Tanzania: The Twaweza Initiative

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Evaluation of Twaweza, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

The Center for International Education was awarded a contract by Twaweza, a non-profit organization, to serve as the independent evaluation entity for their initiative based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Twaweza ("we can make it happen" in Swahili) is a ten-year initiative, funded by the Dutch development organizations Hivos and SNV and other donors. Its overall goal is to foster citizen-driven change and to empower East African citizens (in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda) to advocate for access to and the quality of basic services (particularly basic education, clean water, and health services).

Principal Investigator, Gretchen Rossman, Co-Principal Investigator, David R. Evans, and Senior Technical Advisor, Ash Hartwell, lead the one-year evaluation assisted by a an evaluation team based in Dar es Salaam. The team designed key evaluation strategies and instruments, including:

  • an extensive literature review on citizen-driven change
  • draft baseline questionnaires
  • case study designs
  • workshops in Dar es Salaam.

Materials in this folder should be cited as follows:

This document was prepared with support from Twaweza. No official endorsement should be inferred.

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Recent Submissions

  • Publication
    Evaluating 'Twaweza' Conference Presentation
    (2010-01-01) Rossman, Gretchen; Hartwell, Ash
    Presentation at the Comparative & International Education Society meetings March 3, 2010, Chicago, IL The Center for International Education (CIE) was awarded a contract to serve as the independent evaluation entity for the Twaweza initiative based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Twaweza ("we can make it happen" in Swahili) is a ten-year initiative, funded by the Dutch development organizations Hivos and SNV and other donors. Its overall goal is to foster citizen-driven change and to empower East African citizens (inTanzania, Kenya, and Uganda) to advocate for access to and the quality of basic services (particularly basic education, clean water, and health services).
  • Publication
    Twaweza Independent Evaluation Design Elaboration of Mixed Methods Design, Evaluation Questions, Key Hypotheses, and Methods
    (Center for International Education, UMass Amherst, 2010-01-01) Rossman, Gretchen; Hartwell, Ash
    This document discusses the use of a mixed methods design and how the key evaluation questions and broad hypotheses are linked to specific methods. The first section is a short discussion of the mixed methods design for baseline studies; the second is a brief discussion of types of research and evaluation questions as a framework; the third, lists some more inquiry-oriented broad evaluation questions with a discussion about the specific methods and items to respond to them; and in the fourth, preliminary broad hypotheses are summarized with a discussion of which items in the baseline surveys and in proposed targeted studies can respond to them. The annexes include a short discussion on what constitutes evidence (A); the objectives of the baseline surveys (B); a table indicating methods and timing (C); and a table listing overall evaluation questions and methodologies (D).
  • Publication
    Twaweza Independent Evaluation Design
    (2010-01-01) Rossman, Gretchen; Hartwell, Ash
    This document describes the theoretical and conceptual framework for the independent evaluation of Twaweza. It describes and amplifies Twaweza’s theory of change: its key concepts, relationships and assumptions, and on this base articulates the evaluation’s conceptual framework, principles, approaches and methodologies. A fundamental premise informs this work: the perspectives and lived experiences of citizens in East Africa will shape the theory and its evaluation. By implication, this design document provides a starting point (building on the body of previous research on evaluating social change and Twaweza’s work on this) that will be modified and shaped by experience with communities, citizens, institutions, and Twaweza’s partners. This document begins with a brief introduction to the Twaweza initiative and to the goals and purposes of the independent evaluation. It then examines the premises and implications of Twaweza’s theory of social change, understood as a complex, organic system, an ‘ecological’ model, as Twaweza seeks to foment an ‘ecosystem of change’. It places the Twaweza’s strategy of working through established partner institutions to energize citizen agency and action within the context of political, social, and environmental conditions. It also describes the character of state bureaucracies, and the range of their responses to citizen agency, including greater engagement with citizens leading to improvement in the reach and quality of public services: water/sanitation, health, and education. This overview of the theory of social change, including its key concepts and processes, provides the basis for describing key questions and hypotheses, and the independent evaluation principles and methodology. Details on the evaluation design include key evaluation questions; implementation; components; approaches and methodologies; concluding with a discussion of strategies for communicating and disseminating evaluation elements and findings. This body of the document ends with matrices mapping key concepts onto methodologies (Table 1); linking methodologies, sampling, and timing (Table 2); and preliminary indicators of key concepts (Table 3).
  • Publication
    Twaweza Evaluation Final Report
    (2010-01-01) Rossman, Gretchen; Evans, David R.
    This report covers the period October 1, 2009, through June 15, 2010, the effective date of the termination agreement. The sections of this report include: activities during this period; management, financial, and technical reports submitted; and a list of reports to be submitted.
  • Publication
    Twaweza Independent Evaluation Overview of Baseline and Other Surveys
    (2010-01-01) Rossman, Gretchen
    As stipulated in the independent evaluation contract, CIE will implement baseline surveys at households, facilities (schools, health clinics), and communities using national randomly-selected samples in all three countries. These will be followed up in 2012 with a targeted micro-survey and then with full national-level random administrations in late 2013 or early 2014. The rationale for the baseline surveys and the subsequent full follow-up survey administrations is to measure change along key variables over time. The rationale for the mid-term micro-survey is to measure targeted change, using the full baseline study (including case studies) as a guide. Given the key evaluation questions to be addressed, the baseline surveys need to establish 1) citizens’ knowledge about government provision of the basic services of education, health, water; 2) baseline conditions in schools, health facilities, and communities (quality of service); 2) citizens’ access to and use of information channels and media; 4) self-perceptions and indicators of agency and action; and 5) test emerging and intriguing hypotheses. For each broad purpose, establishing what is known at this point enables assessments of change over time. Thus, the overall design of the evaluation calls for follow-up randomized national-level surveys in Year 5 to assess changes and to test the same and new hypotheses. Obviously, baseline surveys are designed to establish initial conditions against which effects or changes can be compared.
  • Publication
    Twaweza Independent Evaluation Overview of Case Studies
    (2010-01-01) Lauridsen, Mikala; Ochiel, Martina; Rossman, Gretchen
    As the independent evaluator, CIE is charged with four primary goals: 1) verification of Twaweza’s outputs; 2) identification of outcomes/effects; 3) analysis of the relation between outputs and outcomes/effects; and 4) review of the appropriateness of Twaweza’s theory of change. A secondary goal is to contribute to Twaweza’s learning and communications processes by making rigorous analyses which invite probing questions and discussions available on a regular basis to the Learning & Communications Team. This is often referred to as ‘formative evaluation’, although that concept trivializes the depth of interaction and supported questioning that Twaweza is committed to. These analyses and discussions will focus on ‘what is working well’, on ‘what needs re-positioning or re-calibrating’, and on ‘what is just not working at all.’
  • Publication
    Unpacking Twaweza's Theory of Social Change: Citizen Agency, Information, Accountability, and Basic Services
    (2010-01-01) Miller, Ethan; Hartwell, Ash; Rossman, Gretchen
    The purpose of this paper is to define the key concepts – and links between them – of Twaweza’s Theory of Social Change. These are the notions of citizen-driven change, citizen agency, information, monitoring and accountability, and basic services. The analysis shows ambiguities and, at times, conflicting working definitions in Twaweza’s use of these terms in its major public documents. We then integrate relevant scholarship to elaborate these central ideas and to pose questions that Twaweza may engage with in the spirit of its claims to be a “learning organization.”