Outcome Harvesting of the project that aims to promote stability and social enterprise in Lebanon

Title Building Alternative Development Assets and Entrepreneurial Learning – BADAEL

Location Lebanon

Duration December 2017 – August 2020

Partner Oxfam

Local Partners Beyond Reform and Development, Utopia and Association Najdeh

Funding EU Regional Trust Fund “Madad”

 

Context

The BADAEL project aims at social stability and community resilience through enhancing the communities’ understanding of socio-economic opportunities and resilience assets, in order to strengthen the individuals’ skills to identify and engage in innovative sustainable solutions, while promoting social entrepreneurship as a mechanism for civic engagement.

The Lebanese context is characterized by several complexities, among which a weak governance structure, inadequate fiscal policies, and widespread corruption and nepotism. Moreover, the high numbers of Syrian and Palestinian refugees is posing an additional challenge to the already existing socio-economic problems.

For these reasons, and to reduce the pressure on the resources, the BADAEL project aims at contributing to the social resilience by engaging community members, individuals and local authorities.

 

General Objective

During the project implementation several external factors challenged the activities (i.epolitical crisis of October 2019, price volatility, currency devaluation, Covid-19 pandemic). Therefore, the implementation of some of them differed from the original planning and several unforeseen positive and negative outcomes were generated.

Thus, the management team decided to engage in an Outcome Harvesting, an evaluation methodology that allows to explore the intended and unintended, positive and negative outcomes generated by an intervention.

The M&E and Impact Evaluation Unit was contracted to carry out the outcome harvesting.

 

Our contribution

Usually, an evaluation would assess whether the planned intended outcomes were achieved in an effective, efficient and sustainable way. However, in cases like BADAEL, where the original project Theory of Change (ToC) has to be revised during the project and the activities adapted to the new political-socio-economic context, different methodologies are needed.

Given the complexity mentioned before, the Outcome Harvesting allowed to explore the intended and unintended outcomes, whether planned or not. Therefore, the evaluation used the Outcome Harvesting methodology that is used to identify, describe and analyse the changes generated by an intervention on the beneficiaries and stakeholders. Thus, it collects evidence of outcomes defined as the “changes in behaviour, practices, relationships and actions of actors” influenced by a change agent.

The harvesting therefore allowed to open the “black box” that turns the activities into outputs and outcomes in the project Theory of Change.

Read more on our M&E and Impact Evaluation Unit