FINAL REPORT

Summative evaluation of MS Country Programme Strategies and Programme

Support within the “Democracy Focus”

Zambia

August 2011

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Country Programme Strategy (CPS) implemented under the auspices of the former MS

Zambia, covered the period 2008 – 2011. The CPS focuses on two thematic areas namely Building

Local Democracy (BLD) and Land Rights. The operating environment in Zambia, together with

policy changes within MS, informed the choice of these thematic areas. Democracy in Zambia is

still in its formative stage especially local democracy, with limited participation of citizens. The

choice of BLD was made on the understanding that one way of addressing the high poverty levels

in the country is through improved democratisation at both local and national levels. With more

democracy, citizens are able to question or influence development processes and also hold to

account all duty bearers who act on behalf of the community. For Land Rights, the main

consideration was that the current land administration arrangements in Zambia generally do not

provide for security of tenure.for the majority of the rural and urban poor, especially women and

youth.

This summative evaluation has been conducted against the backdrop of the decision by MS

General Assembly for the organisation to become an affiliate of ActionAid International. The

affiliation was approved in June 2010 by the ActionAid International‟s General Assembly, and MS

became a fully-fledged member of the ActionAid family. The consequences of the affiliation include

the merger of MS offices in Nepal, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Guatemala

with ActionAid in 2010, and the programme portfolio of MS in these countries taken over by

ActionAid. The summative evaluation is intended among other objectives to provide strategic

learning points which will subsequently inform future programming of AAI/IGT. It is also planned to

serve as documentation to Danida. The Evaluation Team comprised two external consultants -

Rueben Lifuka (Team Leader) and Stuart Nsana (Consultant), supported by three resource

persons namely Joyce Laker (Resource Person and East Africa Coordinator of the International

Governance Team of ActionAid International), Madhu Pokhrel (Resource Person and Programme

Officer in AAI Nepal and former MS Nepal staff) and Karen Jørgensen (Resource Person and

representative of AADK). The evaluation exercise was conducted from 17 April until May 6 2011.

Achievements

A number of achievements have been scored in the course of implementing the CPS by MS

Zambia and now ActionAid International Zambia. The following section presents an overview of

these achievements and includes some key lessons for each thematic area.

Building Local Democracy

The BLD thematic area had four immediate objectives for all its target districts in Eastern, Luapula,

Lusaka and Copperbelt provinces. The objectives addressed a wide range of issues related to BLD

and this includes citizens‟ influence of local government for improved pro-poor service delivery,

gender equality and equity in decision-making structures, youth‟s influence on relevant public

institutions, and empowerment of citizens to effectively articulate, influence and monitor national

policies for the benefit of local communities.

The main strategies adopted by MS Zambia and its partners in meeting the strategic and

immediate objectives under BLD include knowledge building for mainly right holders and duty

bearers in the target districts. Partners equally conducted research and surveys to generate

evidence which was utilized in lobbying and advocacy activities especially for policy and legal

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reforms. Social accountability through budget tracking was another important strategy mainly

targeting devolved funds and incentive support such as the Constituency Development Funds and

the Farmer Input Support Programmes. MS Zambia partners equally worked to create an

environment for the effective participation of citizens in local governance structures such as District

Development Coordinating Committees and the District Agriculture Committees among many

others. At national level, engagement with policy making and influencing selected public policies

like the draft National Land Policy, were some of the strategies adopted.

The Evaluation Team made a number of key observations and conclusions on the implementation

of BLD activities. While it is not in dispute that some achievements have been scored with citizens

including women and youths engaged at different levels in local democracy, some policy changes

achieved, women successfully accessing customary land in their own recognition and youths

influencing relative national policies; there are some key points for future consideration. First and

foremost, it was observed that the BLD programme largely focused on empowerment of citizens

rather than a comprehensive governance programming which balances citizen‟s empowerment,

citizen‟s engagements with duty bearers, and duty bearer‟s accountability This presents a

tremendous gap in addressing the governance challenges in Zambia and limits the opportunity for

MS/AAI and partners to contribute to promoting just and democratic governance in Zambia.

Other findings including the observation that duty bearers – who represent the supply side of

accountability, have hitherto marginally been involved in the implementation of programme

activities, with a lot of emphasis placed by the MS Zambia partners on working with right holders.

As a result, MS Zambia and its partners did not sufficiently engage key duty bearers like the

Decentralisation Secretariat and district authorities in their work and yet these are important

stakeholders in BLD. The design of BLD was based on the assumption that the implementation of

the National Decentralisation Policy would proceed in a timely manner. However, it became

apparent during the implementation phase that there is a general lack of political will to

decentralize and hence the Decentralisation Implementation Plan has yet to be operationalised.

This delay, unfortunately affected the general approach that some of the partners took in

implementing their BLD activities. For example, budget tracking activities of partners at local level,

were confined to a few sectors and not necessarily covering direct transfers which were anticipated

as part of the Decentralisation Implementation process. The Evaluation Team equally noted that

the budget tracking processes implemented by partners are not linked to the planning and

budgeting process at the district levels, this does not only create disconnectedness in the budget

monitoring processes, but also brings no added value in transforming the planning and budgeting

processes to ensure quality service delivery.

Land Rights

The Land Rights thematic areas had three immediate objectives covering the selected districts and

these focused inter alia- on enhancement of the security of land tenure for poor and marginalized

men and women in both customary and state lands, building capacity of citizens to increasingly

hold land administrators accountable for equal and equitable access to land; and advocacy for the

implementation of land related gender equality and equity policies in target districts.

The main strategies adopted by MS Zambia and its partners for the Land Rights thematic area are

similar in many ways to the BLD thematic area and this includes knowledge building targeting both

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right holders and duty bearers in the implementation districts. Other strategies employed are social

research and baseline studies to generate evidence for advocacy activities, production of

Information, Education and Communication tools for awareness raising, and advocacy for policy

and legal changes. Curriculum development as well as monitoring and evaluation of land utilization

by women and youth in selected districts, complete the repertoire of strategies employed by

partners.

The evaluation findings made on the implementation of Land Rights are highlighted in this section.

It was generally observed that the Land rights programme has in some way contributed to

enhancing citizens‟ critical consciousness towards government programmes. Further, the

programme has contributed to women‟s access to land, people‟s understanding of their rights and

the need to hold government accountable for their actions. However, it was noted that partners‟

inconsistencies and inability to clearly articulate the indicators of the social changes that they

would like to achieve, has affected the measurement of results in the promotion of land rights. In

addition, the Evaluation Team opined that the current approach in addressing land rights issues is

not institutionalised and dependent on the goodwill and generosity of the Chiefs.

The limitation of this approach is that changes in leadership may affect the progress made such as

the issuance of Traditional Land Holding Certificates to women in their own right. Related to this is

the important observation made that the Traditional Land Holding Certificate (TLHC) only

guarantees security to land access but transferance of ownership through a willing seller-willing

buyer arrangement continues to be a challenge because customary land unless converted to state

land is not titled and this makes transfer difficult and insecure. The Chiefs can repossess

customary land granted to a family if there is a hint of abuse of the land or if this is transferred

without the consent of the traditional establishment. There is little evidence to suggest that a good

baseline was conducted to understand the situation on the ground and this partly explains the

sense of helplessness whenever partners have reached a dead end- e.g. when Chiefs insist that

they do not support conversion of customary land into state land. This denial affects women in

particular as they cannot use the letters of authority which they hold as collateral to access credit

and other forms of financial assistance. The evaluation findings equally point to corruption

especially bribery which continues to be a source of concern and a major barrier for access to land

by women and youth. Corruption in land administration affects both customary and state land and

this manifests in unnecessarily high costs for accessing land.

Key Lessons

The following are some of the key lessons which relate to the implementation of the three themes:

a) The lack of immediate tangible benefits of the BLD programme poses a challenge with

implementation especially in the districts where there are other organisations engaging in

service delivery or relief activities to communities. Community members would rather attend

the meetings or participate in activities of such organizations than those of MS-Zambia partners

whose programme does not offer immediate tangible benefits.

b) Partners are in some instances not targeting the right spaces or right institutions to advocate

for accountability or policy changes. For instance, FOSUP,engaged Parliament to lobby for

changes or variations in the national budget allocations to the agricultural sector. And while this

was important, there was no effort made to meet officials from the Budget Office of the Ministry

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of Finance and National Planning who are key in the preparation of the final budget. FOSUP,

would have used the information collected to lobby for changes to the manner that Budget

Office and the Ministry of Finance and National Planning made allocations to the agriculture

sector. The lesson is that success in policy advocacy can be achieved if the right decision

makers are targeted. In some instances, partners spend time lobbying institutions or individuals

who only have peripheral influence to bring about the required change.

c) Limited understanding of accountability work among the community and duty bearers. This is

coupled by a poor reading culture in many communities such that there is no guarantee that

information disseminated through pamphlets whether translated into local languages or not will

be useful. In this vein, there is need to assess the effectiveness of different methodologies for

reaching out to communities.

d) Resistance and suspicions from the duty bearers to budget tracking. The duty bearers are

instead demanding accountability from the partners before they can respond to demand-led

accountability

e) Promotion of Land Rights is a process and not an event and it is clear to all partners that for

them to succeed in their various interventions, they inevitably need to address the structural

causes of the status quo where not everyone and especially the poor and vulnerable, are able

to access land – either customary or state land for various reasons. Limited success has been

achieved primarily because partners have been content in addressing more visible issues

without necessarily dealing with the causal factors.

f) A notable success has been scored e.g. some of the women are now able to get Land

Certificates, and while this is commendable, there are still several hundreds or women out

there who desire to access and own land but are unable to for a variety of reasons including

unfavourable customs,discriminatory laws etc. While Land Holding Certificates are innovative,

some women may not access these unless the structural issues and barriers are resolved,

g) Some of the advocacy on land rights should target Ministry of Lands urging them to

decentralize land allocation processes so that process is quicker than the case is at the

moment. Inability of government to decentralize state land administrations, ignorance of

procedures on acquiring land titles, state bureaucracies and high cost (transport) associated

with securing land titles limits land security especially for state land.

Capacity Development

Partner organizations and right holders have been receiving capacity building support on two

fronts: direct training and through the People for Change (P4C) programme. Capacity building was

considered to be a key element of the programming strategy by MS. Thus, where the partnership

was found to be strategic but the capacity of a local partner limited, MS endeavored to invest in

enhancing the capacity of such a partner. Hence, capacity building has been at the core of

partnership between MS and local implementers.

On the use of Advisors and Inspirators, the P4C programme was only introduced in Zambia in

2009, and therefore is a relatively new scheme bound to face a number of challenges. Information

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gathered indicates that the new scheme which is demand driven has already been utilised by some

partners. The partners, however, have mixed views on the placement of Advisors, Inspirators and

DW. While others have clearly benefited and desire to have more of such technical support, other

organizations indicated that they reaped very little benefits if any from such placements.

List of Recommendations

1. ActionAid International Zambia should consider anchoring its governance programme on the

two themes which will remain relevant for a number of years to come, particularly that the

implementation of the devolution process of the decentralisation policy and enactment of a new

constitution, will only take place in the coming years and thus provide new opportunities for

citizens engagement;

2. A new approach implementing BLD and Land Rights interventions should be adopted and the

emphasis should shift from knowledge building or empowerment to active engagement.

Support should be provided for activities which seek to promote citizens engagement at

national and local levels. Innovation by partners in addressing BLD and LR issues, should be

promoted as this will move partners away from trying to implement generic or typical solutions

which may not necessarily address local pecularities;

3. The partnership base needs to be streamlined as the current number of 24 is too high for

effective partnership management and support. AAI Zambia will have to undertake

comprehensive capacity assessment to determine which partners to work with. However, AAI

Zambia should adopt the former MS Zambia partnership management system which is

premised on key values and common vision. This is important so that the partnership do not

simply become a donor-recipient relationship;

4. AAI Zambia should develop and maintain strategic partnerships with other cooperating partners

and development agencies and thus allow for information sharing and synergies in

implementing some interventions at both local and national levels;

5. Good baseline data should be collected and this should be used in the design of a robust

monitoring and evaluation system

6. AAI Zambia needs to fully integrate the governance programme into its operations unike the

current situation where it is apparent that there are two silos under one umbrella. For instance,

it clear that former MS Zambia silo is under the Head of Governance with little input from other

staff in AAI Zambia. These silos have to be broken and thus allow AAI Zambia to utilise the

available skills and expertise across all programmes.

7. AAI needs to develop clear MOU or addendum to MOU with partners to enable partners to

appreciate the P4Cprogramme as a capacity and institutional support to supplement the

funding support.

8. AAI Zambia should consider adopting new strategies in addressing land related gender

equality and equity policies. Unlike the approach in the current CPS where the policy gaps

insofar as land administration is concerned have not been actively addressed, AAI Zambia

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should take advantage of Government‟s intention to review the Gender Policy in order to

advocate land related gender equality and equity policies.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................................................... 2

LIST OF ACRONYMS ....................................................................................................................................... 9

1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 10

1.1. THE PROGRAMME ................................................................................................................................... 10

1.2. THE EVALUATION .................................................................................................................................... 11

1.2.1. Evaluation Methodology ................................................................................................................ 11

2.1.1. Building Local Democracy ............................................................................................................. 13

2.1.2. Land Rights .................................................................................................................................... 13

2.2. COUNTRY CONTEXT ................................................................................................................................ 14

2.3. PARTNERSHIP APPROACH ....................................................................................................................... 16

2.5. Gender Analysis and Gender mainstreaming .................................................................................. 19

3. ACHIEVEMENTS ........................................................................................................................................ 21

3.1 BUILDING LOCAL DEMOCRACY .................................................................................................................. 21

3.1.1. Observations and Lessons Learnt ................................................................................................. 25

3.2. LAND RIGHTS .......................................................................................................................................... 26

3.2.1. Observations and Lessons Learnt ................................................................................................. 29

3.3. CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................................................................ 31

4. GOOD PRACTICE & LESSONS LEARNT ................................................................................................. 33

5. LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................ 33

1. ANNEXES ............................................................................................................................................ 35

Annex 1. Terms of Reference .................................................................................................................. 35

Annex 2. Activity Schedule for MS Zambia Evaluation ........................................................................... 40

Annex 3. Lists of persons met and interviewed ....................................................................................... 42

Annex 4: Good Practices ......................................................................................................................... 46

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List of Acronyms

AADK Action Aid Denmark

AAI Action Aid International

ACC Anti Corruption Commission

ADC Area Development Committees

AVAP Anti Voter Apathy

AZIEA Alliance for Zambia Informal Economy Association

BLD Building Local Democracy

CDF Constituency Development Fund

CDFA Chongwe District Farmers Association

CPS Country Programme Strategy

CSO Civil Society Organisation

CSP Country Strategy Paper

CSPR Civil Society for Poverty Reduction

CYC Community Youth Concern

DANIDA Dannish Development Agency

DFA District Farmers Association

DW Development Worker

DWA District Women‟s Association

ELBAG Economic Literacy and Budget Accountability in Governance

FNDP Fifth National Development Plan

FOSUP Farmer Organisation Support Programme

GDP Gross Domestic Product

IEC Information, Education and Communication

IGT International Governance Team

JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency

MMD Movement for Multi Party Democracy

NCC National Constitutional Conference

NDPs National Development Plans

NGOCC Non Governmental Coordinating Council

P4C People for Change

PPMT provincial Programme Management Team

SACCORD Southern Centre for Constructive Resolution of Disputes

SNDP Sixth National Development Plan

TLHC Traditional Land Holding Certificate

TRDA Titukuke Rural Development Association

WLRP Women‟s Land Rights Project

YAZ Youth Association of Zambia

YWCA Young Women Christian Association

ZCSD Zambia Council for Social Development

ZLA Zambia Land Alliance

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1. INTRODUCTION

MS –Zambia was a part of a popular, democratic organization with its base in Danish Society

called Danish Association for International Co-operation. MS-Zambia supported development work

in Zambia since 1968 when the Danish and Zambian Governments signed an agreement of co-

operation. MS as an organization has a vision of a world where co-operation between people

promotes global equity and ensures improved conditions for poor and marginalized people.

In its mission statement, MS-Zambia engaged in cross-cultural partnerships that sought to

empower the poor at local level to improve their livelihoods. MS-Zambia worked across national

and cultural barriers seeing co-operation between people as both an aim and a means. MS-

Zambia engaged in partnerships with Zambian organizations fighting poverty and injustice. MS-

Zambia therefore ensured that partnerships identify and address causes of poverty so that the

partnerships established would have the overall objective of ensuring that poor people have real

influence on their own development.

The guiding principle of MS-Zambia in programme development was the underlying aim of

addressing empowerment for poverty eradication. MS-Zambia perceived poverty as a combination

of low income, lack of access to basic services and lack of influence on one‟s living conditions. The

critical elements in MS-Zambia‟s perception of poverty were that poor people are not able to cover

basic needs in terms of food, shelter, health, education etc; poor people often suffer from lack of

dignity, while their lives are insecure and vulnerable to risks and crisis. Apart from this, poor people

have limited access to relevant and vital knowledge and information; and more seriously, poor

people are denied their rights and are excluded from access to and control over productive

resources and to influencing the political environment.

1.1. The Programme

The Country Programme Strategy for Zambia was developed in 2007 following policy changes by

MS which saw the adoption of a new Democracy Focus Policy. This policy adopted a thematic

approach and five thematic areas were prioritized - namely Building Local Democracy, Land

Rights; Anti-Corruption; Conflict Management, and Trade Justice. For MS Zambia, two thematic

areas were selected and the CPS developed on that basis covering the period 2008 – 2011. The

thematic areas are (i) Building Local Democracy, and (ii) Promotion of Land Rights. The choice of

thematic areas conformed with the general policy guidance provided by MS Denmark in the

„Democracy Focus‟ framework of „Partnership Against Poverty‟ as the guiding strategy for all MS‟

programme work in the South.

The 2008-2011 CPS was ideally intended to build on the previous achievements scored by MS

Zambia following the successful implementation of a Danida funded thematic programme for Good

Governance and Democratisation which covered the period April 2005 and should have ended in

December 2008 but was extended to February 2009. The programme had a number of

components and one of them was the Support to Decentralisation and Participation. Under this

component, MS Zambia worked with a number of partners including the Local Government

Association of Zambia and the Decentralisation Secretariat. Additonally, MS Zambia worked with a

number of District Councils and Area Development Committees. The focus of this sub component

was on strengthening stakeholders commitment to the decentralisation process as well as

increasing general support for policy implementation especially at local levels.

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The development of the CPS was largely a participatory process, which built on lessons learned

and involved MS partner organisations and other CSO representatives as well as programme staff,

Development Workers, Policy Advisory Committee members, consultants, etc. The CPS was

subjected to an external appraisal, and an appraisal report with recommendations for each country

programme was elaborated. MS-Zambia signed partnership agreements with approximately 24

partners to directly implement the two core programmes of focus above. External thematic reviews

of the programmes within Building Local Democracy and Land Rights were undertaken in 2008

and 2009 respectively.

In September 2008, the General Assembly of MS decided that MS should proceed with the

process towards becoming an affiliate of ActionAid International. From 2010, MS was appointed by

ActionAid International to take the overall responsibility for the leadership and management of the

ActionAid theme The Right to Just and Democratic Governance. In June 2010, the affiliation of MS

was finally approved by ActionAid International‟s General Assembly, and MS became a fully-

fledged member of the ActionAid family and changed its name (in English) to ActionAid Denmark

(but maintaining Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke or MS in Danish). As a consequence of the affiliation,

the MS offices in six countries (including Zambia) were merged with ActionAid in 2010 (and the

South Sudan office was closed). The programme portfolio of MS was taken over by ActionAid in

the respective countries, and the previous MS partner organisations became ActionAid partners. In

all countries, AADK and the national ActionAid organisations have signed Cooperation

Agreements, which specify that ActionAid is responsible for fulfilling the objectives of the CPS‟s

(which have been shortened to four years and hence will run out in December 2011 concurrently

with the individual Partnership Agreements).

1.2. The Evaluation

A number of national ActionAid offices are currently in the process of reviewing their Country

Strategy Papers with the purpose of developing new 5-year strategies and programmes. During

2011, ActionAid International is developing a new global strategy, which will take effect from 2012.

It is assumed that Governance will continue to be a focal theme in the new global strategy as well

as in many new country strategies including AADK‟s own. Lessons learned from previous and

ongoing AADK supported governance programmes should preferably feed into the various strategy

development processes. It is therefore the intention of AADK – to the extent possible – to carry out

the evaluation in parallel with the CSP Reviews undertaken by the national ActionAid offices. At the

same time, the summative evaluation will serve as an important contribution to both upwards and

downwards accountability.

The main objective of the evaluation is to ensure that the lessons learned from the implementation

of the MS Country Programme Strategies are collected and analysed. The information will serve as

documentation to the back donor Danida and as strategic learning points for AAI/IGT as well as for

the individual ActionAid organisations in the countries of cooperation. The evaluation will also be

used as an input in the appraisal of new programmes proposed for AADK funding and contribute to

the overall evaluation of all AADK activities scheduled for the last quarter of 2011.

1.2.1. Evaluation Methodology

The evaluation methodology was mainly qualitative and involved the review of literature and

secondary programme documents and this was complemented by interviews, Focus Group

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Discussions and meetings with various stakeholders including former MS Zambia Programme

staff, ActionAid International Zambia staff, District Commissioners, local government officials,

Traditional leaders, NGO partners and right holders. Information and data on progress made in the

CPS was collected through these methods and triangulated where possible. The itinerary is

appended as Annex 2 and a List of Persons met is appended as Annex 3.

The assessment of progress has been conducted by examining the various activities implemented

under each immediate objective and determining whether the intended results have been

achieved. Reference has been made to the official monitoring reports, annual thematic reflections

as well as information obtained from partners during the evaluation process.

Observations/conclusions are made by the Evaluation Team and key lessons documented.

The Evaluation Team comprised Rueben Lifuka (Team Leader), Stuart Nsana (Consultant), Joyce

Laker (Resource Person and East Africa Coordinator of the International Governance Team of

ActionAid International), Madhu Pokhrel (Resource Person and Programme Officer in AAI Nepal

and former MS Nepal staff) and Karen Jørgensen (Resource Person and representative of AADK).

The Team was ably supported by Pamela Chisanga, Humphrey Elekani and Maurice Nyambe all

of AAI-Zambia. The evaluation exercise was conducted from 17 April until May 6 2011.

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2. PROGRAMME STRATEGY AND DESIGN 2.1 Country Programme Strategy

The CPS was designed to primarily contribute to efforts to address the structural causes of poverty

in Zambia which currently stands at over 60%. MS Zambia recognised at the time that poverty was

higher in rural areas than in the urban ones and was also highest among female-headed

households. An overview of the two thematic areas is presented in the following sections:

2.1.1. Building Local Democracy

The CPS proposes strategies for the attainment of what are referred to as „quick wins‟ which

include possible improvements in service delivery in the target areas, manifested in increased

expenditure on education facilities, health services, water and sanitation facilities. Under BLD,

emphasis was placed on provision of support to local CSOs in implementing systematic

educational and advocacy activities as a way of mobilising greater citizen influence on local

govenance in the target districts in the three provinces namely Luapula, Eastern and Lusaka. The

second approach was the provision of support to strategic CSO partners at the national level with

the responsibility to drive robust nation wide lobby and advocacy campaigns that will promote

issues such as decentralisation, public finance accountability, and transparency in governance.

BLD was also designed to support initiatives that strengthen the opportunities for women and youth

to influence decision-makers, and that ensure that their fundamental rights to political and

economic participation are guaranteed. A particular focus was placed on supporting youth and

women‟s access to consultative forums in the target areas, since these two groups are often

especially disenfranchised and marginalised.

2.1.2. Land Rights

For Land Rights, the consideration made was that the current land administration arrangements in

Zambia, for both rural and urban poor, the majority of whom are women and youth, do not

generally provide for security of tenure. Some of the key reasons for the insecure tenure include

inadequate policy guidelines, and a weak legal and institutional framework for land administration

and adjudication. Many of the urban poor live in squatter compounds with very limited services

such as electricity, water and sanitation. In rural areas, women are among the majority who live in

fear of being evicted from their customary land holdings, partly because well-off people can acquire

their land for conversion to leasehold and evict them. In addition, the vulnerability of these poor

women, men and youths is exacerbated by the fact that they are simply unaware of their tenure

insecurity or their rights.

MS-Zambia elected to work in both rural and urban areas, as land rights for the poor is an issue in

both, especially that approximately 50% of Zambia‟s population live in urban areas. The need to

strengthen security of tenure for the urban and rural poor is based on the premise that exclusion

from land rights is one of the root causes of poverty. Land rights enhance social status and self-

esteem, which are among the empowering dimensions for poor people. Moreover, women‟s control

over land leads to increased productivity and household income that enables them to spend on the

education of children, health care and food. Enhancement of land rights is planned to be achieved

through strengthening communities and civil society by a) to engage in lobbying and advocacy for

equitable, pro-poor and gender sensitive land policies and laws, and b) to strengthen

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administration of customary land to include more democratic procedures in land allocation and

protection of land rights for the poor, women and youths, through a variety of modalities.

Two focus areas for MS Zambia identified in the CPS are building local democracy and land rights.

The MS-Zambia Country Programme Strategy had no 20% category. The Building Local

Democracy component took up 70% of the budget, while the Land Rights component accounted

for the remaining 30%. The rationale for this decision was based on the fact that the environment

in Zambia favours building local democracy in terms of introducing more direct participation for

target groups in democratic processes. Utilising this opportunity meant that there were no

resources for the 20% category. An overview of the immediate objectives of the two thematic areas

is presented in Table 1 below:

Table 1: Overview of the objectives of the thematic areas

No. Thematic Area Immediate Objectives

1 Building Local

Democracy (BLD)

a) Citizens‟ influence of local government for improved pro-poor

service delivery in target districts enhanced by 2011.

b) Gender equality and equity in decision-making structures

enhanced in target districts by 2011

c) Youth‟s influence on relevant public institutions in target districts

enhanced by 2011

d) Empowered citizens effectively articulating, influencing and

monitoring national policies for the benefit of local communities

by 2011

2. Land Rights a) Security of land tenure for poor and marginalised men and

women in both customary and state lands enhanced in target

districts by 2011

b) Citizens increasingly holding land administrators accountable

for equal and equitable access to land for poor and

marginalised citizens in target districts by 2011

c) Implementation of land related gender equality and equity

policies in target districts enhanced by 2011

2.2. Country Context

The country context justifies the choice of strategic themes under the CPS. The features in the

operating environment which are of specific influence on the implementation of the CPS include

the following:

Zambia remains a multi-party democracy which recognises and upholds the freedoms of

expression and association. However, there are still a number of governance challenges

especially at the local level, one of the challenges which the country has not sufficiently

addressed for the past 20 years has been the issue of citizen participation in both the political

and development process. While most Zambians clearly are in a position to speak out more

freely regarding development matters, the government has not done much to put in place a

structured system for channeling citizen voices and addressing their concerns.

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Corruption remains rampant especially in the public sector, notwithstanding several legal

changes which Government has instituted to promote transparency and accountability in the

utilisation of public resources. This in part, has given impetus social accountability initiatives

mostly driven by civil society to promote transparency and accountability at national and local

levels in the manner that public resources are expended. Such social accountability inititaives

are informal and dependent on the full support of volunteers. Community mobilisation to

participate in social accountability is a crucial element which needs consistent involvement of

strategic partners such as the former MS Zambia partners;

In terms of economic governance, the country has been pursuing National Development Plans

(NDPs) to guide its economic programme, primarily centred around reducing high poverty

levels in the country. During the most part of the MS Zambia CSP, the Fifth National

Development Plan (FNDP) was in force. The FNDP was expected to run for a five year period

until 2010. This plan has since been replaced with a Sixth National Development Plan (SNDP)

launched in 2011. The country has consistently sustained Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

growth of around 5% since 2003. Agricultural production in the past two farming seasons has

been on the increase to the extent that surpluses were recorded. In addition there has been

increased volume of tourism revenue, copper exports and a boom in the construction industry

during the past five years. Furthermore, the country during the past three years has managed

to attain unprecedented single digit inflation oscillating between 8 and just under 10 percent

(CSO 2010).

Rural poverty is much higher at a staggering 78% compared to 53% in urban areas. There are

significant variations in intensity of poverty among social strata and across geographical areas.

Poor rainfall patterns, inadequate inputs for agriculture and a general deficiency in social

services have all conspired to make rural poverty a real challenge. Poverty is particularly higher

among female-headed households at 69% compared to 66% in male-headed households.1

About 75% of women are illiterate, against 65% of men; women contribute 70% of their labour

to agricultural production and yet they have no control over their labour. Women are also

disadvantaged by a lack of equal access to resources such as information, credit, land,

technology and decision-making. Furthermore, women generally lack legal protection against

discriminatory practices under the dual legal system being practiced in Zambia.

Land has only become a debatable issue in Zambia in the past 20 years. Prior to 1991, land

was largely considered not to be an economic asset and could be exchanged for close to

nothing. The economic liberalization policies introduced after 1991 brought land issues to the

fore and were first apparent in the 1995 Lands Act. The administration of state land in Zambia

is centralised and bureaucratic; the 1995 Lands Act has vested all land in the President and

only the Commissioner of Lands is entrusted with the mandate to allocate state land.. Lack of

transparency, accountability and over-centralisation of decision-making in the process of

issuing certificates of leasehold title in state land are among the major causes of corruption in

administration of state land. The prevalence of corruption is also largely explained by

weaknesses in the land alienation procedures. The complexities of the land problems in

Zambia require a multi-interventional approach in order to address them.

1 ibid

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2.3. Partnership Approach

The MS Zambia CPS emphasises the central role that strategic, national and local partners play in

the implementation of the two programme components. MS Zambia has had previous success in

working with local and national partners and it is this experience that influenced the organisation to

decide to continue working with national and local partners. For each thematic area (and sub-

theme), MS Zambia has selected long-term partners who can deliver results towards the

immediate objectives identified, and to create linkages between the local/grassroots level through

to the national level where policy influence is expected.

Starting with the implementation of the 2002 to 2006 policy paper, the MS-Zambia country

programme has been limited to three provinces namely – Eastern, Luapula, and Lusaka Provinces.

Given the overall MS focus on poverty reduction, and in the light of the present national poverty

profile, the target areas have continued to be Luapula, Eastern and Lusaka Provinces for the 2008

– 2011 Country Programme Strategy. Luapula and Eastern because they are still among the

poorest provinces, and Lusaka because of the need to address urban poverty, as indicated in the

2006 MS-Zambia Country Programme Assessment. Its partners will include those NGOs, unions,

associations and other groups that have sought to articulate the needs of the poor in these areas.

The former MS Zambia Programme has 11 focus districts namely: Kawambwa, Mansa and Samfya

in Luapula Province; Chadiza, Chipata, Nyimba, Petauke in Eastern Province; and Chongwe,

Luangwa, Kafue and Lusaka in Lusaka Province. MS Zambia and its partners have targeted local

authorities in most of the 11 focus districts especially in terms of monitoring the use of

Constituency Development Fund (CDF) at ward and constituency levels.

MS Zambia has been working with 24 partners and these are either national or local partners. The

partners can be grouped into three categories: 9 district local partners implementing activities at

community level, 6 District Farmers Associations and 9 national partners who have a more national

constituency and influence processes at national level. It is important to note that the selection of

partners for this CPS, was influenced in part by the decision of MS DK towards the end of 2008 not

have direct partnerships with government institutions. The implication of this is that MS Zambia, for

the 2008-2011 CPS, did not maintain its partnerships with District Councils, Areas Development

Committees, the Dencentralisation Secretariats and the Local Government Association of Zambia.

However, MS Zambia worked in some areas, where it previously worked- for instance in Kafue and

Petauke, and it was intended that the local partners including District Farmers Associations, will

work closely with the District Councils and existing ADCs. Table 2 provides an overview of the

partner organisations and their areas of focus.

17 | P a g e

Table 2: Partner Organisations and areas of focus

No. Theme District/Local

Partners

District Farmers

Associations

National Partners

1. Building Local

Democracy

CYC, Luapula

PPMT, AZIEA,

Caritas Lusaka,

Mansa DWA

Nyimba

Chongwe

Youth Association

of Zambia, Young

Women in Action,

CSPR, ZCSD,

SACCORD,

FOSUP, AVAP

2. Land Rights Mansa District Land

Alliance

Petauke District

Land Alliance

Kawambwa

Mansa

Zambia Land

Alliance,

3. BLD and Land Rights Caritas Mansa,

Titukuke Rural

Development

Association

Chadiza

Chipata

4. Cross cutting issues

(Gender)

YWCA

The following are key points on the selection and relevance of partners that MS Zambia worked

with in implementing the CPS:

It is evident that the 24 partners have different levels of capacity to implement the CPS

activities. Some of the partners have previously worked with MS Zambia, while others were

selected for this specific CPS. This mixed portfolio of new and old partners certainly had its

advantages- i.e. MS Zambia was not entirely starting off with a group of implementation

partners who were new to its programme approach. The old set of partners allowed MS

Zambia to take on board new and exciting partners who nonetheless needed more time to

fully align with the MS Zambia CPS. The downside to this mixed portfolio is the varying

institutional capacities of partners which translated into demands for more support from

Programme Officers as well as frequent monitoring and evaluation. The staff complement in

terms of Programme staff, was limited and therefore MS Zambia had limitations to the kind

of hands on support that it could provide to its partners.

The phasing out of the District Councils partnerships and subsequent single focus on

demand side partnerships with organisations like the DFAs whose remit is not mainstream

governance work, denied MS Zambia an opportunity to continue working directly with duty

bearers and thus enhance their capacity to be accountable in the discharge of public

functions. It should be recognised however that some DFAs have performed above

expectations although it would have been prudent for MS Zambia to continue to build on

existing partnerships especially with the duty bearers – developed during previous country

strategies, especially in districts like Kafue and Petauke.

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The choice of partners in some instances, was based on convenience rather than suitability

for the task. MS Zambia, in some instances, settled for partners who it had previously

worked with and thus knew its approach to programme implementation, although these

partners in the new CSP, were assigned to components which were not necessarily their

core areas of work. District Farmers Associations (DFAs) for example, were selected to

undertake BLD activities and while governance issues cut across sectors, these

Associations went into an area which took them slightly away from their known core areas

of competencies. And while a good number of them performed relatively well, it is evident

that these Associations had to put in extra work to learn new concepts and ways of

working. In fact, most DFAs did not use this opportunity of working on BLD to promote the

interests of their respective constituencies e.g. the farming community but instead

approached BLD in a generic fashion;

Given the limited institutional and technical capacities of some partners as well as the fact

that some of the selected partners were working in areas outside their core competencies,

24 partners is a huge number for effective partnership management and capacity

development purposes. This is a view confirmed by the former MS Zambia Country Director

who indicated that MS Zambia had too many partners, though the country programme had

a limited budget, and this put pressure on Programme Officers who were expected to

regularly monitor and support these partners.”

MS in its modus operandi seeks to work in partnership with local organisations in

implementing its programmes. It was evident however that there is a difference in the

understanding of what partnership entails. For some local organisations, they still

considered MS Zambia as a donor and themselves as recipients with limited capacity to

have equal relationship. The different interpretation of partnership affects the manner in

which rights and obligations are shared.

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2.5. Gender Analysis and Gender mainstreaming

The MS-Zambia programme strategy identifies two main themes to work namely „Building Local

Democracy‟ and „Land Rights‟ – with „Gender‟ and „Anti-Corruption‟ as cross-cutting issues. The

CPS focuses on, primarily strengthening local democracy by promoting people‟s participation in

governance processes. The CPS includes objectives which seek to address the various gender

concerns as well as reflects gender sensitive indicators in the Logical Framework Matrix. The key

national development problem can be related to the low participation of the poor, women and

youths in the country‟s governance structures, especially at the local level. In this way this category

are severely constrained in their access to, and control over, productive resources – particularly

land. This position of low participation of women and youth in governance, was equally a challenge

that had to be addressed in nearly all the MS Zambia implementation areas A number of training

activities were conducted under selected operational objectives.

Box 1: Key lessons on the Partnership Approach

a) Partner organisations should commit themselves to building a partnership which is anchored on

common values and results. In some instances, the local organisations do not see themselves

as partners who have key roles to play in making the partnership succeed. Local organisations

therefore considered MS Zambia as a donor rather than a partner.

b) Although the evaluation did not extend to assessing the capacities of the partners, it‟s evident

that the most of the partners still need variety of capacity development. For some partners, it

was observed that during the evaluation that these need a bit more hand-holding through

processes like mentoring, as well as provision of strategic and technical support to implement

activities.

c) The concept of flexibility previously applied by MS Zambia to facilitate flexible funding and

transfer of fund as well as implementation of activities, has instilled in some partners, a lack of

accountability and taking the use of donor funding for granted. AAIZ has recognised this

challenge and measures have been instituted to address this, except of course that there are

challenges both internally and with partners in understanding why this kind of flexibility has to be

managed

d) Sufficient time was needed for partners to understand and appreciate the ”Triangular

relationship” involving MS Zambia Programme staff, national and local and partners. The old set

of partners had the benefit of having worked with MS Zambia – some have been partners for

over three years and this means that they are fully conversant with the working methods of MS

Zambia, the reporting requirements, funding modes etc. The same cannot be said for the new

partners and it was evident that some of the partners were only getting to understand how MS

Zambia operates, after one year of partnership.

e) AAI Zambia should consider continuing with the Partnership approach as it enhances ownership

of the outcomes at local levels. However, it is inevitable that AAI Zambia reconsiders the

selection criteria of partners and ensure that partners are selected on merit rather than

convenience. Further, the partnership approach should have a strong component for core or

institutional support including capacity development in key areas of governance and programme

management.

20 | P a g e

Gender analysis and gender mainstreaming, for most partners was largely confined to gender

balancing with attempts made by partners to ensure equal attendance of women at events and

other implementation activities. There is little information to demonstrate a systematic process of

gender analysis at programme design and implementation. Similarly, while some performance

indicators are gender sensitive, the periodic monitoring reports do not necessarily provide gender

disagreggated data. MS Zambia has not had a full time Gender Specialist on its staff and this in

part could be the explaination for the challenges faced in gender analysis and mainstreaming

compounded by the inadequate technical capacity among grant partners. It is should be pointed

out however that in the period prior to this CPS, MS Zambia had some DWs who were assigned

gender analysis and advisory tasks. Gender mainstreaming generally misunderstood as mere

increased participation of women as opposed to a thorough analysis of structural causes of

disempowerment.

21 | P a g e

3. ACHIEVEMENTS

The MS Zambia Programme has been under implementation since 2008 and generally this

process has been on track and the only period of delay experienced by partners was the

immediate period following the merger in July 2010. In 2010, partners signed addenda to their

partnership agreements, essentially giving their consent for partnership management to be

transferred to ActionAid following the merger of MS-Zambia and ActionAid. It follows therefore that

Action Aid successfully adopted 24 partners from MS-Zambia. Despite the challenges with regard

to late disbursements of partner allocation owing to different partnership management principles

between ActionAid and the former MS-Zambia, the programme has made steady progress in the

implementation of the CPS.

The challenges of the merger notwithstanding, MS Zambia and its partners scored a moderate to

good score in terms of achievements. Partly, the Government‟s non implementation of the

Decentralisation as well as the National Land Policies did affect the attainment of all set targets.

Some of the interventions planned were premised on the successful implementation of key

policies. The evaluation report outlines some of the achievements and summarises key lessons

which can inform further programming by ActionAid International Zambia in the development of its

Country Strategy Paper.

3.1 Building Local Democracy

The following section outlines the achievements or outcomes attained for each of the four

immediate objectives. Conclusions are reached based on the review of official documents,

partners‟ views and Evaluation Team‟s analysis.

Immediate Objective 1

Citizens‟ influence of local government for improved pro-poor service delivery in target districts

enhanced by 2011.

This objective had a total of 7 outputs and covered a whole range of activities starting with training

activities on various topics including mobilisation, lobbying and advocacy, and human rights. Other

training activities focused on leadership development and on specialised topics like levy tracking

for stakeholders working on accountability measures for the Market Levy as provided for in the

Market Act. In addition to training, MS Zambia and its partners conducted research on the CDF as

well as execution of simple surveys to gather evidence for use in various advocacy activities

especially on the use of local and decentralised funds. Advocacy materials development was

another key activity under this objective and both local and national partners were involved in this

exercise. Sensitisation meetings and policy dialogues were held involving different stakeholders

mainly focused on the utilisation and monitoring of CDF in the target districts. Partners in this

thematic area, were involved in activities that promoted the participation of CSOs as well as

marginalised groups of women and youth in district and local level governance and development

structures like the District Development Coordinating Committees as well as the District Agriculture

Committees. Other structures include the Camp Agriculture Committees and Area Development

Committees. The last set of activities involved awareness raising through the use of different media

including community radio as well as the production and distribution of newsletters, posters and

22 | P a g e

fliers carrying key advocacy messages around the use of public funds as well as citizens

participation in the development processes at local and district levels.

The immediate objective has two result areas - firstly, there is an assessment of the effectiveness

of the methods adopted to empower citizens to influence local government and secondly, the

quality of the results achieved due to the influencing work of citizens. For the first result area, there

is sufficient information which demonstrates that MS Zambia and its partners sucessfully

implemented a number of citizens empowerment and knowledge building activities focussing on

local governance processes, management of decentralised public funds like CDF, and Market Act

and its prescribed levies. Community leaders, duty bearers, right holders and informal economy

actors in the target districts participated in the various empowerment training activities. There is no

indication from the Rolling Plans, how many people were targeted for the various training activities,

and similarly, the Annual Thematic Reports highlight the training activities although there is no

clear indication as to the total number of people trained.

In terms of citizens engagement, a lot of the results presented by MS Zambia and the partners are

not necessarily direct but rather indirect results. The emphasis in most instances was on

empowerment and the downstream activities were a consequence of the empowerment although

at the behest of the beneficiaries themselves. The results do show that in some of the

communities, there is now an awakening and a realisation on the need to participate in various

local level development processes especially as these relate to the utilisation of CDF. MS Zambia

acknowledges that a number of the public accountability activities implemented by its partners

were seemingly biased towards CDF tracking. And the rationale for this is that CDF represents the

most visible (and most abused) development revenue that government disburses to all

constituencies. It is important to mention that some of the partners like ZCSD having been

conducting Budget Tracking at district level for funds disbursed to deconcentrated ministries like

Health and Education. There was information presented and confirmed during the evaluation

process which points to some changes that are taking place in the District Development

Coordinating Committees as a result of increased participation of MS Zambia partners and other

stakeholders.

Immediate Objective 2:

Gender equality and equity in decision-making structures enhanced in target districts by 2011

The main activities implemented for this objective are essentially training of men, women and

young people from the beneficiary communities. A whole range of topics were covered in these

training events including leadership development, local governance, lobbying and advocacy skills

among others. Partners like YWCA held community meetings in Rufunsa, where communities were

sensitized on issues of gender based violence, early marriages and early pregnancies. TRDA held

a sensitization awareness meeting on the knowledge of the legal system in Zambia among women,

and the options they have to address pressing issues such as gender-based violence. It is

important to note that the training events only tackled a few aspects of gender equality and equity

like gender based violence. Additionally, community meetings and sensitisation events were

organised targeting not just right holders but included duty bearers such as traditional leaders..

There are some partners who managed to set up paralegal desks in their respective areas to

address cases of gender inequalities among others.

23 | P a g e

The intended results under this objective is the enhancement of gender equality and equity in

decision making. Some of the results recorded include the increase in the number of women and

men who are aware of gender issues and can relate to these in their day-to-day situation; action

groups have been set up in communities; and the establishment of paralegal desks as a support

mechanism for citizens who seek legal redress. Some indirect results which have been reported

but cannot be attributed to the MS Zambia CPS activities include the ascendancy to positions of

power by some of the women who participated in MS Zambia partners‟ training activities. Mansa is

cited as a good example where community members that underwent leadership training are now

aspiring for leadership positions in Cooperative groups, Parents Teachers Association

Committees, Camp Agricultural Committees and other village committees.

Clearly, the activities conducted by the partners while important, were not sufficient enough to

directly bring about the desired changes in decision making. MS Zambia, in its 2010 Annual Report

acknowledges this point and indicates that the activities implemented under this objective yielded

marginal impacts, particularly in relation to the specific indicators outlined. The emphasis of the

activities under this objective was capacity building and while this is important, it is not an active

way of bringing about gender equality and equity. There are design deficits as well – for instance,

there was very little focus on the structural factors that promote gender inequality and inequity in

decision making. Partners would have done well to conduct some form of research to understand

the obstacles to gender equality and equity in decision making in their respective areas and

thereafter develop an intervention programme which recognises these pecularities. One of the

indicators of success focuses on the number of traditional leaders demonstrating understanding of

gender equity issues but there are no activities to suggest help partners gather information on what

traditional leaders know and their attitudes/beliefs on gender equity issues. It is apparent that

generic activities were implemented across the board notwithstanding the peculiar circumstances

that may characterise different ethnic groups. The absence of a full time Gender Expert on the MS

Zambia Programme team for a good part of the implementation of the CPS, could be one of the

reasons for the marginal achievement on this objective coupled with lack of capacity at partner

organisation level.

Immediate Objective 3:

Youth‟s influence on relevant public institutions in target districts enhanced by 2011

The general approach adopted by the partners for this objective was the same as for all other

objectives and a lot of training including civic education trainings were conducted, educational talks

were given in schools on various topics such as the Decentralisation Process, the National Youth

Policy, Educational Policy among others. Additionally, awareness raising events on children‟s

rights were organised by some the partners. Similarly school debates were held as one way of

getting the youths to actively participate in the sensitisation processes. Theatre performances were

also used to reach out to the community and the youth in the implementation districts.

The main response to the activities implemented by partner organisation in the different target

districts, has been formation of structures. In Nyimba Youth Village Clubs as forums for youth

participation in decision making, have equally been formed. While in other areas, Youth Groups

24 | P a g e

targeting Economic Empowerment Funds were set up. There is very little evidence to demonstrate

integration of youths in existing structures where their influence can come to bear. There is no

evidence to suggest that youths, for instance, have started to engage actively in the local

authorities planning and budgeting proceses where youth priorities can be reflected. Only Nyimba

reports the participation of youths in council meetings albeit as observers and further, in the same

district, local advocacy initiatives have been launched to improve the viability and accessibility of

the school bursary schemes which are specifically mentioned as a policy measure in the National

Youth Policy.

The outputs designed for this objective refer to the qualitative changes that occur once the

objective has been achieved. For example one output refers to youth knowledgeable and enjoying

their rights in target districts. It is evident from the information provided during the evaluation that a

number of youths benefitted from different knowledge building activities and it can safely be said

that they have acquired the necessary knowledge on their rights. However, there little to show that

as a result of the implementation of the CPS, youths have started to enjoy their rights. This can be

a long term process and possibly, partners have planted a seed which will take time to germinate

in some areas for a variety of reasons. It is clear therefore that some of the activities implemented

under this objective, were based on a number of assumptions which are totally outside the control

of the partners and may affect the quality of results achieved by partners in the long run.

Immediate Objective 4:

Empowered citizens effectively articulating, influencing and monitoring national policies for the

benefit of local communities by 2011

There were four outputs for this objective and these primarily focused on creating awareness of

citizens through civic education, popularisation of government pro-poor policies. Further, the

collaboraton of national NGOs was prioritised as well as support for lobbying activities of national

NGOs on specific pro-poor policies.Some of the outstanding activities under this objective include

the joint CSO collaborative work on the national constitutional review process led by ActionAid

International Zambia. Other notable activities including policy advocacy work. For instance, AZIEA

managed to advocate for changes in the management of the Market Levy in Lusaka, while AVAP

equally contributed to the advocacy for an increase in the minimum wages for non-unionised

workers. FOSUP equally made submissions to the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and

Lands, suggesting among other things agricultural budget improvements for 2011.

The challenge with results reported under this objective is the ’attribution of credit’. The national

partners that MS Zambia has been working with like CSPR, receive funding from several sources

and MS Zambia was just one among these. The capacity that the organisation has developed to

engage in processes such as the SNDP has been over a long period of time and this cannot

directly be attributed to the support of MS Zambia alone. Additionally, there is very little recognition

of the reasons for Government making vital policy changes such as the increase in the minimum

wages for non-unionised workers including domestic workers. This particular result has seen so

many organisations claiming credit for it including the trade unions. While the contribution of AVAP

in this instance cannot be doubted, there are several other factors at play which are not adequately

captured in the monitoring reports of MS Zambia. It is evident that most of the performance

indicators have not been fully met. For instance, there is still a weak linkage between district CSOs

25 | P a g e

and national partners in terms of advocacy on national issues. While the district partners have

been able to identify a number of challenges affecting Building Local Democracy, these issues

have not fully been raised at the national level. Chipata DFA, as an example, has engaged in a

process of developing revised CDF guidelines - these guidelines if adopted by the local authority

will bring about improvements in the manner that CDF is managed. These changes, however, are

not only important for Chipata but the rest of the districts in Zambia which receive CDF. Chipata

DFA however, still considers this activity as a local one and not one that should be escalated to a

national advocacy campaign.

3.1.1. Observations and Lessons Learnt

A number of observations and lessons learnt are presented in this section. This arises from the

analysis of the Evaluation Team and the confirmation of issues by partners including ActionAid

International Zambia through the debriefing process.

Key Observations

a) The BLD programme largely focuses on empowering citizens rather than a comprehensive

governance programming which balances citizen‟s empowerment, citizen‟s engagements with

duty bearers, and duty bearer‟s accountability This presents a tremendous gap in addressing

the governance challenges in Zambia and limits the opportunity for MS/AAI and partners to

contribute to promoting just and democratic governance in Zambia

b) Acceptance and provision of information for effective social audits/budget tracking is still very

low among some duty bearers

c) Duty bearers (the supply side) have been left out of the BLD interventions in this CPS. For

instance the Decentralization Secretariat, which MS Zambia previously worked with, is no

longer directly involved in BLD work. The lack of active engagement with an important entity

like the Decentralisation Secretariat, was a disadvantage for MS Zambia as it no longer had an

opportunity to directly influence the implementation of the Decentralisation Policy although the

Decentralisation Secretariat did endeavour to participate in some of the BLD activities

whenever invited. Other duty bearers like District Commissioners, expressed ignorance on the

nature of activities that MS Zambia partners are implementing and they were also not sure of

the role that stakeholders like MS Zambia and its partners, expect them to play in achieving the

CPS results. This omission is as a result of the deliberate approach adopted for the programme

to focus more on empowerment of right holders as opposed to that of duty bearers in order for

them to respond to the needs of right holders. This notwithstanding, a more balanced approach

would have yielded much better results than what has been reported.

d) BLD was designed on the assumption that the implementation of the National Decentralisation

Policy would proceed in a timely manner. However, it is apparent that there is lack of political

will to decentralize and this delay, unfortunately affected the general approach that some of the

partners took in implementing their BLD activities. For instance, for partners involved in budget

tracking, they could not track direct transfer of funds for development at a district level as this is

only going to be done once the decentralisation implementation process takes off. Partners,

therefore had to concentrate on tracking other sector budgets in its work.

26 | P a g e

e) The budget tracking processes are not linked to the planning and budgeting process at the

district levels, this does not only create disconnectedness in the budget monitoring processes,

but also brings no value added in transforming the planning and budgeting processes to ensure

quality service delivery,

f) The partners are working in isolation of strategic government departments like the district

planning unit and the council. Although MS programming did not target duty bearers,

accountability work can never isolate the state as the first duty bearer.. MS Zambia has

previous working experience with District Planning Units but this experience does not show in

the implementation of the current CPS.

g) The lack of immediate tangible benefits of the BLD programme poses a challenge with

implementation especially in the districts where there are other organisations engaging in service

delivery or relief activities to communities. Community members would rather attend the meetings

of such organizations than those of MS-Zambia partners whose programme does not offer

immediate tangible benefits. However, despite these expressed sentiments, MS Zambia‟s approach

is a Rights Based one which is intended to empower communities and not service delivery.

3.2. Land Rights

The following section outlines the achievements or outcomes attained for each of Land Rights

immediate objectives. Conclusions are reached based on the review of official documents,

partners‟ views and Evaluation Team‟s analysis. The main partners working on Land Rights

include the ZLA and its member affiliates such as the District Land Alliances in Chongwe,

Chadiza, Chipata, Petauke, Mansa and Nyimba. Other partners who actively worked on this theme

include Kawambwa and Mansa District Farmers Associations.

Box 3: BLD - Key lessons

a) Members of Parliament still have a lot of influence in administration of CDF and this in part can

be due to weak guidelines which do not prescribe necessary checks and balances to the use of

the funds. The CDF is the only fund where Members of Parliament play a dual role of

receipients and overseers of the discharge of executive functions as required by the law.

b) Partners are in some instances not targeting the right spaces for accountability. For instance,

FOSUP engaged Parliament lobbying for changes or variations in the agricultural sector budget.

And while this was important, there was no effort made to meet officials from the Budget Office

of the Ministry of Finance and National Planning who are key in the preparation of the fnal

budget;

c) MS/AAI seems to have provided limited technical support to partners to reflect on the power

relations, conduct stakeholders analysis and identify the right spaces for engagements. Partly,

this is due to the weak manner in partners generally have utilised the Advisors and Inspirators

facility.

d) Limited understanding of accountability work among the community and duty bearers. This is

coupled by a poor reading culture in many communities such that there is no guarantee that

information disseminated through pamphlets whether translated into local languages or not will

be useful. In this vein, there is need to assess the effectiveness of different methodologies for

reaching out to communities.

e) Resistance and suspicions from the duty bearers to budget tracking. The duty bearers are

instead demanding accountability from the partners before they can respond to demand-led

accountability

27 | P a g e

Immediate Objective 1:

Security of land tenure for poor and marginalised men and women in both customary and state

lands enhanced in target districts by 2012

The main activities of this objective involved evidence gathering through baseline studies, training

of stakeholders including duty bearers, production of IEC and other knowledge building materials

and advocacy for changes in the policy and laws related to land administration at national and local

levels. Other activities under this objective included the preparation of customary land guidelines

for land acquisition. The partners were equally involved in reviewing and improving land rights

curriculum as well as developing training manuals. Community sensitisation on the draft national

land policy, sources of land conflicts and land acquisition proceses was conducted for different

stakeholders including small scale farmers.

The results scored thus far indicate that a number of key deliverables were achieved. For instance,

Petauke District Land Alliance managed to conduct a Baseline survey and this was signifcant as it

revealed the absence of written guidelines in the customary land administration process as well as

the absence of clearly outlined land allocation structures at both village and chiefdom level.

Petauke DLA introduced innovative approach in its quest to help secure land rights of poor citizens

in the district through the introduction of the Model Village Concept. Traditionally, land allocation in

Petauke District was done without documentation which resulted into many field boundary disputes

among the Nsenga people. The Model Village concept aims to legitimize ownership of customary

through issuance of Traditional Land Holding Certificates (TLHC). The certificate has the

description of the land owner, and is endorsed by the headperson, and the area Chief. At the time

of the evaluation, over 250 people had obtained these certificates and there was interest from

other Chiefs for Petauke DLA to help them develop similar documentation in their jurisdiction.The

Evaluation Team learnt that some of the Chiefs in Mansa, Mkushi and Luangwa districts, for

example, had started issuing these letters not only to men but women as well.

ZLA set up a national Civil Society Land Policy Review Committee which developed a strategy and

position paper to lobby the National Constitution Conference for the inclusion of a land and

property chapter of the proposed republican constitution. Generally, it is reported that there is

increased awareness on land rights among communities and as a result there is a growing number

of land dispute cases related to displacements and encroachments that have been reported to the

ZLA and DLA offices and other paralegal organisations.

It is evident from the information provided that under this objective, MS Zambia /AAI Zambia and

the partner organisations have been active in knowledge and capacity building of different

stakeholders. And while this has had its successes, there are still several challenges noted by the

partners in the course of implementation of interventions including entrenched cultures and norms

which limit access to and control over land. The approaches adopted by partners are based on the

assumption that once empowered with knowledge and skills, the community including women will

rise up and demand for their land rights. This approach is long term in nature in order for results to

be achieved and it is for this reason that the number of women for instance accessing land and

obtaining Letter of Authority or Certificate, is still low. Further, the partners did not do well in linking

women who have land but have limited economic means to use this land productively. This

situation can be discouraging as women score one success only to face other barriers which

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disadvantages them. Partners needed to develop a holistic approach especially in addressing

women‟s land rights issues and one way is to establish strategic partnerships with economic

empowerment institutions that can work with the women and local communities related to

livelihoods.

Immediate Objective 2:

Citizens increasingly holding land administrators accountable for equal and equitable access to

land for poor and marginalised citizens in target districts by 2012

In implementing the stated objective, the MS Zambia partners including the Women‟s Land Rights

Project (WLRP) conducted research on various ‟hot land issues‟, and conducted training for

various stakeholders including, paralegals, community leaders and members. Additionally, the

partners carried out sensitisation activities focusing on various aspects of land rights and land

administration. Some of the results highlighted in the MS Zambia 2010 Annual Report include the

work of the WLRP which succeeded in holding dialogues with 6 Chiefs and at least 300 women; 50

under each Chiefdom. Additionally, WLRP conducted intensive gender analysis which underscored

the point that women still lag behind in land allocation even in matrilineal set-ups where

progressive Chiefs have instructed village headpersons to follow the 30% land allocation provided

for in the National Gender Policy to women especially in Kapiri-Mposhi and Mkushi districts.

ZLA and WLRP organized a meeting for Chiefs from project sites and some MPs serving on the

gender, agriculture and lands sub-committees of Parliament to discuss women‟s land rights. The

committee adopted some of the submissions as indicated in the second report of the Fourth

Session of the Tenth National Assembly. Adopted submissions included the need for empowering

Chiefs to be issuing traditional certificates for land ownership in customary areas. Another

submission adopted was for Ministry of Lands to undertake a comprehensive land audit and for

government to change legislation to provide for land earlier converted from customary to leasehold

to revert to customary tenure where there is evidence that the land in question is not being used for

the purposes for which it was converted. Another significant result is that ZLA signed a partnership

agreement with UNZA Law for a period of one year (2009) to examine ways to enhance the

syllabus in future and also to ensure more collaboration between the two parties on land issues

The central focus of the objective is about citizens holding land administrators accountable in the

manner that they handle both customary and state land. There is evidence to show that the

partners did involve duty bearers like traditional leaders in capacity building and thus improve their

sense of awareness on the need for equal and equitable land administration. This is an important

step but not a lot of evidence could be adduced to show how citizens are holding land

administrators accountable and there little information to show how citizens have held duty bearers

accountable. For instance, some women have started accessing land in some chiefdoms but none

of the partners indicated what they are doing in holding chiefs who have failed to grant access to

land to women accountable. There is no information to show what land related issues in the gender

policy have been addressed as suggested in the performance indicators and no information is

provided to demonstrate how women have used the courts of law to seek redress where they have

been denied access to land by duty bearers. One probable reason could be the cost associated

with access to legal services which most likely is prohibitive for the affected women. While some

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activities have been implemented which can be interpreted to be aimed at holding land

administrators accountable, more was expected from grant partners than what has been reported.

Immediate Objective 3:

Implementation of land related gender equality and equity policies in target districts enhanced by

2012

Both national and local level partners have been involved in implementing various activities as part

of ths immediate objective. Some of the activities include monitoring of land utilization by women

and young farmers in Chongwe, hosting of land fora where land allocation and administration

systems have been discussed; and land rights training for youth and women and focusing on

topics such as intestate succession laws, inheritance practices as well as lobbying and advocacy.

MS Zambia and its partners implemented activities which however were constrained by policy

weaknesses. The National Gender Policy does not clearly stipulate whether the 30% land to be

allocated to women will be obtained from the state or the customary holdings. Further, information

obtained indicates that some local authorities shun reserving 30% of land to women on the pretext

that the Gender Policy is not explicit on its provisions. The partners could have advocated for a

revision of the National Gender Policy to include the different land aspects. It follows therefore that

the strategy pursued by MS Zambia, on this account, was not correct. Government‟s intention to

review the Gender Policy is an opportunity that was not fully exploited by the partners. It is quite

evident that as long as the policy remains in its current form, land aspects which negatively affect

women, will continue to be perpetuated.

Other challenges encountered include a growing tendency of trading within customary land system

among local citizens themselves, this is despite the depiction of the law which considers customary

land to be „priceless‟. MS Zambia and its partners have recognised that commercialisation of

customary land is really a challenge as it has potential of displacing poor people from the land they

have occupied for years. However, there is no evidence to show what the partners have done so

far to address or stem this trend which also may impact negatively on women and youth.

3.2.1. Observations and Lessons Learnt

The Evaluation Team made a number of observations on the manner that the Land Rights

Programme has been implemented thus far and these are presented below:

Key Observations

a) The Land rights programme has in some way contributed to enhancing citizens‟ critical

consciousness towards government programmes. Further, the programme has contributed to

women‟s access to land, people‟s understanding of their rights and the need to hold

government accountable for their actions;

b) The partners‟ inconsistencies and inability to clearly articulate the indicators of the social

changes that they would like to achieve, has affected the measurement of results in the

promotion of land rights;

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c) The current approach in addressing land rights issues is not institutionalised and dependent on

the goodwill and generosity of the Chiefs. The limitation of this approach is that changes in

leadership may affect the progress made;

d) There is little evidence to suggest that a good baseline was conducted to understand the

situation on the ground and this partly explains the sense of helplessness whenever partners

have reached a dead end - e.g. when Chiefs insist that they do not support conversion of

customary land into state land. This denial affects women in particular as they cannot use the

letters of authority which they hold as collateral to access credit and other forms of financial

assistance;

e) The Traditional Land Holding Certificate (TLHC) only guarantees security to land access but

transferring ownership through a willing seller-willing buyer arrangement continues to be a

challenge because customary land unless converted is not titled and this makes transfer

difficult and insecure. The Chiefs can repossess customary land granted to a family if there is a

hint of abuse of the land or if this is transferred without the consent of the traditional

establishment;

f) MS/AAI provided limited technical support to help partners to reflect on the power relations,

conduct stakeholders analysis and identify the right spaces for engagements;

g) Potential land disputes among chiefs due to succession and boundary misunderstandings

could seriously impact on the work of MS Zambia. Similarly, there have been boundary

disputes between traditional leaders and local authorites and in certain cases, local authorities

have encroached on customary land and have granted title to applicants and vis-a-vis where

traditional authorities have encroached on state land. This points to the absence of information

including maps to show the extent of customary land and state land;

h) Corruption especially bribery continues to be a source of concern and a major barrier for

access to land by women and youth. Corruption in land administration affects both customary

and state land and this manifests in unnecessarily high costs for accessing land.

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3.3. Capacity Development

Partner organisations and rights holders have been receiving capacity building support on two

fronts: direct training and through the People for Change (P4C) programme. Capacity building was

considered to be a key element of the programming strategy by MS. Thus, where the partnership

was found to be strategic but the capacity of a local partner is limited, MS endeavored to invest in

enhancing the capacity of such a partner. Hence, capacity building has been at the core of

partnership between MS and local implementers. Partners have thus grown and developed the

necessary confidence and capacity to demand action from authorities and participation in policy

monitoring processes with competence.

Some of the local partner organisations were supported by CSPR as a national partner in capacity

development in specialized areas such as budget tracking and monitoring. ZLA did equally support

local partners in their capacity development processes on advocacy for changes to the land

administration processes. In addition to formal training activiteis, Programme staff provided

technical backstopping support to partners by visiting them for monitoring of programme activities

on a quarterly basis and through reflection workshop/meetings conducted at the partners‟ offices.

Representatives of selected partners participated in training programmes at TCDC in Tanzania on

empowerment, advocacy and governance focused (BLD tools, techniques and approaches) on

accountability and transparency. Other training programmes have included the ELBAG training for

partners and MS Zambia programme staff and M&E training to improve monitoring and reporting

on results by partners. Following the merger in July 2010, a partner induction workshop was

conducted in October 2010 and focused on key topics such as M&E system of reporting with

formats and other partnership management issues. Other training activities focussed on

documentation of stories of change by partner organisations. The response from the partner

organisations talked to during the evaluation is that the skills and knowledge acquired through the

various training activities, have been useful and fully utilised in programme implementation.

For rights holders, under both BLD and Land Rights thematic areas, a number of capacity and

knowledge building activities were held and these were conducted by the partner organizations as

highlighted in the previous section on achievements scored. Generally, there was a strong

emphasis on capacity development as a mode for mobilizing the local community to advocate for

changes in their own situations including accessing land for development. Other skills that rights

holders acquired include budget analysis, advocacy and lobbying and the use of theatre for

development. Leadership development training programmes were conducted and focused on

various groups including women and youths in various communities. The evaluation team

concluded that a number of rights holders (although a number could not be established for this),

have benefitted from the different training activities conducted and generally the view is that the

knowledge gained has made rights holders efficient in holding leaders to account for instance and

generally in Building Local Democracy.

On the use of Advisors and Inspirators, it is important to instructive to note that P4C was only

introduced in Zambia in 2009, and therefore is a relatively new scheme bound to face a number of

challenges. Information gathered indicates that the new scheme which is demand driven has

already been utilised by some partners. For instance, TRDCA has managed to get an Inspirator

who has performed exceptionally well and has developed funding strategies, redesigned the

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organisational logo, and regularly produces a newsletter. Chadiza DFA, equally managed at some

stage to acquire the services of DW who played a crucial role in strengthening the DFA and helped

to expand their programme from 7 to 12 zones. The partners, however, have mixed views on the

placement of Advisors, Inspirators and DW and partly this could be due to a lack of appreciation

that P4C roles are not the same as those of DWs. Unfortunately some AAIZ staff who are

supposed to explain to the partners the new system of placement of Inspirators and Advisors, are

themselves not fully conversant with the modalities involved. The P4C Coordinator was appointed

early 2011 and it is expected that she will be able improve the general understanding of this new

scheme both by AAIZ staff and partners. The different levels of understanding and appreciation of

the P4C scheme has lead to this mixed picture where some partners demonstrate clear benefits

and express their desire to have more of such technical support, while other organizations point to

limited benefits gained from such placements. It may be too early to definitively arrive at concluions

on the success or failure of the P4C scheme.

Partners are not clear of the Advisors‟ roles and there are some who do not support the idea that

an Advisor supports a number of organisations and is stationed in Lusaka and not in the partner

organisations‟ location. The contention is that Advisors stationed at AAI offices are far removed

from the ground where their advice is mostly needed and periodic visits to partners lasting a few

days, is inadequate for proper capacity development to take place. Some of the partners are of the

view that not all DWs, Advisors and Inspirators have the necessary competencies and

interpersonal skills and ability to adjust and understand the local context within which they are

working in. Some of the DWs have in the past worked to try and change and take over the running

of the organisations as opposed to providing technical support to the local CSOs. Similarly, despite

the fact that the Advisors and Inspirators agree to the overwhelming potentials of the P4C

programme, the inability of both MS/AAI and partners to manage and effectively use the available

human resource, limits the relevance of the support. It is also unfortunate that most partners do not

recognize that P4C is a capacity building initiative. This is evident from the fact that the partners

are requesting specific budget to facilitate the operations of the P4C placed in their organizations.

As such P4C despite its potentials needs strategic reforms in management, and processes of

recruitment and placement if it should contribute to strengthening capacity and institutional support

to partners.

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4. GOOD PRACTICE & LESSONS LEARNT

The general conclusion that was reached during the evaluation is that the CPS themes are still

relevant in the Zambian context particularly that the emphasis of MS Zambia and its partners was

mainly capacity development, more can be done to strengthen engagement of citizens in building

local democracy or promoting land rights. There are some good practices which can be replicated

in other areas in the future and the evaluation team selected only one such practice based on three

criteria of a) innovation, b) mode of implementation and c) opportunities for replication. The

selected good practice is the women‟s access

One of the outstanding achievements scored in the course of implementing the CPS, is the access

to land by women in some selected chiefdoms. Of significance is the granting of Traditional Land

Holding Certificates as a form of guarantee for exclusive use. This achievement exemplifies actual

citizens engagement in bringing about necessary changes in their lives and it is also an expression

of what citizens can achieve when they use the empowerment that they have received through

capacity building, to claim their rights. The approach to access land by women has both the soft

issues of citizens empowerment and systems development and this leds to „hard issues‟ of actual

access and control of land especially by women. Further details on the different stages employed

in improving women‟s access to land, especially customary land, which can be replicated in other

areas, are presented in Annex 4.

5. LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS

1. ActionAid International Zambia should consider anchoring its governance programme on

the two themes which will remain relevant for a number of years to come, particularly that

the implementation of the devolution process of the decentralisation policy and enactment

of a new constitution, will only take place in the coming years and thus provide new

opportunities for citizens engagement;

2. A new approach implementing BLD and Land Rights interventions should be adopted and

the emphasis should shift from knowledge building or empowerment to active engagement.

Support should be provided for activities which seek to promote citizens engagement at

national and local levels. Innovation by partners in addressing BLD and LR issues, should

be promoted as this will move partners away from trying to implement generic or typical

solutions which may not necessarily address local pecularities;

3. The partnership base needs to be streamlined as the current number of 24 is too high for

effective partnership management and support. AAI Zambia will have to undertake

comprehensive capacity assessment to determine which partners to work with. However,

AAI Zambia should adopt the former MS Zambia partnership management system which is

premised on key values and common vision. This is important so that the partnership do

not simply become a donor-recipient relationship;

4. AAIZ and partners should clarify their positions on P4C to ensure optimal utilization of the

available human resource noting that these are largely not hands on kind of personnel. An

assessment should be made whether partners need P4C or simply additional personnel

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who can help grant partners in different aspects of programme implementation. This aspect

could be explored further in the overall AADK evaluation.

5. Good baseline data should be collected and this should be used in the design of a robust

monitoring and evaluation system

6. AAI Zambia needs to fully integrate the governance programme into its operations unike

the current situation where it is apparent that there are two silos under one umbrella. For

instance, it clear that former MS Zambia silo is under the Head of Governance with little

input from other staff in AAI Zambia. These silos have to be broken and thus allow AAI

Zambia to utilise the available skills and expertise across all programmes.

7. AAI needs to develop clear MOU or addendum to MOU with partners to enable partners to

appreciate the P4Cprogramme as a capacity and institutional support to supplement the

funding support.

8. AAI Zambia should consider adopting new strategies in addressing land related gender

equality and equity policies. Unlike the approach in the current CPS where the policy gaps

insofar as land administration is concerned have not been actively addressed, AAI Zambia

should take advantage of Government‟s intention to review the Gender Policy in order to

advocate land related gender equality and equity policies.

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1. ANNEXES

Annex 1. Terms of Reference

Terms of Reference

Summative evaluation of MS Country Programme Strategies and programme

support within the “Democracy Focus”

1. Background

In 2006, MS (now ActionAid Denmark in English) decided to focus all its programme activities on democracy,

which was considered an important strategic means for poverty reduction. The „Democracy Focus‟ was

developed within the framework of „Partnership Against Poverty‟ as the guiding strategy for all MS‟

programme work in the South. The Democracy Focus consisted of five themes: Building Local Democracy,

which was made a key feature in all programmes; Land Rights; Anti-Corruption; Conflict Management, and

Trade Justice (please refer to the respective Thematic Concept Papers). This strategic change was

negotiated with and accepted by MS‟ main back donor, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Danida). MS

and Danida have a Framework Agreement, through which MS receives app. DKK 156 million per year to

carry out programmes based on its own strategic framework and organisational capacity. It is a four-year

rolling agreement, which is negotiated in annual consultations.

Following the decision about the Democracy Focus, a Country Programme Strategy (CPS) was developed in

all the then MS programme countries/regions – i.e. Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya,

Uganda, South Sudan, Nepal and Central America. Each CPS, which initially covered the period 2008-2012,

outlined the overall thinking in relation to MS‟ involvement in the country/region in question. It defined the

themes and strategies to be pursued by MS as well as the geographical focus areas. It was made mandatory

for each country programme to allocate 50% of its resources to the Building Local Democracy theme, while

30% could be allocated to a maximum of two other themes and 20% could be used for innovative and

country-specific activities.

The development of the CPS‟s was largely a participatory process, which built on lessons learned and

involved MS partner organisations and other CSO representatives as well as programme staff, Development

Workers, Policy Advisory Committees, consultants, etc. Each CPS was subjected to an external appraisal,

and an appraisal report with recommendations for each country programme was elaborated. In some

countries, the existing partner portfolio was more or less maintained, while in others, a large number of

partners were phased out and new ones selected as a consequence of the new CPS. During the first half of

2008, MS signed Partnership Agreements with app. 15-25 partner organisations – all working within the

Democracy Focus – in each of the above-mentioned countries. External thematic reviews of the programmes

within Building Local Democracy, Land Rights, and Trade Justice were undertaken in 2008 and 2009. In

2010, Danida carried out an external review of MS, which included country studies in Kenya, Tanzania, and

Nicaragua.

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In September 2008, the General Assembly of MS decided that MS should proceed with the process towards

becoming an affiliate of ActionAid International. From 2010 MS was appointed by ActionAid International to

take the overall responsibility for the leadership and management of the ActionAid theme The Right to Just

and Democratic Governance. In June 2010, the affiliation of MS was finally approved by ActionAid

International‟s General Assembly, and MS became a fully-fledged member of the ActionAid family and

changed its name (in English) to ActionAid Denmark (but maintaining Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke or MS in

Danish).

As a consequence of the affiliation, the MS offices in Nepal, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia,

and Guatemala were merged with ActionAid in 2010 (and the South Sudan office was closed). The

programme portfolio of MS was taken over by ActionAid in the respective countries, and the previous MS

partner organisations became ActionAid partners. In all countries, AADK and the national ActionAid

organisations have signed Cooperation Agreements, which specify that ActionAid is responsible for fulfilling

the objectives of the CPS‟s (which have been shortened to four years and hence will run out in December

2011 concurrently with the individual Partnership Agreements).

From January 2012, MS – or rather AADK – will thus have no formal commitments to individual partner

organisations from the time before the merger with ActionAid International. In future AADK will support

national AAI organisations and their local partners, programmes, and projects in line with Danida‟s Civil

Society Strategy (“Strategy for Danish Support to Civil Society in Developing Countries”) and with the

framework agreement between Danida and AADK that sets out the specific governance focus, which is part

of AADK‟s own global programme strategy.

A number of national ActionAid offices are currently in the process of reviewing their Country Strategy

Papers with the purpose of developing new 5-year strategies and programmes. During 2011, ActionAid

International is developing a new global strategy, which will take effect from 2012. It is assumed that

Governance will continue to be a focal theme in the new global strategy as well as in many new country

strategies including AADK‟s own. Lessons learned from previous and ongoing AADK supported governance

programmes should preferably feed into the various strategy development processes. It is therefore the

intention of AADK – to the extent possible – to carry out the evaluation in parallel with the CSP Reviews

undertaken by the national ActionAid offices. At the same time, the summative evaluation will serve as an

important contribution to both upwards and downwards accountability.

2. Objective

The main objective of the evaluation is to ensure that the lessons learned from the implementation of the MS

Country Programme Strategies in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Nepal and

Guatemala are collected and analysed. The information will serve as documentation to the back donor

Danida and as strategic learning points for AAI/IGT as well as for the individual ActionAid organisations in

the countries of cooperation. The evaluation will also be used as an input in the appraisal of new

programmes proposed for AADK funding and contribute to the overall evaluation of all AADK activities

scheduled for the last quarter of 2011.

3. Scope of Work

The evaluation will include, but not necessarily be limited to, an assessment of the following issues in each

country:

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The relevance of the strategic objectives and the themes selected to the national context

The relevance of the partner organisations selected in relation to the themes

The value and effectiveness of the partnership approach applied by MS

The commitment of the partner organisations in achieving the CPS objectives

The coherence between the CPS and the supported activities

The overall coherence of the strategy and the selected partner portfolio in relation to the context – including the opportunities to link local programme activities to national (or international) advocacy initiatives

The extent to which immediate CPS objectives have been achieved

The contribution of the programme activities to changes at policy level

The concrete outcomes for rights-holders (women, men, youth)

The long-term sustainability of the outcomes

The extent to which gender analysis has been applied and gender mainstreaming sufficiently incorporated into programme strategies and activities

The extent to which capacity building of partner organisations has been sufficiently incorporated into programme strategies and activities and the effectiveness of this

The contribution of the People for Change programme to achieving CPS objectives

The contribution of the Training for Change programme

Preliminary assessment of how the programmes may influence the new ActionAid national strategies

4. Methodology

The evaluation team will use a participatory methodology with an emphasis on collecting lessons learned,

gathering best practices, and documenting illustrative cases.

The evaluation will consist of the following main parts:

1. Desk study 2. Kick-off seminar in Denmark 3. Country studies in Nepal and Tanzania, where the evaluation methodology for the remaining country

studies will be developed 4. Country studies in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda, and Guatemala 5. Debriefing workshop in Denmark

The first step will be a desk review to analyse key documents (Country Programmes Strategies, CPS

Appraisal reports, thematic review reports, annual reports, Partnership Agreements, etc.). This will be

followed by a kick-off seminar in Denmark to establish a common ground for the assignment through

discussing the methodology to be applied during the first two country studies (Nepal and Tanzania) and the

key issues to be explored in all countries. This seminar will be attended by the respective Team Leaders for

the Nepal and Tanzania country studies, by key staff in AADK and – if possible – by former MS Country

Directors.

The outcome of the seminar will be a preliminary inception note, which describes the approach and methodology to be tested in Nepal and Tanzania respectively as well as the main areas of focus in each country. The specific evaluation methodology for each country will thus be developed during the first two country studies, but it is expected that all country studies will include at least the following activities:

Review of Country Programme Strategy, reports from previous reviews and evaluations of the country programme, quarterly and annual reports, and other relevant documents

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Individual interviews with former MS programme staff (where possible) and current AAI programme staff and SMT

A workshop with all former MS partner organisations Meetings with representatives of selected partner organisations Field visits to selected communities and focus group discussions with selected rights-holders Meeting with Royal Danish Embassy representatives Debriefing meeting with SMT of AAI in each country

When the two first country studies are completed, the respective Team Leaders will share experiences,

assess the usefulness of the methodology that has been tested, and decide on the methodology to be

applied in the remaining country studies.

When all country studies have been completed, the Team Leader for the country studies in Africa will

summarise the findings in a synthesis report.

A reference group consisting of experienced resource persons within governance will be established in

Denmark. The role of the reference group will be to give feedback on the methodology to be applied and on

preliminary findings and conclusions. Two external consultants, two AADK Board members and one (non-

Danish) ActionAid International Governance Team member will be invited to participate in the reference

group.

Before submitting the final synthesis report, the Team Leader will hold a debriefing workshop with the SMT

and International Programme Support Team of MS in Copenhagen. The reference group and the former MS

Country Directors will also be invited to participate.

5. Outputs

For each country, the team will produce a country specific report in English of max. 30 pages (excl. annexes)

based on a standard outline as presented in the inception note (see section 4 above) including:

Observations, findings, best practice examples and major lessons learned

Recommendations related to AADK‟s strategy development, including issues to be pursued through the planned overall evaluation of all AADK activities

Recommendations related to ActionAid national strategy and programme development

Recommendations related to possible AADK support to ActionAid partners beyond 2011

The deadline for the country specific evaluation reports is two weeks after each visit.

The preliminary inception note will be finalised based on the methodology developed during the Nepal and

Tanzania country studies.

In addition, the Team Leader will produce a synthesis report in English of max. 20 pages describing the main

findings, best practices and lessons learned as well as the key strategic recommendations for the future.

The deadline for submitting the final synthesis report is 13th June 2011.

6. Composition of teams

The team will be headed by a Team Leader (international consultant) who (in dialogue with AADK) will

compose country specific teams. Each country specific team will consist of an international consultant and a

national consultant specialised in democracy and governance (except the Guatemala and Mozambique

evaluations, which will be conducted by one national consultant in each country).

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As some of the county studies will run in parallel, three international consultants have been assigned. One

will cover Nepal, another Zambia and Kenya, while the third person (Team Leader) will be responsible for the

evaluation in Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

The following resource persons will join the team:

An AAI Programme Officer from another country

The AADK Programme Support Coordinator (country focal point)

A representative of ActionAid International IGT and/or Regional Offices

7. Timing

The evaluation will take place from February to May 2011. A maximum of 20 working days is allocated for

each country study (including report writing) – except Nepal and Tanzania, which will have some extra days

for methodology development.

To the extent possible, the evaluation will run in parallel with the CSP Reviews carried out by the national

ActionAid offices. Please refer to the attached tentative time schedule.

8. Background information

Partnership Against Poverty – MSiS Policy Paper 2005

Democracy Focus in MS 2006

MS Gender Policy 2007

Thematic Concept Paper for each theme

Country Programme Strategy for each country

CPS Appraisal reports for each country

Partnership Agreements & Project Documents

MS Guidelines for Thematic Programming

A MS Review of BLD Theme Strategies 2008 (synthesis and country reports)

Review of Personnel Assistance in MS 2008

MS Trade Justice Reviews 2009 (synthesis and country reports)

Land Rights Thematic Review 2009 (synthesis and country reports)

MS in transition 2009

MS ActionAid Thematic Review 2010

ActionAid’s Strategic Plan “Just and Democratic Governance 2006 – 2010” – the Review Report

Strategic Concept Paper: The Right to Just and Democratic Governance (draft, Nov. 2010)

Annex 2. Activity Schedule for MS Zambia Evaluation

Date Time Activity Location

18.04.11 08.30 – 10.00hrs Meeting with the Country Programme staff and CR for introductions to the Evaluation as well as reviewing and adopting the draft Evaluation programme

Lusaka

10.00 – 11.30hrs Strategizing and assignment of the roles within the evaluation team and review of secondary documentation

Lusaka

11.30 – 12.30hrs Interview with the P4C Coordinator

Lusaka

13.30 – 17.00hrs Interview with BLD Programme Officer

Interview with Land Rights Programme Officer

Interview with Action Aid Country Director

Interview with Head of Governance and former MS Zambia Programme Officer

Interview with Action Aid Zambia Head of Programmes

19.04.11 09.00 – 10.30hrs Meeting with Decentralisation Secretariat

Lusaka

11.00 – 12.00hrs Meeting with Local Government Association of Zambia

Lusaka

14.30 – 16.00hrs Focus Group discussion with Right holders/beneficiaries in Chongwe

Chongwe

20.04.11 09.00- 13.00hrs Workshop with Lusaka based partner representatives

Lusaka

14.00-15.30hrs Interviews with BLD and Land Rights Advisors and 2no Inspirators

Lusaka

16.00 – 17.00hrs Meeting with GIZ representatives at the GIZ offices

Lusaka

21.03.11 09.00-10.00hrs Evaluation Team meeting to review information collected thus far

Lusaka

11.30 -13.30hrs Meeting with Finn Petersen – Former MS Zambia Country Director

Lusaka

14.30 – 16.00hrs Interview with CSPR Representatives at CSPR offices

Lusaka

16.00 – 17.00hrs Wrap Up meeting for the evaluation team before the Easter Break at Protea Hotel

Lusaka

22 – 25 April 2011 Easter Break

26.04.11 07.00-13.00hrs Travel to Chipata By air and settling down in Chipata

Lusaka/Chipata

14.15 -15.30hrs Meeting with the District Commissioner in Chipata

Chipata

15.45 – 16.30hrs Meeting with the DACO in Chipata

Chipata

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26.04.11 16.45 – 17.30hrs Preparatory meeting for Partners workshop

Chipata

27.04.11 08.30 -13.00hrs Workshop with partner representatives in Chipata (Chipata DFA, Chadiza DFA, TRCDA, CYC, Nyimba DFA, PDLA, Chipata DFA)

Chipata

14.00-16.00hrs Meeting with the Beneficiaries/Right holders in Chipata

Chipata

16.15-17.00hrs One on one meeting with Chipata DFA

Chipata

28.04.11 08:00-10:00hrs Travel to Chadiza

Chadiza

10.00 – 12.00hrs Meeting with Beneficiaries/Right holders in Chadiza

Chadiza

12.10 – 13.00hrs Meeting with the DACO in Chadiza

Chadiza

14.00 – 15.00hr Meeting with Chadiza District Council

Chadiza

15.15- 15.30hrs Courtesy call on District Commissioner for Chadiza

Chadiza

16.00 – 18.00hrs Travel back to Chipata

Chadiza

29.04.11 09.00 – 11.00hrs Flying Back to Lusaka

Chipata

14.00 – 17.00hrs Collating and consolidating findings from Eastern provinces

Lusaka

02.05.11 07.00 – 17.00hrs Travel to Mansa by road Lusaka/Mansa

03.05.11 08.30-13.00hrs Workshop with Luapula partner representatives (to include Mansa DFA, Kawambwa DFA, MDLA, CSPR PPMT, Mansa DWA)

Mansa

14.00 – 16.00hrs Meeting with Beneficiaries and Right holders in Mansa

Mansa

04.05.11 16.15-17.30hrs Evaluation Team meeting to review day‟s proceedings

Mansa

09.00 – 10.00hrs Meeting with District Commissioner for Mansa

Mansa

11.00 – 11.45hrs Interview with Chief Chisunka

Mansa

12.00 – 14.00hrs Interviews with Mansa DACO and Mansa DFA

Mansa

15.00-16.00hrs Continued meeting with the District Commissioner

Mansa

16.00 – 17.oohrs Collating and Consolidating the findings from Luapla Province and preparing for travelling back to Lusaka

Mansa

05.05.11 07.00 – 17.00hrs Travel back to Lusaka by road

Mansa/Lusaka

06.05.11 08.30- 13.00hrs Preparing of Summary and Debriefing Report

Lusaka

06.05.11 14.30- 16.30hrs Debriefing of ActionAid Zambia staff including for MS Zambia staff

Lusaka

Annex 3. Lists of persons met and interviewed

Name Organisation Position

1 Joseph Njovu

Ministry of Agriculture and

Cooperatives

District Cooperative Officer - Mansa

2 Chief Chisunka

House of Chiefs Traditional Leader

3 Major Chibwe

Nsakasha

Office of the President District Commissioner - Mansa

4 Phidelis Chitambala

Chadiza District Council Director of Works

5 Wisdom Bwalya

Chadiza District Council Council Secretary

6 Mwaba Lubasi Ministry of Agriculture and

Cooperatives

District Agriculture and Cooperatives

Officer - Chadiza

7 Victor Zulu Ministry of Agriculture and

Cooperatives

District Agriculture Information Officer –

Chadiza

8 Morris Katundu Ministry of Agriculture and

Cooperatives

District Agriculture Marketing Officer –

Chadiza

9 Alftred Sakwiya Decentralisation Secretariat Director

10 Moses DC Nyirenda Office of the President District Commissioner – Chipata

11 Micheal Ngulube Ministry of Agriculture and

Cooperatives

District Agriculture and Cooperatives

Officer - Chipata

12 Robby Musendo Ministry of Agriculture and

Cooperatives

District Senior Agricultural Officer -

Chipata

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Action Aid Members of Staff Consulted

Name Position

1 Undi Mpheneka P4C Coordinator

2 Maurice Nyambe BLD Programme Officer

3 Njira Mtonga Land Rights Programme Officer

4 Pamela Chisanga Country Representative

5 Humphrey Elekani Head - Governance

6 Carol Mukosa Head - Programmes

7 Kotutu Chimuka Head – Policy and Campaigns

List of Key Informants Consulted

Name Organisation Position

1 Kaputo Chenga GIZ National Governance Advisor

2 Dedo Geinitz GIZ Head of Governance

3 Longwe LGAZ Programme Officer

4 Finn Petersen Governance

Secretariat/DANNIDA

Former Director – MS Zambia

Focus Group Discussion Participants - Chadiza Right Holders

No. Name of Participant Position/Area/Organisation Contact Number

1 Penias Zulu CDFA Board Secretary 097823441

2 Trywel Phiri CDFA Board Treasurer 0979069475

3 Whiteson Phiri CDFA member 0976577277

4 Gladys Miti CDFA Member 09792

5 Rachael Tembo CDFA Member

6 Peter Banda Chadiza Ward Councillor

7 Isaac Phiri Chansowe Ward Councillor

8 Christpher Zulu Katantha Zone

9 Keepson Lungu Chadiza ADC

10 Stanely Sakala CDFA Chairperson

11 Georgina Lupenga CDFA Board Member

Focus Group Discussion Participants - Chipata Right Holders

No. Name of Participant Position/Area/Organisation Contact Number

1 Kosipale Shawa Kanyanja

2 Fales Phiri Kanyanja

3 Naomie Phiri Muboza

4 Agness Phiri N‟gongwe

5 Godwins Ngoma Kazimule

6 Peter Banda Kapata

7 Malekano Phiri N‟gongwe

8 Jeniffer Ngoma Sothern

9 Elizabeth Mumba Southern

10 Mercy Phiri Chanje

11 Jabes Thole Change Block

12 Chris Mbewe Central

Focus Group Discussion Participants - Chongwe Right Holders

No. Name of Participant Position/Area/Organisation Contact Number

1 Eva Simainga Board Member

2 Doreen Mwanza Chairperson

3 Nickolas Marakata Board Treasurer

4 Thomas Chigwedere Chainda Community

5 Viola Nchimunya Chainda Community

6 Matolokoshi Charles ADC Secretary

7 Johnson Mutinda Inspirator

8 Joshua Moyo ADC Chairperson

9 Alfred Makayi ADC Secretary

10 Borniface Katite ADC Chairperson

11 Lafranco Lungu Vice Chairperson (CDFA)

12 Frazer Mwalusaka Contact Farmer

13 Grace Tembo ADC Trustee

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14 Derranoh Chonga Board Secretary

15 Chrispin Mafa ADC Treasurer

16 Atrib Namanje CDFA Coordinator

Interviews with Inspirators and Advisors

No. Name of Participant Position/Area/Organisation Contact Number

1 Johnson Mutinda Inspirator – Chongwe DFA 09761026572

2 Zaza Curran Building Local Democracy

Advisor

0978703503

3 Stephen Machira Land Rights Advisor 0978531280

4 Julie Mithika M&E Inspirator - AVAP 0975215208

Chipata MS Partners FGD

No. Name of Participant Position/Area/Organisation Contact Number

1 Gertrude Soko Tutukuke RCDA

2 Richard Mbachundu Tutukuke RCDA

3 Albert Chaala Nyimba DFA

4 Andrew Kamanga Petauke DLA

5 Moses Phiri Petauke DLA

6 Virgil Malambo Chipata DFA

7 Basil Bweupe Chadiza DFA

8 Ruth Banda Chadiza DFA

9 Hellen Tembo CYC Nyimba

10 Benson Chaponda CYC Nyimba

11 Mariam Mutua Chipata DFA

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Annex 4: Good Practices

Women’s access to land

One of the outstanding achievements scored in the course of implementing the CPS, is the access

to land by women in some selected chiefdoms. Of significance is the granting of Traditional Land

Holding Certificates as a form of guarantee for exclusive use. This achievement exemplifies actual

citizens engagement in bringing about necessary changes in their lives and it is also an expression

of what citizens can achieve when they use the empowerment that they have received through

capacity building, to claim their rights. In Central Province, women from close to 50 villages are

reported to have managed to express their desire to access land to their traditional leaders and

some among them have been granted the Traditional Land Holding Certificates. The approach to

access land by women has both the soft issues of citizens empowerment and systems

development and this leds to „hard issues‟ of actual access and control of land especially by

women. The significant features of this good practice are as follows:

Citizens Empowerment – Women and men in communities as right holders, together with

traditional leaders and local authority officials, as duty bearers, were all sensitised and

educated on land rights. This empowerment gave all stakeholders new perspectives and new

ways of thinking about critical issues including customary land administration. Right Holders

were empowered with the knowledge and skills for claiming their land rights. In this process,

citizens empowerment is an entry point into selected communities. One way of getting citizens

to engage in any sector, is to effectively empower them with knowledge and skills

Systems and Tools development – the design of a Traditional Land Holding Certificate is an

appropriate solution to a problem which over the years has made traditional leaders fail to

provide necessary guarantees or protection to people who are granted access to customary

land. This certificate provides a sense of protection especially for women, who in a number of

communities are denied property rights except in the names of either spouses or male

relatives. Development of Tools or Systems provides a „bridge‟ that allows empowered citizens

to move from a point of mere knowledge to holding duty bearers accountable. Tools and

Systems development equally help to address some administrative gaps which may affect

citizens engagement in different processes- for instance a Land Holding Certificate as a form of

guarantee of ownership – today and in the future.

Citizens Engagement – The Right Holders, empowered with knowledge on land rights, found

their „voices‟ and were able to bring their concerns and demands to their traditional leaders,

most of whom have actively engaged them to seek solutions to the problems associated with

access to land by both men and women. The results of this engagement is actual award of

parcels of land described and protected by a Traditional Land Holding Certificate- which in itself

helps to diffuse future land disputes as it states the area of land involved. Citizens

Engagements should bring forth tangible benefits, and form the basis for assessment of results

in subsequent perid.

Potential Replication – Nearly all chiefdoms in Zambia are faced with these challenges of equal

and equitable access to customary land. The Traditional Land Holding Certificate could be one

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of the answers to resolving some of the local level issues. The principle of traditional leaders

seeking ways and means of protecting all users of customary land is an important which

applies across chiefdoms and therefore a solution like the use of the Land Holding Certificate,

would have national appeal.