Program description:

The Humanitarian, Early Recovery, and Development for Food Security Initiative for COVID-19 Affected Communities in Sub-Saharan Africa (HERD) program aimed to: reduce hunger and increase resilient food security for women, men, girls and boys affected by COVID-19 and other concurrent shocks using a gender-transformative approach where possible. It operated in eight countries in Africa and Asia that have needed a mix of humanitarian, development and in some cases peacebuilding approaches. The HERD program was funded through the International Humanitarian Assistance and Partnerships for Development Innovation branches of Global Affairs Canada (GAC). This combination of funding is a pilot initiative for the donor. The HERD program operated from April 2021 to December 2023.

What we did:

Together with a team of African-based feminist-MEAL evaluators and collaborating with the Foodgrains Bank MEAL team to support 10 project partners in 8 countries across Africa and Asia to implement a final evaluation on their Global Affairs Canada (GAC)-funded Humanitarian, Early Recovery, and Development for Food Security Initiative. It was one of seven nexus pilot projects being funded by GAC. Responsible for developing the evaluation approach, methodologies and toolkit package along with the development and implementation of the training and coaching strategy for partner staff through a mix of virtual and in-person engagements. Core approaches involved outcome harvesting, realist-evaluation and feminist-MEAL. Core methodologies included mapping change pathways, Most Significant Change story combined with PhotoVoice, video or theatre and participatory gender analysis tools.