capital accounts are related to the management and preservation of the nature at the level of household. They can be expressed in terms of expenses and income saving related to natural resources and environmental assets management like water, soil, air, plants, animals and minerals. They can be translated into expenses and incomes to cover these expenses which can help to build financial statements such as household balance sheets, profit and loss account, etc. They are interesting since many people and families are adopting nature-based solutions to consume and produce.
The accounts linked to the protection against the coronavirus pandemic can include items dealing with hygiene, cleaning, sanitation, personal protective equipment, etc. to protect and save lives from the life-threatening and destroying impacts of the Covid-19.
The 2020 Edition of SFIs is a foundation for households to familiarise with the kinds of good accounting and management practice of including nature and Covid-19 effects into their family accounts and budgets.
The Issue does not stop there as it contains a few examples of nature and Covid-19 accounts and financial statements while providing some good leads for good management and control of household budgets in terms of comparative approach between ratios.
Finally, the 2020 Edition of SFIs facilitates our understanding of the complex information surrounding the current economic downturn led by Covid-19 while providing some tips and hints to adapt and mitigate the impacts of this downturn.
To find out more about this resource, please contact CENFACS.
~ Mission Year and Project Tracking
It is now almost six months since we kick started our Mission Year and Project. Mission Year is our dedication of 2020 as the year of poverty reduction mission. This month, we are doing some tracking in terms of priorities, tasks, deliverables, etc. about this dedication.
The tracking concerns the following areas of work on which we have reflected our poverty reduction mission: energy, sustainability, climate action, protection, Covid-19 stories and experiences, and creation to help reduce health and sanitation poverty.
Briefly, the tracking will enable to know whether or not our poverty reduction message has helped or started to help people reduce poverty and hardships. However, it takes time for any message received to be transformed into tangible actions and results.
Also, we need to acknowledge that our poverty reduction mission has been disrupted by the Covid-19 and its associated devastating impacts. Therefore, for any tracking we will do there is a need to be cautious in making any interpretations or conclusions. This is due to the Covid-19 disturbance.
To enquire or make query about CENFACS’ Mission Year and Project Tracking, please contact CENFACS.
Extra Messages
~ Reopening of CENFACS’ Charity e-Store
CENFACS e-Store has been reopened following the easing of lockdown and the unlocking of the charity retail sector.
We are following the strict restrictions and guidance regarding the control and surveillance of Covid-19 as well as the protection and saving of lives.
For the health and safety of everybody, all goods donations will be quarantined for at least 72 hours.
We have enhanced our sanitation and cleaning methods and practices.
We hope you are doing the same in the interest of public health.
Please do not hesitate to donate goods or purchase what is available at CENFACS e-Store.
Many lives have been threatened and destroyed by the coronavirus pandemic. Those who managed to survive, they need help. We need help to help them come out poverty and hardships caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
To donate or purchase goods, please go to: http://cenfacs.org.uk/shop/
~ 100 Days of Covid-19 Campaign by CENFACS: Report about Your Say
CENFACS has welcomed your views and comments regarding the six areas of campaign consultation which are: leadership, contribution, engagement, support, creativity and vision.
A careful examination will be given to all the points made about the running and organisation of this campaign. We shall make a judgement on how to reflect useful and helpful comments to the current and remaining phases of this campaign while drawing some learning for future development of the campaign of this nature.
There have been some positive and constructive points made. In all, there is a consensus that there is a need to move forward and stop Covid-19 negative impacts. We can work to together to stop Covid-19 adverse impacts to become an impediment against poverty reduction, sustainable development and for future generations.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who responded to the 100 Days of Covid-19 Campaign by CENFACS.
We have listened and read your views and comments. Now, it is time to work together and take forward your messages so that we can together STOP COVID-19 NEGATIVE IMPACTS.
Many thanks!
~ Happiness and Healthiness Budgets for Poor Children, Young People and Families
It is always hard to ask those (like poor children, young people and families) who experience poverty and literally have no income or income below the poverty line, to write a budget about anything, especially for their happiness or healthiness or even holidays.
Whether or not a poor person is happy or healthy or takes holidays, they need happiness, healthiness, holiday budget or simply a budget to plan their sources of income and ways of meeting their expenses over a particular time of the year (e.g. Summer holiday). The same person needs to plan how they are going to meet basic life-sustaining health costs.
Although we have the NHS in the UK, there are other health costs which are not covered by the NHS. These additional and basic life-sustaining health costs may include: personal hygiene, cleaning and disinfecting costs related to the protection against the Covid-19 and other bacteria. These additional costs can be included into the happiness and healthiness budgets.
One can as well integrate other items of happiness (like health and life satisfaction) and the metrics of healthiness and well-being into their budget. They can do it by putting together the items of income per capita (or monetary income) and non-monetary ones into happiness or well-being budget.
The happiness and healthiness budgets, or put it simply holiday and basic health accounts, help to assess where and how much help is needed. Therefore, poor people and families need to do their income sums and build them into their happiness, holiday and basic health expenses budgets and accounts or simply Summer expenses budgets or accounts.
To discuss your happiness, healthiness and Summer holiday budgets, please contact CENFACS.
Main Development
• Impact Monitoring, Evaluation, Review and Analytics
The name of the July game at CENFACS is Impact Monitoring, Evaluation, Review and Analytics. July is the month during which we conduct our impact monitoring, evaluation, review and analytics of the projects and programmes we delivered during almost last 11 months and 2 weeks.
Before giving the contents of the Analytics Month, let us explain the key words we are using for the purpose of this Analytics month.
• • Key Words for the Analytics Month
There are five key words we are using which are: impact, monitoring, evaluation, review and analytics.
=> Impact
Normally, it takes a considerable time to get the impact of any intervention, project and programme. However, because we are talking about finding out what projects and programmes have achieved, it makes sense to clarify what we mean by impact.
To do that, we are going to borrow the definition of impact from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD (1) differentiates ex ante impact from ex post impact. This is what it argues.
“Ex ante impact analysis is the needs analysis and planning activity of the policy cycle. It is a prospective analysis of what the impact of an intervention might be, so as to inform policy making”.
“Ex post impact assessment is the evaluation and management of the policy cycle. Evaluation aims to understand to what extent and how a policy intervention corrects the problem it was intended to address. Impact assessment focuses on the effects of the intervention, whereas evaluation is likely to cover a wider range of issues such as the appropriateness of the intervention design, the cost and the efficiency of the intervention, its unintended effects and how to use the experience from this intervention to improve the design of future generations”.
The above definitions help to understand the scope and scale of the impact of most interventions.
As far as CENFACS is concerned, we will be doing evaluation activities for some programmes and projects; and impact assessments for others. This is because impact assessment is mostly a theory-based activity and has a narrow and tightly-defined focus. Where we need to design evaluation questions and use evaluation techniques, we will do evaluation. Where there is a need for a tightly-defined focus, we will do impact assessment.
We are as well considering that the initiative for change comes from project users or beneficiaries not from CENFACS’ projects or programmes. This is because the impact analysis model of change we are using is a non-linear one. Despite this non-linearity of the theory of change used, our impact analysis will still be based on causality and attribution approach.
=> Monitoring and evaluation
We are going to use the definition of monitoring and evaluation as given by Kersty Hobson, Ruth Mayne and Jo Hamilton (2) in their “A Step by Step guide to Monitoring and Evaluation”. They define monitoring as
“the collection and analysis of information about a project or programme undertaken while the project or programme is on-going”. (p. 5)
They also define evaluation as
“the periodic, retrospective assessment of an organisation, project or programme that might be conducted internally or by external independent evaluators”. (p. 5)
From these two definitions, it is understood that monitoring is an on-going process whereas evaluation is a periodic or discrete one.
=> Review
We have referred to an online source from method123.com (3) for the meaning of this fourth key word. This online source defines review as
“an assessment of the status of a project at a particular point in time”.
From this online perspective, we have been performing a project management review at the end of each phase of our projects and programmes. We have been verifying whether or not we have met the objectives. If so, then a decision needed to be approved to proceed to the next project or programme phase.
July is the month we put together all these project reviews conducted while doing the last reviews for those projects and programmes pending for a last review.
=> Analytics
There are many approaches to analytics. In the context of our July work, we have selected an explanation from an online dictionary (4) which is as follows:
“the patterns and other meaningful information gathered from the analysis of data”.
This kind of analytics will help us to better deliver a user experience for our projects and programmes.
• • The analytical process within CENFACS
We have been continuously and at discrete points in time tracking what has been happening within our programmes and projects while using the data collected to inform programme and project implementation and day-to-day management and decisions during the above named period. However, in July this monitoring exercise becomes more intense.
Likewise, we have been periodically assessing objectives of our planned, on-going, or completed projects, programmes, or policies. During these evaluation processes, we have tried to selectively answer specific questions related to the design, implementation, and results of our programmes and projects.
In July, these evaluation activities become further pronounced as we assess what these programmes and projects have achieved in relation to the overall objectives we set up for them. The results of this evaluation are fed back to improve these programmes and projects, or alternatively to develop new ones.
Still in July, we critically examine, reappraise or reconsider our objectives and policies to achievements, and see if there is any progress or set back. This review enables us to improve as well.
Throughout the year, we work to finding out, interpret and communicate patterns in data in a meaningful way to the work of CENFACS. We apply those patterns in our decision making process. In July, we put extra emphasis on this analytics which becomes very profound.
Briefly, July is the time we do our Summer tracking by reconsidering the value and relevancy of our work, let one the overall state of our charitable work. It is in this period of the year that we carry out what we call All-in-One Impact Feedback and Assessment. In other words, we try to listen to our stakeholders while tracking or capturing the early impacts of our work by considering all the pieces together as one.
One of the key tools we use to do our impact analysis is CENFACS Analytics Dashboard.
• • What is CENFACS Analytics Dashboard?
CENFACS Analytics Dashboard is an information management tool that tracks, analyses and displays key performance indicators, poverty reduction diagnostics, poverty relief metrics, CENFACS’ poverty relief league, etc.
It monitors the health of CENFACS in terms of the relationships of support received to outputs and outcomes generated.
It provides as well charts and summaries about some of the campaigns conducted.
It enables to discover and identify poverty reduction problems from the examination of symptoms it helps find.
It finally helps to retrieve information from CENFACS repository about the resources to help users and supporters.
For example, during the early stage of the coronavirus pandemic, we used CENFACS Analytics Dashboard to check the health of CENFACS and state of running of CENFACS’ projects and programmes. This checking enabled us to know the extent to which the coronavirus pandemic affected the running of CENFACS and its services. Knowing the distributional effects of the coronavirus pandemic on our projects and programmes, this knowledge helped us to reorganise these projects and programmes differently.
For more on CENFACS Analytics Dashboard, please contact CENFACS.
• • All-in-one Impact Feedback and Assessment for July 2020
This month, we will be conducting three levels of Impact Assessment. This Impact Assessment will be ex post. And the evaluation related to this exercise will aim to understand the extent to which and the way in which our projects and programmes corrected the problems of poverty and unsustainable development amongst our intended beneficiaries.
=> Impact monitoring and evaluation of the programmes and projects we run in the last financial year
As the title of impact indicates, it will about putting together in the form of one piece of work of all the results of monitoring and evaluation activities we have conducted for our programmes and projects run in the last financial year.
=> Impact assessment of the coronavirus pandemic on CENFACS
We shall continue to seize the impact of Covid-19 on CENFACS, particularly on CENFACS’ 2020 Poverty Reduction Tools and Programme and Development Agenda.
=> Impact feedback about our XX236.3F Programme
Like last year, this year’s All-in-One Impact Feedback and Assessment will be extended to include our XX236.3F programme as we are in the month of Monitoring and Evaluation.
XX236.3F is our 2020 to 2030 to 2063 Follow up Programme. We are following the implementation of the International Climate Change Agreement (or the Paris Treaty), the Istanbul Declaration, the United Nations 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals, and Africa’s Agenda 2063. The four of them make up our XX236.3F programme.
We need to acknowledge that Covid-19 has not made and is not making easier to get the impact feedback about our XX236.3F Programme. Despite this difficulty, we are still conducting this impact feedback and assessment.
In brief, we shall conduct a follow-up and examination, look back and analyse data on the overall projects and programmes delivered during the above stated period, while keeping implementing our XX236.3F programme.
We shall soon publish the programmes and projects making this year’s Analytics. In meantime, for any enquiries about the Analytics month, please contact CENFACS.
(1) https://www.oecd.org/sti/inno/what-is-impact-assessment-OECDImpact.pdf (accessed June 2020)
(2) https://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/research/technologies/projects/monitoringandevaluation.html (accessed June 2020)
(3) https://www.method123.com/initiation-phase-review.php (accessed June 2020)
(4) https://www.dictionary.com/browse/analytics (accessed June 2020)
Help CENFACS keep the Poverty Relief work going in 2020.
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One could consider a recurring donation to CENFACS in the furture.
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Thank you for visiting CENFACS website and reading this post.
Thank you as well to those who made or make comments about our weekly posts.
We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support throughout 2020 and beyond.
With many thanks.
