Category: Reflections
Mohamed Saluh – Story from the Field – DARSHAN Project – Project Concern International and Digital Green
Sushma Devi – Story from the Field – DARSHAN Project – Project Concern International and Digital Green
Investigating bottlenecks in our agriculture-centered project in Bihar
By Swati Gaur, Program Manager Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning, Digital Green
Digital Green amplifies the effectiveness of existing public and private agricultural extension programs by engaging with and training the community on producing and sharing videos on local best practices. These videos are screened using battery-operated pico projectors by village facilitators who use the videos to spark interactive conversations among farmer groups, like women self-help groups, on a fortnightly basis. As these facilitators screen the videos, they also record data like farmers attendance, their feedback, and the practices that farmers apply on their own farms afterwards.
Digital Green uses a selection of indicators to measure performance, like the number of videos produced, number of videos screened, number of farmers reached, and number of farmers that apply (or adopt) promoted practices on their farms. All of this data is tracked on an online-offline open-source MIS that we’ve developed, called COCO (digitalgreen.org/tech). The data captured in this MIS allows us to see where farmers are attending screenings regularly and adopting practices en masse or not.
Internally, we sometimes believe that our work has the same positive impact everywhere and that we are confronted by the same negative externalities everywhere. We found though that there sometimes were significant differences in farmers adoption-to-attendance ratio from one village to another, even if they were in close proximity to each other.We struggled to reason why that might be the case.
Health development initiatives sometimes employ a bottleneck analysis process to improve program quality by mapping an interventions theory of change and seeing what challenges might be limiting the impact that it is making. In collaboration with ALINe (https://www.aline.org.uk/), we decided to see how we could adapt that approach for our work with the Government of India’s National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) in Bihar.
We decided to execute the bottleneck analysis in two districts. First, we went to two poor performing villages in two districts where our data suggested that farmers had adopted few to no adoptions of the promoted practices. Then, we went to two additional villages in the same districts where farmers seemed to be adopting the same promoted practices at a higher rate. A qualitative as well as quantitative determination was made on how representative these villages were over the ~1,500 villages that we work with in Bihar. Our aim was to identify the drivers that led to negative outcomes and those that led to positive ones in each set of villages to be able to develop concrete recommendations on ways to improve program quality and ultimately, impact.
The bottleneck analysis process involved project participants at various levels: (1) farmers in self-help groups that attended video screenings, (2) village facilitators who mediated video screenings, (3) village organizations, and (4) NRLMs staff at district and block-levels. First, each group was anonymously requested, through ballot boxes, to share the issues that they face. Then, each group prioritized them. And finally, they developed their own recommendations on how to resolve them. With each group of stakeholders, the recommendations of the stakeholders before them would be shared and rated as well. A good deal of investigation and triangulation was sometimes needed to make sense of multiple perspectives.
We mapped the actions (and interactions) that each actor in the Digital Green approach needs to make to be able to realize the outcomes that we collectively expect. We found that these conversations themselves built ownership and common understanding of issues and mechanisms to address them. Stakeholders were able to understand how an issue that was identified in one location may have been resolved through a good practice applied in another location. By identifying the factors that drove performance in video screenings and farmer adoption of promoted practices, we were able to categorize both issues and good practices in four dimensions: context (e.g., landholding, irrigation access, irrigation), people (e.g., village facilitator skills and motivation), equipment (e.g., pico projector reliability), and system (e.g., policies for incentivizing facilitators, relevance of videos, involvement of NRLM staff).
The insights from the bottleneck analysis have allowed us to see the adaptation and impact of our approach in more nuanced terms on a per village basis. Moreover, we’ve been able to make concrete insights and recommendations to improve program quality based on the way that our approach is unfolding across the diversity of villages in which we work.The process of conducting the bottleneck analysis is intensive, but our field implementation teams now see it as a way to not just diagnose and resolve issues, but also to better plan our operational rollout more systematically.
For more details on the process and findings of the preliminary bottleneck analysis that we conducted, please see the following slide deck: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwQ6n7LySPA-LURpdFNvTzV2blk/view?usp=sharing
We would appreciate any comments or suggestions on how we might be able to improve this approach and others experience in running similar sorts of program improvement processes.
Learning from our achievements in Bihar
Published Jan 13, 2015
Institutionalizing our achievements
Our Bihar team has just crossed a milestone they’ve achieved a total of 120,000 unique adoptions (as per our data management framework, COCO) since our program started in the state in 2012. This means 120,000 farmers in the state have adopted an improved agricultural practice promoted in a video, which could lead to improved productivity and incomes. In Bihar, we work with JEEViKA, the state-level implementation agency of the Government of India’s National Rural Livelihood Mission.
I was in Bihar last week and sensed a high level of enthusiasm in our team as a result of their achievement. The factors that helped our team achieve this significant milestone included:
- Supportive and proactive JEEViKA leadership
- Our team goes the extra mile to resolve operational issues and distributing videos in a timely manner to cater to the community’s immediate needs,
- Our approach getting integrated into JEEViKA’s district-level monitoring systems
- JEEViKA’s recruitment and positioning of livelihood specialists in all blocks
Reflections from a field visit to Gaya, Bihar
I attended a video screening in Gaya district, which started a little late due to my delayed flight from Delhi to Patna. The mediator who was screening the video in the village had a good rapport with the two self-help groups (SHGs) that were in attendance. The SHG members were rushed though as they were eager to get back to their homes because of the cold weather and their interest in getting back home to prepare dinner. The mediator played a video (on poultry), paused in between to explain it, and ended the dissemination as quickly as she could. The team observed that the quality of this dissemination could be considered average for Bihar. The mediator that I observed had just begun screening videos three months ago and had screened five to six videos. This isn’t to say that average is necessarily bad. In fact, the mediator that we observed has been able to record a number of adoptions and was visibly confident in how well she’s doing her job.
We will need to spend more of our time focusing on those areas that we have more control on and could lead to greater impact. For instance, if the mediator knew what do when audiences are rushed, would she have prioritized what she did differently? In any population of mediators, there are going to be some exceptional stars but most will be average. Through our training program, we try to ensure that every mediator has at least the basic capabilities of equipment handling, facilitation, and reporting.
Our team in Bihar has already begun moving in this direction. For instance, they sometimes use videos on model mediation techniques and how to use pico projectors as a part of their training programs with mediators. We need to create a curriculum of videos that is as easy to use for our team when training mediators as it is for a mediator to screen a poultry video to a rushed group of SHG members. The model dissemination video is particularly useful as it becomes obvious of what a good mediator does without needing to formally get into the theory of adult learning principles which can often be overly conceptual.
We now have over 50 lead mediators across Bihar who train and support their less experienced peer mediators. There seems to be a strong opportunity for creating a simple series of videos and assessment techniques to support these lead mediators. When designing this curriculum, we need to start from the practical issues that mediators encounter at the grassroots. For instance, it is a reality that communities are often rushed (e.g., they’re rushed when coming back from their fields during the agricultural season and they’re in a rush to go back home when its winter to get to bed early). One of the critical moments in any dissemination is when a mediator asks individual viewers whether they’re ready to adopt the featured practice. We need to enhance our training to help mediators better prioritize their actions in such rushed situations.
As we scale, it is a real challenge to observe the facilitation quality of mediators in their individual villages. We will have to instead leverage the opportunities (e.g., orientation training and follow-up review meetings) when we have the mediators together for developing and assessing their skills. We also need to prioritize producing videos and practical assessment techniques (e.g., games) that our trainers and lead mediators can use just as easily as mediators conduct disseminations.
Planning Meeting in Ethiopia to discuss scale-up of the Digital Green approach (December 20-21, 2014)
Digital Green and Ethiopia’s Ministry of Agriculture have been collaborating since 2012 to pilot the Digital Green approach to improve agricultural productivity in four regions (Tigray, Oromia, Amhara and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region), reaching over 25,000 farmers till date.
The MoA organized a two-day planning meeting (December 20-21, 2014) with its leadership team, representatives from Agriculture Transformation Agency and other stakeholders to develop strategies to institutionalize the Digital Green approach within its extension system. The meeting was held at Debre-Ziet, a beautiful resort, a few hours away from Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia.
Vinay Kumar, Chief Operating Officer, Digital Green, welcomed all the partners and outlined the objectives of the high-level convening. Ato Tesfaye, Director General of Agriculture Extension, welcomed MoA’s partnership with Digital Green and set the context for the need to institutionalize the Digital Green approach in the ministry various units and programs to ensure that it is fully internalized within Ethiopia agriculture extension system.
The participants ideated and developed strategies around four key areas:
- – Criteria for selecting woredas (districts) and kebeles (smallest administrative unit of Ethiopia) where Digital Green should work;
- – Scaling training for extension functionaries at various levels on aspects of the Digital Green approach
- – Performance management system of extension functionaries
- – Project management and content development
According to Vinay, “the richness and depth of discusssions made the meeting productive and my sense is that we were able to achieve what we set out to achieve substantially. The recommendations and operational plan will be instrumental in defining a detailed action plan.”
He goes on to add, “the fact that MoA’s senior leadership participated in the meeting over the weekend and devoted undisturbed time to this discussion affirms the Ministry commitment to its partnership with Digital Green.”
Glimpses of the event
Request for Proposals for Value Chain Consultants
Health Behavior Change – A long road ahead
Contributed by Nidhi Chakrabarty (edited by Susan Thomas)
On a recent visit to Paharpur village of Saharsa district, Bihar, while observing a dissemination of a health video with members of a self help group (SHG), I overheard discussions about a woman by the name Kaili Devi, in another SHG and her seven children, all of whom are severely malnourished. Upon asking them for more information I realized that the family lived close by, so I decided to visit them and see for myself their situation.
Kaili Devi (35) and Dinesh Sada have two daughters and five sons. The eldest child is 13 years old and the youngest was born just 4 months ago. Kaili Devi was married to Sada at the age of 20. Sada used to work at a brick kiln where he used to earn up to INR 5,000 per month but had to leave that job as the poor working conditions took a toll on his health. Since then he has not been able to find a stable job. Now he takes up daily wage labor that earns him around INR 2,500-4,000 per month.
The staff of the partner organization shared that the family is under tremendous financial burden and none of the children are able to get a proper meal a day, leave alone healthy diet. They also shared that Kaili Devi, has been a member of Durga SHG since October 2013, where ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activist or frontline health workers) as well as Parivartan Sahelis (community health workers referred to as Community Change Agents) share critical information with the SHG members on maternal, infant and young child health care and nutrition.
However, Kaili Devi, has been unable to adopt the practices related to family planning and has to now visit the doctor almost daily for injections to just survive, let alone the fact that the infant is severely and acutely malnourished. Kaili Devi is unable to provide nutrition to the child and could not even breastfeed the child for more than 30 seconds.
Over the last few years, the Government of Bihar has been focusing extensively on improving facility-based healthcare for new-borns and mothers with New Born Care Corners (NBCCs), Special New Born Care Units (SNCUs) and labor rooms in first referral units across the state.
A study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, USA reported earlier this year that pregnancy-related deaths among Indian mothers have declined at an annual rate of 3.1 per cent since 2003, which is slightly faster than the global rate. However, what I saw at Kaili Devi home only helped drive home the point that more must be done to improve these indicators and others such as the startling figures of malnutrition that remains like a scar on our nations health indicators.
When I asked her husband, Dinesh Sada, about why he did not avail of the government schemes or adopt family planning practices, he replied that the more children he had the less he’d have to worry about money as the moment they turn 8 to 10 years old, they would start earning and ease the financial burden.
Clearly, I thought to myself, none of the SHGs or government schemes or any other such investments are able to explain or inform and persuade people adopt the best practices related to family planning and health and nutrition. The SHG that Kaili Devi is a member of does not use the mediated video dissemination method yet.
However a few weeks later I discovered a slightly different story in a neighboring village called Tariyamma in Simri Bakhtiyarpur, Saharsa, which is only 20 kms away. Here I met Duriya Devi (29), who has been a member of Nath Baba SHG since last 2 years.
Her husband Nirmal Sada works as a laborer in Delhi and earns up to INR 6000 – 7000 per month and sends about half of it to Duriya Devi each month.
Duriya Devi has four girls. The eldest is 10 years old and the youngest is one and a half years old and she is six months pregnant yet again, hoping for a boy this time.
All her children were brought to life in the small room of her house by the local dai (traditional birth attendant), as she neither had the money to afford the hospital nor did she know the benefits of delivering a child in hospital.
The members of the group criticized her for getting pregnant again, not knowing how to explain the ill effects it would have on her and her family, yet they made her save money.
I was hesitant about saving the money with the SHG but the members compelled me to, said Duriya Devi. Then the Saheli, Soni Devi, started explaining everything with the help of the videos, and I saw the video Prasav Poorv Tyaari (pregnancy preparedness) and I had more clarity and awareness as to why I should save money and choose to deliver my baby in the hospital, shared Duriya Devi.
These videos were ones created by the community members of the same village after Digital Green and partner NGO (Project Concern International) gave them training on the health related issues and on how to produce the video. Digital Green had then trained a number of Sahelis in disseminating the video among members of the SHG.
After watching the videos not only has Duriya Devi saved up to INR 1500 for the delivery of her child in the hospital, she has also made a note of the name and phone numbers of a cab driver, an ambulance and of a Saheli as well as an ASHA . I will definitely attend all the meetings where the videos will be shown, said Duriya Devi happily.
Since Digital Green started working on the health behaviors in 2012, we have found that it is not easy, nor is it possible to observe change, especially long-term change, as fast as we could in the agriculture domain. However, we know we have much to hope for when we see these changes effected even with one family at a time.
The Digital Green Story
All you need to know about Digital Green’s community-led video-enabled learning approach and its impact on rural communities across the world in a short film:
Short film on CSISA – Digital Green collaboration in Odisha, India
A pilot project to increase the scale of access of farmers to improved crop production technologies by integrating Digital Green’s technology-enabled extension model was implemented in collaboration with CSISA (Cereal Systems Initiatives in South Asia) in Odisha layering over Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) and Government of Odisha agriculture extension systems.
The project was implemented in 20 villages in Puri district of Odisha. CSISA and the KVK played the role of knowledge partners in the project. The technical content (in the form of videos) was disseminated by the KVK trainers and the village level extension workers of Department of Agriculture, Govt. of Odisha.
A short film on the pilot: