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NNGO Voices: Leader Perspectives on Locally-Led Development

July 6, 2023

The development sector is moving towards shifting power to local development, decolonizing aid, and building a more equitable development architecture. Funders, INGOs, national/local NGOs (NNGOs), and governments play crucial roles in making these changes a reality. Humentum has published reports exploring different stakeholder perspectives, and this report focuses on the perspective of NNGOs. It presents insights from senior NNGO leaders in six African countries, discussing their perspectives and recommended solutions for power shift. This report is a valuable critical to the Collective Journey to Equitable Development series.

Regional Portrait of Catholic Care for Children in Eastern Africa: A study based on information from Kenya, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia

May 16, 2023

Catholic sisters are champions of care reform. Working with governmental, civic, and church leaders, and within their local communities, they are leading efforts to transition from institutional care toward family- and community-based care. Their leadership, service and spiritual witness have advanced the common good through a profound commitment to working on behalf of the vulnerable and marginalized. Focused on east Africa, this regional portrait offers data and information on care reform and the significant shifts and progress led by Catholic sisters in the region.

“This Is Why We Became Activists”: Violence Against Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer Women and Non-Binary People

February 14, 2023

According to interviews Human Rights Watch conducted with 66 lesbian, bisexual, and queer (LBQ+) activists, researchers, lawyers, and movement leaders in 26 countries between March and September 2022, forced marriage is one of ten key areas of human rights abuses most affecting LBQ+ women's lives. Human Rights Watch identified the following areas of LBQ+ rights as those in need of immediate investigation, advocacy, and policy reform. This report explores how the denial of LBQ+ people's rights in these ten areas impacts their lives and harms their ability to exercise and enjoy the advancement of more traditionally recognized LGBT rights and women's rights:the right to free and full consent to marriage;land, housing, and property rights;freedom from violence based on gender expression;freedom from violence and discrimination at work;freedom of movement and the right to appear in public without fear of violence;parental rights and the right to create a family;the right to asylum;the right to health, including services for sexual, reproductive, and mental health;protection and recognition as human rights defenders; andaccess to justice.This investigation sought to analyze how and in what circumstances the rights of LBQ+ people are violated, centering LBQ+ identity as the primary modality for inclusion in the report. Gender-nonconforming, non-binary, and transgender people who identify as LBQ+ were naturally included. At the same time, a key finding of the report is that the fixed categories "cisgender" and "transgender" are ill-suited for documenting LBQ+ rights violations, movements, and struggles for justice. As will be seen in this report, people assigned female at birth bear the weight of highly gendered expectations which include marrying and having children with cisgender men, and are punished in a wide range of ways for failing or refusing to meet these expectations. Many LBQ+ people intentionally decenter cisgender men from their personal, romantic, sexual, and economic lives. In this way, the identity LBQ+ itself is a transgression of gendered norms. Whether or not an LBQ+ person identifies as transgender as it is popularly conceptualized, the rigidly binary (and often violently enforced) gender boundaries outside of which LBQ+ people already live, regardless of their gender identity, may help to explain why the allegedly clear division between "cisgender" and "transgender" categories simply does not work for many LBQ+ communities. This report aims to explore and uplift, rather than deny, that reality.

Forgotten by Funders

December 1, 2021

This report highlights the underfunding of work with and for imprisoned and formerly imprisoned women and girls,  alongside a worrying increase in the global female prison population. The report draws from the survey responses of 34 organisations, most of which are based in the Global South and have women with lived experience of the justice system involved with or leading their work. Calling to donors that fund human rights, women's rights and/or access to justice, the report concludes that this heavily gendered area of human rights tends to fall through the cracks of donor strategies, including recent Gender Equality Forum pledges. 

True Value: Revealing the Positive Impacts of Food Systems Transformation

October 14, 2021

This report True Value: Revealing the Positive Impacts of Food Systems Transformation presents powerful and compelling evidence that food systems transformation is possible and having an impact now. Conducted by TMG Think Tank for Sustainability, an inclusive and true cost evaluation approach is applied to six food systems initiatives featured in the Beacons of Hope series to understand the breadth and depth of their positive impacts. True Cost Accounting (TCA) is an innovative tool that provides a holistic understanding of the relationships between agriculture, food, the environment, and human well-being.Using TCA enables us to see the significant monetary and non-monetary benefits sustainable food systems have on issues like public health, biodiversity conservation, climate, workers' rights, cultural diversity, and gender empowerment. It also demonstrates how TCA can be used for a variety of organizations -- from businesses, farmer cooperatives, food banks, research facilities, and more -- as a systemic approach to assess, measure, and value the positive and negative impacts of food systems. 

Sexual Harassment in the Media – Africa Report

July 12, 2021

In 2020, WAN-IFRA Women in News (WIN), in partnership with City, University of London,  set out to establish the extent of sexual harassment in news organisations and to gauge their effectiveness in managing it. The research project focused on regions where WIN operates: Africa, the Arab region, Southeast Asia and Russia. In addition, a survey of Central America will begin soon.This report is a summary of its findings in Africa. The project included an online survey and interviews. Some 584 media professionals completed the online survey. They were from eight countries in Africa, namely Botswana, Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The overall tally includes eight responses from within Africa that were outside the focus countries. WIN conducted supplementary interviews with 32 media executives from those countries.

Learning Through Play: Increasing impact, Reducing inequality

January 1, 2021

What is the potential of children's play to promote equality in outcomes and address learning gaps between children from more advantaged and less advantaged backgrounds? Drawing evidence from early childhood learning programmes across 18 countries, as well as from interviews with the authors of various contributing studies, this report aims to understand whether and how the evidence about play and learning relates to tackling the learning crisis, especially in terms of inequality in learning outcomes around the globe.This report published by the LEGO Foundation shows that play not only helps children learn, it also supports inclusion, and reduces inequality, therefore demonstrating that policymakers and international organisations need to pay close attention to play. Building on their findings, the authors suggest four areas for future investment, innovation and investigation.

Building Youth Life Skills: Lessons Learned on How to Design, Implement, Assess, and Scale Successful Programming

June 27, 2019

There is growing recognition that youth need more than formal or vocational education to thrive in school, work, and life. They also need life skills - a set of cognitive, personal, and interpersonal strengths that position them for success in their lives and livelihoods. To leverage the growing momentum and give youth access to these vital tools for success, the Partnership to Strengthen Innovation and Practice in Secondary Education (PSIPSE) supports grantee partners testing diverse approaches to strengthening life skills. The PSIPSE commissioned an in-depth study of 18 projects in 7 countries, uncovering actionable lessons on how to design, implement, assess, and scale youth life skills programming in low- and middle-income countries. The study is intended for practitioners and government officials interested in building, improving, and expanding work around life skills, as well as donors looking to advance this field and provide useful guidance to their grantees.

Building Youth Life Skills: 8 Tips for Practitioners

June 27, 2019

There is growing recognition that youth need more than academic knowledge to transition successfully into employment and adulthood (Dupuy et al. 2018). They also need "life skills," a set of cognitive, personal, and interpersonal strengths that position them for success in their lives and livelihoods. Life skills can enhance young people's agency and resilience, improve their psychosocial well-being, and predict a range of long-term outcomes, including health, job performance, and wages (Kwauk et al. 2018; OECD 2018, Kautz et al. 2014). The Partnership to Strengthen Innovation and Practice in Secondary Education (PSIPSE), a donor collaborative, has invested in 18 projects to strengthen life skills in young people. This brief offers eight lessons based on the experiences of these projects—on the design, delivery, measurement, and scale-up of youth life skills programming in lowand middle-income countries (LMICs).

Building Youth Life Skills: 6 Lessons for Government Officials

June 27, 2019

There is growing recognition that youth need more than academic knowledge and technical expertise to transition successfully into employment and adulthood (Dupuy et al. 2018). They also need "life skills," a set of cognitive, personal, and interpersonal strengths that position them for success in their lives and livelihoods. Life skills can enhance young people's agency and resilience, improve their psychosocial well-being, and predict a range of long-term outcomes, including health, job performance, and wages (Kwauk et al. 2018; OECD 2018; Kautz et al. 2014). The Partnership to Strengthen Innovation and Practice in Secondary Education (PSIPSE), a donor collaborative, has invested in 18 projects that focus on developing life skills among youth (see left). Mathematica, the PSIPSE's learning partner, recently conducted an in-depth study of these projects. The study used interviews with implementing organizations, an extensive review of project documents and evaluation reports, and high-level literature and landscape scans to examine project experiences, set them in context, and draw out lessons for a range of stakeholders. This brief summarizes the lessons for government officials—on how to successfully devise, roll out, scale, and strengthen life skills policies for youth in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Partnering to Realize the Girl Effect: Learnings from a Decade of Delivering for Girls

June 15, 2019

This report summarizes learnings from more than a decade of work, including more than $132 million in investments in more than 80 countries via a network of 140 organizations, occurring between 2004 and 2017. It is the culmination of a review of program reports and evaluations from more than 280 grants and initiatives, as well as interviews with current and former NoVo Foundation and Nike Foundation staff and partners.Our goal was to share lessons and insights that might be useful for others. This document is not a field guide for implementing specific programs, but rather a collection of learnings to inform program design.

Equitable Financing of Secondary Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

February 1, 2019

This report considers key trends in secondary education in particularly with respect to enrollment and domestic and aid financing from an equity perspective.  While many national governments and international donors have shifted their spending from primary to secondary education since the early 2000's, it is evident that unfinished business remains in regards to primary education, with the poorest and most disadvantaged still unlikely to complete the full cycle of primary education. Even when they do, many are not learning the basics, and their chances of transitioning into secondary education is much lower then their more advantaged counterparts. In order for countries to achieve the SDG4 targets by 2030, the way in which governments and international donors disburse their resources will have a huge bearing on countries being on track to ensure no one is left behind.