To design and support high-impact projects
Com4Dev’s core business is the engineering of cooperative projects, from conception to implementation. Its members have proven multidisciplinary expertise in this field.
Our contribution aims to reinforce the impact of projects by promoting the appropriation of results by stakeholders. To do this, we integrate the logic of change from the outset and throughout projects, fully involving all parties in knowledge management.
We believe that sharing knowledge and understanding the mechanisms of change gives stakeholders a greater capacity to act, and encourages the dissemination of positive factors.
Com4Dev’s actions take into account local knowledge and the logic of target groups.
Ideation processes are at the heart of any project-driven process of change and innovation.
They consist in bringing out the ideas and opinions of each stakeholder on the project, its meaning and desired impact, its activities, the results expected from them, the groups that the project is aimed at and should incorporate, the way in which the groups will take part in and benefit from the project, the nature of the changes expected, and so on.
These processes must be carried out in order to set guidelines, allow the expression of opinions, including contradictory ones, and forge consensus on the main points and crucial details. They are the first step in the project cycle.
Ideas for change and innovation often come up against a failure to take sufficient account of the contexts in which projects are to be implemented. The link is often insufficiently documented and analyzed ex-ante between the parameters
The link between these three levels is nevertheless crucial to understanding the changes desired by projects, and the factors likely to hinder or encourage them. The project’s impact on these factors is essential if the desired objectives are to be achieved.
However, it is all too often ignored by projects, not least because of its intangible nature and the difficulty of measuring it. As a result, project evaluation focuses mainly on quantitative measures of the number and categories of action and participants involved, overlooking the underlying mechanisms at individual, community and system levels that are essential to sustainable change and impact.
Taking into account and analyzing contexts is essential at the ideation stage, where it feeds our thinking. It is also fundamental throughout the project, as contexts are bound to evolve under the pressure of various factors, including the project itself.
Project formulation is based on ideation and context analysis, and consists of :
Project formulation, like ideation and context analysis, is part of the process of co-constructing strategies, both for each stakeholder and for their involvement in the project.
In parallel with project formulation and right from the ideation phase, the search for funding is a crucial step in guaranteeing implementation. The availability of funding and the criteria for granting it must be taken into account in order to correctly parameterize the project in terms of the volume, nature and duration of its activities.
The project’s objectives, and the nature of the changes and results expected, must resonate with the objectives of potential backers. Hence the importance of clearly characterizing and articulating them in a presentation/pitch that will be convincing.
The availability of funding may constrain the project in terms of time or quantity of activities. It can also lead to implementation in stages.
Here too, partner strategy and ownership by the target populations are essential to the continuity of action over time, particularly in the intervals between projects, whencapitalization and dissemination of results through networks and communities is essential to ensure continuity of the desired effects.
Com4Dev is involved in project implementation and coordination, providing expertise from its members and networks.
Coordination, carried out in partnership with stakeholders, involves
Monitoring and evaluation is a crucial element of project implementation, providing guidance and verifying performance. Nevertheless, M&E is often conceived as a constraint, and elaborated at the end of the formulation process. It is often seen as an instrument for reporting to the donor.
In this way, monitoring and evaluation are always linked to learning and capitalization processes, which must feed into the reflections of stakeholders and, more generally, the community of players interested in the same issues.
This approach creates knowledge on the basis of which to form new projects, or the next steps, by feeding new thought/ideation processes. It also enables the dissemination not only of results but also of change processes, thus contributing to more systemic and social impacts.
