Methodological Guide

The assessment methodology should be viewed as a continuous and participatory process. It is based on seeking answers to questions through discussions with key informants, an examination of documents, and field visits and observation. There will be many questions that you cannot answer; this must not prevent you from undertaking the assessment. Take a pragmatic approach: do the best you can with the resources you have. The key point is that you have started the process. The following step-by-step guide will help you to carry out the assessment.

Step 1: Preparing for the assessment

a) Essential reading

To begin, you need firstly to undertake some essential background reading: this Tool itself should be read thoroughly, as well as its companion volume “Community based food and nutrition programmes: what makes them successful? A review and analysis of experience” (FAO, 2002)^[1]. A list of recommended reading is provided in Annex 2. If you are unfamiliar with the methodology of community participation, we urge you to read at least “Partners in Planning” by S. Rifkin and P. Pridmore (2001). Annex 2 also gives details of how you can obtain the essential texts.

b) Forming the Assessment Team

You need to form an Assessment Team. Ideally, the Team should comprise of the following 10 - 15 people, as appropriate to your programme:

• A senior government nutritionist;

• Senior representatives of relevant sectors: essential sectors are Agriculture and Health, but other recommended sectors are Education, Rural Development or Community Development, and Planning. Representatives should come from their sectoral planning departments or from whichever department has collaborative links with the country’s nutrition unit and/or the programme you are assessing;

• A representative from an international agency with an interest in nutrition;

• A representative from a leading NGO that is engaged in nutrition activities;

• A representative from the Nutrition Department of a research and training institution (e.g. university), if this exists;

• A social scientist;

• The director or manager of the programme to be assessed;

• One or more representatives of provincial, municipal or district development communities that are in the geographical catchment area of the programme;

• One or more representatives of communities participating in the programme (community mobilizers and/or community leaders).

The specific composition of your Assessment Team should be guided by the size, resources and nature of the programme you are assessing. We recognize that it may not be easy to bring together such a complete team, and to ask many individuals to devote considerable time and energy to the assessment. It will be especially hard to achieve if nutrition is not well recognized in the country as a part of national development, or if good intersectoral collaboration for nutritional improvement has not yet been achieved. If you cannot form such an extensive Assessment Team, then settle for a more modest one, with a minimum of two people. You can get the information you need through discussions with key informants.

c) Identifying key informants and essential documentation

The Assessment Team, however complete, will not be able to answer all the questions for the assessment. Working with your Team, go through the four sections of the Assessment Tool to identify the key individuals who can give you the answers. You need such key informants from all levels: national, sub-national, programme and community levels. Community leaders and field programme staff can be especially helpful: they can provide a perspective that cannot be provided by national level personnel.

Necessary documentation should be gathered: as a minimum you will need the programme document, and any reports or evaluations that the programme has produced. You should seek evidence that supportive national policies have not simply been signed but have also been implemented. To assess the nature of the nutrition problems, and hence whether the programme has addressed these, you should look for survey and other reports that cover the programme area. Also important is evidence of programme-led community-based activities, such as community action plans.

d) Developing a plan of work

The Assessment Team needs to agree on a schedule of meetings, a time frame for the assessment, responsibilities, and a plan of work. The Assessment Tool asks you to read many documents, hold many discussions and focus group meetings, and to conduct many field visits. To rationalize these, you need to study the Assessment Tool carefully to determine all the information you can gather during the course of any one exercise, so as to avoid having, for example, to return repeatedly to communities or consult the same key informants again and again. A well-planned schedule and plan of work will simplify the methodology and save considerably on time and effort.

Step 2: Assessing the nutrition programme

a) Getting started

An excellent way to start the process of assessment is to draw up a problem tree^[2]. The Assessment Team should do this as a participatory exercise: it will help focus the thoughts and ideas of the Team members, and help everyone to understand the nature of the nutritional problems in the programme area and the constraints to improvements in nutritional status. If your programme covers different agro-ecological zones with different food security and nutritional profiles, you will need to develop more than one problem tree. At the beginning of Section III (Assessing Programme Design), we suggest that you re-examine the problem tree(s) to see if there is anything you want to change in light of the information you have gathered for Sections I and II.

b) Working through the assessment sections

The methodology is divided into four sections:

Overlap between sections in the information you are asked to gather is inevitable, but it is also useful as you will be looking at the information from different perspectives. After constructing the problem tree(s), start working through each section, attempting to answer the questions in each section. Save a copy of your problem tree so that you may go back to it as often as necessary in order not to loose the view of the bigger picture of the issues that you are trying to address. Not all questions will necessarily be relevant to your programme. You may also like to add questions specific to your programme. Use your key informants, documents and field visits to answer the questions.

c) Completing the Summary Report

Once you have completed a section, you need to summarize the information you have gathered. A summary helps you to organize your findings and pinpoint weaknesses that need to be addressed, but any summary necessarily tends to simplify what is in reality a complex situation. You have gathered a wealth of information which will be useful to guide action. Through discussions, the Assessment Team should agree on the three most important issues that have emerged within each sub-component of that section. Use the Summary Report form provided in Annex 1 to guide your discussions, then complete the form. This procedure should be repeated after each of the four sections.

d) Conducting SWOC analyses^[3]

Using your Summary Report as a guide, undertake a SWOC analysis for each section of the assessment: list the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and constraints identified. Decisions should be based on reaching consensus within the Assessment Team. Keep the lists you have compiled: they are essential for guiding action.

e) Preparing the Assessment Report

Once you have worked through all four sections, completed the Summary Report and SWOC analyses, prepare the Assessment Team’s report. The issues identified in the Summary will form an excellent basis for the report’s executive summary.

Step 3: Planning action

It is time now to move to action. Each section ends with some suggestions for actions related to that section. Use these suggestions and the SWOC analyses to decide:

• Which ‘strengths’ you want to ensure are retained;

• Which ‘weaknesses’ need attention;

• What opportunities you have identified to strengthen the programme and other nutrition activities in the country, and how you can seize these opportunities;

• How you can minimize constraints and threats;

• Appropriate actions to address the above issues. If there are many, you might need to compile a priority list or to group actions.

Prepare a plan of action (with targets and deadlines) to improve the community-based nutrition programme. Attach this plan to the Assessment Report and circulate the report to relevant government ministries and departments, programme management staff, and other key actors in programme implementation. Then begin to implement the plan.

The Assessment Team needs also to decide when it will re-assess the programme. The Assessment Team’s report, the completed checklist, the SWOC analyses and the plan of action are all important as baseline documents for the re-assessment.