technical references for ffp development projects 4-23-15 (2).pdf

U.S. Agency for International Development

Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and

Humanitarian Assistance

Office of Food for Peace (FFP)

Technical References for FFP

Development Food Assistance Projects

[Type here] [Type here] April 8, 2015

Table of Contents

I. Introduction and Core Operational Principles

II. Mandatory Program Design Elements

A. Theory of Change

B. Logical Framework

E. Gender

F. Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation

G. Environmental Safeguards and Compliance

III. Sectors

A. Agriculture and Livelihoods

1. Profitable, Sustainable Farm and Land Management

2. Household Economics (including nutrition pathways)

3. Human and Institutional Capacity Building

B. Risk Management and Disaster Risk Reduction

C. Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition

1. Health and Nutrition Systems Strengthening

2. Social and Behavior Change Communication

3. Food Assistance for Improved Nutritional Outcomes

D. Natural Resource Management

1. Soil Productivity

2. Water Management

3. Diversified and Productive Landscapes

E. Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene

1. Linking WASH and Nutrition

2. Water Supply Infrastructure

3. Sanitation Infrastructure

4. Hygiene Promotion

5. Irrigation

6. Environmental Health

IV. Program Quality

A. Monitoring and Evaluation

1. Annual Monitoring Plan

2. M&E Staffing Plan, Organogram, and Capacity Development

Strategy

B. Learning, Knowledge Sharing, and Capacity Strengthening

2. Collaborating, Learning and Adapting

2. Capacity Strengthening

C. Social Accountability and Governance

D. Sustainability

1. Sustained Resources

2. Capacity

3. Motivation

4. Linkages

List of Acronyms

FFP Office of Food for Peace

DRR disaster risk reduction

MCHN maternal and child health and nutrition M&E monitoring and evaluation NRM natural resource management WASH water, sanitation, and hygiene USAID United States Agency for International Development RFA Request for Applications IEE Initial Environmental Examination CCVA climate change vulnerability assessments GEMS Global Environmental Management Support EMMP Environmental Mitigation and Monitoring Plan ADS Automated Directives System IPTT Indicator Performance Tracking Table CFR Code of Federal Regulations GBV gender-based violence TOPS Technical and Operational Performance Support IFPRI International Food Policy Research Institute FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations MEAS Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services ODI Overseas Development Institute U.N. United Nations SUN Scaling Up Nutrition IYCF infant and young child feeding CMAM Community Management of Acute Malnutrition SAM severe acute malnutrition UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees WFP World Food Programme HIV human immunodeficiency virus CHW community health worker APC Advancing Partners & Communities NACS Nutrition Assessment, Counseling, and Support ECD Early Child Development UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund ToC Theory of Change LogFrame Logical Framework FTF Feed the Future USG United States Government O&M operations and maintenance CLTS community-led total sanitation POU point-of-use EE environmental enteropathy MHM menstrual hygiene management

I. Introduction and Core Operational Principles

This document is being developed to assist potential partners access technical information and emerging best practice relevant to the sectors and activities USAID addresses with its Food for Peace non-emergency resources and Feed the Future (FTF) Community Development Funds. With the exception of specific guidance for the development of mandatory gender and environmental analysis, and monitoring and evaluation, this is not a “how to” manual. The drivers of vulnerability to food and nutrition insecurity vary within and between countries, and call for a context-specific vision of change. This document attempts to provide a toolkit to assist partners as they develop that context-specific vision and plans to operationalize it. .

At a midway point in the Office’s development of a new FFP strategy, this document also proposes a set of core operational principles for consideration during the design of new FFP development activities. These principles reflect important process and program trends that are occurring across the Agency, including the Country Development and Cooperation Strategy process; institutionalizing the concept of resilience; a renewed focus on inclusive growth as a means to end extreme poverty;

USAID Forward’s commitment to supporting local systems; and a growing recognition of need to take multi-sector and mutually reinforcing approaches to reducing malnutrition.

In many ways FFP development programs have anticipated each of these trends, and they are increasingly seen as critical components of integrated Mission and Agency strategies to build resilience, reduce humanitarian need, address the root causes of malnutrition, and contribute to measurable gains in poverty and hunger reduction.

Food for Peace welcomes your thoughts, suggestions and input on these operational principles, and on the technical reference chapters that follow.

Core Operational Principles

1. Use evidence-based design drawing from best practice. These technical reference chapters, FANTA’s FAFSA II report, as well as the wide range of resources available through FFP’s learning platform, the Food Security and Nutrition Network, sponsored by the Technical Operational and Performance Support (TOPS) mechanism, and the Bureau for Food Security (BFS) learning platform, Agrilinks, are a few of many sources of best practice for food security programming.

2. Partner with others for complementarity, impact, and sustainability. In countries with an existing CDCS, FTF, and/or Resilience strategy, Country Specific Information will provide information that partners can use to ensure that new FFP activities contribute to, enhance, and/or leverage other USAID poverty reduction and food and nutrition security efforts by deepening the reach of USG assistance to chronically vulnerable populations. Other donor, private sector, and government-supported activities not specifically reflected in Country Specific http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/FAFSA-2%20Full%20Report_July2013.pdf http://www.fsnnetwork.org/ http://www.fsnnetwork.org/ http://agrilinks.org/

Information may also provide effective partnership opportunities, and should be explored.

3. Promote real-time applied learning, collaboration, and adaptive management. A strong project learning strategy will be focused, relevant to identified needs and opportunities, and integrated with implementation and management processes. It will ensure responsive, adaptive management and improved project implementation through analysis and application of formal learning from performance monitoring, assessments, and evaluation results, as well as informal learning from dialogue, consultation, and reflection processes.

4. Support the enfranchisement, aspirations, and agency of women and youth. Women face disproportionate economic, social and health challenges in the countries and communities in which FFP programs are implemented. In many of the same communities, the promise of a “demographic dividend” is far from being realized, and a burgeoning number of youth are landless, inadequately educated, and unemployed. Strategies to engage women, youth, men and elders as change agents for gender equality and increased educational and economic opportunity should contribute to any vision of improved and sustained food and nutrition security.

5. Leverage all pathways to better nutrition. The Lancet’s maternal and child nutrition series (Lancet, 2008, 20013), as well as evidence emerging from USAID’s nutrition innovation lab and other research efforts all point to the importance of looking for opportunities to achieve better nutritional impact through our “nutrition-sensitive” as well as “nutrition-specific” investments.

Community-based FFP development programs are uniquely positioned to do this strategically— with the potential of incorporating (and demonstrating) consistent nutrition messages in layered agriculture, WASH, livelihood, basic literacy and numeracy, and vocational training—in addition to nutrition specific maternal and child health and nutrition activities.

6. Identify opportunities for transformation within existing systems.

Prospects for sustainable, broad-based change are enhanced by supporting and strengthening existing community, private sector, and public sector mechanisms for product and service delivery, and by supporting the legitimacy and accountability of government institutions. Activities that enhance equitable household and community access to goods and services, without creating redundant and unsustainable delivery systems will increase the probability of meaningful change and impact. USAID’s new nutrition strategy calls for increased investment in health system strengthening and capacity building to support host-country efforts to “Scale-Up Nutrition” (SUN). Working at a community level, FFP partners are well-positioned to assist health authorities identify and address constraints and opportunities, pilot new approaches, demonstrate impact, and drive the scale up of proven activities.

7. Promote innovative approaches and technologies to achieve “last-mile” service delivery. Even in countries experiencing rapid agricultural and economic gains, communities and households targeted by FFP activities face multiple access constraints to both public and private services—they represent “the last mile”. The challenge for FFP partners is to identify pathways and technologies that will increase the inclusivity of economic growth by improving access of the extremely poor to newly emerging services and opportunities.

8. Balance facilitative approaches with well-designed food/resource transfers. The vulnerable communities and households served by FFP projects are not simply “food poor”—they also tend to labor, income, and asset poor. They are less likely to be able to access or benefit from agriculture extension and agriculture investments, less likely to be able to keep their children in school, and more likely to require humanitarian assistance on a periodic, or even regular basis. Food assistance can help to provide such households with the stability required to envision and reach for change, and it can help them access the tools they’ll need to achieve it. Understanding the role of food assistance as a resource transfer can help to ensure that it is used creatively and appropriately as a means to enable communities and households to make strategic—transformational-- choices for themselves, reducing the likelihood of dependence or short-term impact.

9. Assume that shocks will occur. FFP’s development activities target many households and communities that are vulnerable to repeated shocks—whether climatic (e.g. drought), social (e.g. conflict over water or pasture) or economic (e.g. price fluctuations). While the long-term objective of an FFP activity may be to sustainably reduce vulnerability to one or more of these shocks, its design should reflect the assumption that a shock (or shocks) will occur during the life of the program.

II. Mandatory Program Design Elements

A. Theory of Change

Overview

A Theory of Change (ToC) describes the hypothesized series of changes that are expected to occur in a given context as the result of specific activities. ToC makes explicit how a project design team thinks outputs from their activities will interact with other concurrent activities and contextual conditions to stimulate or enable a series of outcomes that will ultimately lead to the achievement of desired objectives. That is, it describes in detailed steps, the project design team’s expectations for how the activities’ successful implementation will interact with the conditions and outcomes produced by other actors to stimulate gradual change. Most initiatives have multiple pathways that eventually converge at or before reaching the long term goal.

The process to define a ToC starts from a goal and then work backwards – describing preconditions that must exist before the goal can be achieved, then describing what other conditions have to be met before these proximal conditions can exist, then the conditions that must preceded this second level of conditions, etc., working backwards until one reaches conditions that would be immediate outcomes or outputs of an action or activity.

Starting from a problem analysis using a problem tree approach significantly facilitates the development of a theory of change. In a problem tree approach, the project design team first identifies the main problem that the project would address, and then works backwards identifying the main causes of the problem, then the second level of causes and so on, until the design team reaches to the root causes that the team believes and the evidence suggests that addressing the causes will have a domino effect to address the main problem. The next step is to convert the problem tree to an objective or outcome tree. This process should result in multiple streams of outcomes leading to the

Figure 1: A simplified illustration of a ToC diagram http://evaluationtoolbox.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28&Itemid=134 http://evaluationtoolbox.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28&Itemid=134 http://evaluationtoolbox.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28&Itemid=134 goal. The project team then identifies all necessary and sufficient outcomes to achieve the goal and the assumptions the team is making for each level of outcomes. A ToC includes the hypothesized series of necessary and sufficient outcomes/pre-conditions1 that are expected to occur in a given context as the result of specific activities regardless whether all of these activities are implemented by a particular project or not.

In designing a project, an organization then identifies and selects a set of activities to influence the root causes based on the comparative advantage of the organization, scope of the project, feasibility, and the experience and evidence. It is likely that a single project may not implement all of the interventions required to assure outcomes in the

ToC, but the theory must identify where external action is necessary and explain how the project will help ensure that other actors undertake these actions in the required timeframe.

For example, to develop a ToC for improved household food security, one of the conditions may be improved household access to nutritious foods. Before this can be achieved households need adequate income and they need to choose to spend enough of that income to buy nutritious foods that they are not able to produce on their own.

Operating under an assumption that women are more likely to choose to spend short household resources on food than men, a pre-condition to this choice is for women to have a part in the decision about use of household funds. Hence, an activity could be training to empower women and sensitize men so that both men and women participate in household decisions about the use of household funds. In this example, the ToC would include Improved Household Food Security, Improved Access to Nutrition Foods by Vulnerable Households, Gender equity in Household Decision Making about

Expenditures, Women Empowered to Participate in Household Decisions and Men

Sensitized to the Benefits of Women Participating in Household Decisions would all be in the chain between training activities and the final goal. A complete ToC would define all of the necessary and sufficient conditions to effect change at each level, including, for example, policy and institutional requirements, systemic conditions, and complementary activities. The more complete the ToC, the more likely the project will produce the desired changes and the more useful the ToC will be to internal learning.

The appropriate “breadth” and “depth”, depends on the purpose2, that’s why a ToC needs to be periodically revised.

A ToC includes a graphic presentation3 that pictorially depicts the pathways of change, with multiple intermediary steps connected by directional arrows that show how outcomes interact to gradually advance toward the goal. Interventions necessary for movement from one outcome to another are inserted along the relevant arrows.

1 Outcome and pre-condition are used interchangeably in this document. A pre-condition is necessarily an outcome necessary to achieve the next level outcome.

2 SCOPE: How Much Should a Good Theory Account For?” http://www.theoryofchange.org/pdf/scope.pdf 3 ToC Online or “TOCO” is a free easy-to-use tool for creating a Theory of Change diagram. It provides a flexible drawing canvas for building and editing a diagram.

The ToC diagram should include: the goal, all necessary and sufficient outcomes/pre-conditions including the outcomes produced by other stakeholders connected by directional arrows, outputs and assumptions. It is better to use different color schemes for outcomes produced by external actors. As the FFP development projects aim to achieve food security goals and the underlying causes of food insecurity are multi-sectoral, multi-dimensional and complex, the theories of change diagram can become too large to fit into one page and become illegible. To keep it reader friendly, an applicant may create multiple diagrams, one for the overall theory which includes goal and higher (purposes and sub purposes) level outcomes, and either purpose or sub purpose level diagrams (depending of the depth and breadth of the diagram) – one for each purpose or sub purpose. This way the diagrams can be printed on paper in a legible format.

If adding assumptions to a diagram makes the diagram too complex to read, an applicant may present the assumptions in a separate table. The table should include the outcome or output and the assumption (s) needed to produce the next level outcome so that the logic becomes clear to the reader.

A narrative document should include the following:

a) Describe a basis for the elements of the theory of change through previous experience or proven results;

b) Describe a basis for the assumptions; if risks are identified, strategies to address risks;

c) Describe an indication why outcomes that rely on other stakeholders for their achievement are likely to happen, and applicant’s plan to monitor them.

Terminology, Definitions and Presentation in the ToC of key concepts:

Pathways: The sequence in which outcomes are expected to occur in order to reach the long-term goal. Pathways are depicted by chains of outcomes connected by directional arrows. Early outcomes should be depicted near the bottom of the ToC and later outcomes near the top. Each level along the way depicts the outcomes that must exist before the next higher outcome in the chain can be achieved, i.e., outcomes on a lower level are pre-conditions for outcomes at the next higher level. Most development initiatives have multiple pathways leading toward the long-term goal.

Outcomes / preconditions: Outcomes and preconditions are used interchangeably in the ToC chapter. Preconditions include outcomes that are needed to realize the higher level outcome but the project may not have interventions to influence them. In that case the project must coordinate with other actors to ensure that the preconditions are met.

Outputs: Result from activities. They are tangible, immediate, and intended products of an activity. Examples include people trained, food rations distributed, groups formed, and infrastructures rehabilitated.

Graphic presentation: A diagram that presents a causal road map of interventions, outcomes, assumptions, and long term goals on a pathway of change.

Assumptions: Applicants/awardees must identify and explicitly present all assumptions underlying the ToC. There are two types of assumptions:

o Assumptions about why a precondition or set of preconditions is necessary and sufficient for movement from outcome to outcome. In the

ToC, assumptions are shown along the arrows that connect outcome boxes to explain the connections. They need to be supported by evidence in accompanying narrative. For example a hypothesis, improved efficiency and resilience of agricultural production would lead to increased total production, depends on the assumption that households will continue to have access to land to increase farm size.

o The second type of assumptions are broader contextual or environmental conditions that are typically out of the control of a project but have significant influence over the success of a project goal. For example a food security project in Bangladesh may assume that during the project life the annual flooding in the project area will not exceed the 50 year flood level. Exceeding the flood level beyond 50 year threshold will likely erode the benefits from the project activities and households’ ability to cope with the flooding without adopting harmful coping strategies. The narrative section of the ToC diagram describes and provides justification for the assumptions.

Evidence: Evidence includes facts or other information that support the truth or validity of a connection in the ToC. It is needed to defend and support the stated connections between one outcome to the next and the basis of the assumptions.

Evidence can come from multiple quantitative or qualitative sources, including academic, project-specific, or community-based research. It can be presented in text or tabular format, or by providing references or links to original sources.

Information Resources

The Center for Theory of Change promotes best practices for the development and implementation of a ToC. It particularly emphasizes its application in the areas of international development and sustainability.

The Theory of Change Online is a free easy-to-use tool for creating a ToC diagram. It provides a flexible drawing canvas for building and editing a diagram.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has a Practical Tool for Action, Results and Learning that helps in the development and application of a ToC.

This blog in the Stanford Social Innovation Review discusses pitfalls to avoid when designing and applying a ToC.

B. Logical Framework

A Logical Framework (LogFrame) is a tool that summarizes the ToC and presents the project design in a standard format. It shows the causal links between project activities, outputs, outcomes and goal; identifies the potential risks and contextual factors that are critical to the success of a project and the key indicators that would help to track the performance of the project. A Logframe consists of a matrix with four columns and many rows, summarizing the key elements of a project, namely:

a) Narrative summary: The project’s hierarchy of objectives (Goal, Purpose, Sub purpose, Intermediate outcome, and Outputs);

b) Assumptions: The conditions external to the proposed project but necessary to achieve project results; and contextual environment and key external factors critical to the project’s success.

c) Indicators with targets: How the project’s achievements will be monitored and evaluated. Targets must be linked to the context, food insecurity and nutritional analysis, Figure 2 Logic in Logical Framework http://www.theoryofchange.org/ http://www.theoryofchange.org/toco-software/ http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/aecf-theoryofchange-2004.pdf http://www.ssireview.org/blog/entry/six_theory_of_change_pitfalls_to_avoid and ToC. Targets have to be ambitious yet achievable and linked to the FFP’s targets;

and

d) Data sources: Where the indicator data will come from, and when it will be collected.

a) Narrative Summary: The narrative summary of the LogFrame identifies project’s hierarchy of objectives, what a project intends to do (strategy of intervention) and shows the causal relationship between the different levels of the objectives. The hierarchy of project objectives includes goal, purposes, sub-purposes, intermediate outcomes, and outputs. The hierarchy of objectives in the LogFrame must directly be transferred from the ToC..

The goal is a higher-level result to which the project, along with other projects, will contribute to. It is the strategic rationale for the project and is directly linked to the FFP Strategic Objective and the Development Objective of the USAID country development cooperation strategy. The goal statement should be kept as clear and concise as possible. An example of a goal for a food security project could be food and nutrition security of communities and households in [name]

Province improved by [year].

Purposes are key result(s) to be achieved that justify the project. It summarizes the highest level of outcome that a project is responsible for. The purposes describe a change in the condition or status of the population in the target area.

Figure 3 Relationship between ToC and LogFrame

An example of a project purpose could be nutritional status of women of reproductive age and children under 5 years improved.

Sub-purposes are outcomes resulting from behavioral and/ or systemic changes—for example, changes in income, gross margin, changes in yield, changes in response time, changes in management systems, changes in adoptive, absorptive or transformative capacities; changes in policy or procedure, recovery of environment, shifts in cultural norms, etc. An example of a sub purpose could be increased income from farm and off farm sources.

Intermediate outcomes are the immediate consequences of outputs. They include changes in practices, attitudes, and systems as a result of the application or use of outputs produced by project activities. Examples include application of project promoted agricultural techniques or management practices, increased consumption of promoted foods, greater attendance. An example of a sub purpose could be increased participation in growth monitoring sessions, or application of sustainable agricultural practices.

Outputs result from project activities. They are tangible, immediate, and intended products of a project implemented activities. Examples include number of people trained, food rations distributed, groups formed, and infrastructures rehabilitated.

b) Indicators describe project outputs and outcomes in operationally measurable terms and specify the performance standard to be reached in order to achieve the goal, purpose, sub-purpose, intermediate outcomes or output. All outcome indicators and selected output indicators are to be included in the

LogFrame. Targets to be presented in parenthesis following the example presented in figure 4.

Figure 4 Example of an incomplete LogFrame

c) Data sources specify where the indicator data will come from. For example annual survey report, baseline survey report, routine monitoring report, and program records.

d) Assumptions are external factors and conditions that could influence (positively or negatively) the process described in the narrative column. The list of assumptions should include those factors that potentially impact project success.

FFP does not require applicants to report every single assumptions in the LogFrame, only key assumptions critical to the success of the achievement of the project to be reported.

USAID’s Technical Note on the Logical Framework describes the rationale, theory, and essential elements of the LogFrame as it relates to USAID’s Program Cycle.

A Guide to the Logical Framework Approach (LFA) was developed by the European

Integration Office to provide clear guidance to users on how to start drafting a

LogFrame matrix that will lead towards formulation of high-quality projects. The purpose of the guide is to enable users to advance the skills in using LFA as a planning tool and in developing logical framework matrix with all its elements.

http://usaidlearninglab.org/sites/default/files/resource/files/2012_12%20Logical%20Framework%20Technical%20Note_final%20(2).pdf http://www.evropa.gov.rs/Evropa/ShowDocument.aspx?Type=Home&Id=525

C. Gender

Although the objectives of food assistance activities and actions will need to be context-specific, one underlying aspect of food insecurity in all FFP projects that deserves careful consideration is the widely prevalent issue of gender inequality. Gender inequality affects food security through various pathways. For example, access to, and rights over land differ between men and women affecting food production, availability, and ultimately food security. Men and women engage in different livelihoods and often women earn much less than men. Many women are married and bear children during their adolescent years, at a time when they have the least access to resources and decision-making power in the household, which affects food utilization and nutrition outcomes. Gender inequality varies from one host country context to another and therefore affects each dimension of food security in different ways. Understanding the gender constraints as they affect food security and integrating gender considerations into food assistance programming is essential and a mandatory activity requirement to ensure, promote, and sustain food security.

A gendered approach takes into account the differences in men’s, women’s, boys’, and girls’ roles in the community context, as well as the intergenerational and gendered inequalities that exist within a household during activity planning, implementation and assessment. Accounting for inequalities in designing food assistance activities in order to reduce the disparities should not only contribute to more effective multi-year development activities, but also to increased social equality and greater reductions in food insecurity.

Technical Design and Integration of Food Security Activities

In light of USAID’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policy and guidance in ADS 205, a description of how gender will be addressed in all areas of the proposed activities must be included in the application. At a minimum, the following must be addressed in each application:

1. Description of how activity components could affect, both positively and negatively, the access to and control over resources and benefits for boys, girls, men, and women;

2. Description of how preventing gender-based violence (GBV) throughout activity components will be addressed;

3. Description of how proposed interventions will affect women’s time (e.g., trade-off between more work and less time for child care or child-focused actions, how potential exposure to agricultural pesticides can adversely affect health, etc.); and

4. Description of how the activity in general, and the technical interventions in particular, will be carried out in a way that will allow for equitable participation by men, women, boys and girls must be included in the design of the activity.

http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/GenderEqualityPolicy.pdf http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/205.pdf

Gender Expertise

FFP expects that applicants will have the necessary gender expertise and capacity available to ensure gender is integrated and addressed at every point in the food assistance activity cycle. Applicants must identify their gender expertise and explain their capacity to implement gender-sensitive actions within the application.

Gender-Based Violence

Eliminating gender-based violence (GBV) is a long-standing goal of the USG, and USAID has supported activities around the globe to combat it.

While FPP activities may not directly address the root causes of GBV, applicants are encouraged to program activities that will focus on addressing normative change such as those activities that have potential community level impact, engage men and engage religious leaders. It is important for applicants to consider the possible effects program activities may have on GBV at the household or community level, and GBV should be assessed during the gender analysis in order to ensure safety measures are in place and that activities will not exacerbate or lead to GBV. Applicants should carefully plan for, and address in the design of the activity, how potential actions could lead to GBV and what steps will be taken to mitigate any harmful negative effects. Due to the sensitive nature of GBV, applicants who propose program activities to directly address and impact GBV outcomes must ensure they have qualified staff trained in this area.

Applicants who intend to collect data on GBV must justify what they intend to do with this data, why it’s important for program outcomes, and how they intend to address findings.

Gender Integration and Gender Indicators

Gender integration involves identifying, and then addressing, gender inequalities during strategy and activity design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. Since the roles and power relations between men and women affect how an activity is implemented, it is essential that activity staff address these on an on-going basis.

What are Gender Indicators?

Gender integration involves an in-depth understanding about the underlying causes of the problems that a project plans to address, theory of change, and identifying, and then addressing, gender inequalities during strategy and activity design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. Since the roles and power relations between men and women affect how an activity is implemented and gets adopted, it is essential that project staff continuously review activities using gender lens.

What are Gender Indicators?

http://www.usaid.gov/gbv

Gender-sensitive indicators measure and help track changes in gender related issues over time and progress toward gender equality. Gender indicators should lead to a better understanding of the results of project actions, both positively and negatively, the lives of men, women, boys and girls. Gender-sensitive indicators should highlight any gaps between men and women in terms of access to and control over resources, division of labor, needs, constraints, opportunities and capacities, and the interest of men and women (and boys and girls) in a given context. While gender indicators by themselves do not completely capture men’s or women's experiences, they can be used to highlight the need to address and/or guide programmatic decisions at the local, regional, and national level.

FFP Required Gender Indicators

Food for Peace adopted required gender indicators that will be collected at the baseline and endline of each project. The gender indicators can be found here and are numbered 61-66. Applicants are encouraged to include gender indicators in annual monitoring in order to track and be responsive to gender domains over the life of the project. Applicants should carefully consider that selected gender indicators are context-appropriate and applicable to the activities planned. Potential sources of validated gender indicators include, but are not limited to, the WEAI and DHS.

Gender Analysis Plan

Completing a Gender Analysis at the time of application is not required; however, a Gender Analysis must be completed as per the guidance provided in the following section within the first year if the application is awarded. Applicants are required to share their plans for completing a Gender Analysis as an annex entitled Gender Analysis Plan. This Plan is limited to four pages, and is intended to only outline the plan for undertaking gender analysis activities. This plan should include, but is not limited to, information on: key questions to be addressed, duration of analysis, tools used for data collection, data analysis plan, plan for application of results, and an estimated budget.

Applicants are not restricted to all details of this plan should their application be awarded, but it should be evident from this plan that the applicant has an understanding of what a gender analysis is and the capacity to complete this activity. Applicants should refer to ADS chapter 205 (Integrating Gender Equality and Female Empowerment in USAID’s Program Cycle).

Guidelines for FFP Development Project’s Gender Analysis

The goal of the project-level gender analysis is to provide a deeper understanding of current gender issues at the community and household levels in activity target areas, as well as the gender context in which the activity is operating within. The purpose is to advance the knowledge and understanding of the context-specific, project-level gender issues that would affect activity implementation, project participation, and outcomes.

This should in turn improve and be incorporated into a gender-integrated project design.

http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/FFP%20Indicators%20List_Revised%2004.13.2015.pdf

Applicants are expected to invest appropriately in the required gender analysis activity and this should be reflected in the proposed budget documents. Applicants’ budgets are required to support all of the gender analysis activities with a minimum budget of

$25,000 and a suggested budget range of $25,000-$65,000.

Formatting In addition to the requirements outlined in ADS 205, FFP requests that partners use the following guidelines when preparing their gender analysis:

• Be no longer than 50 pages, including appendices and references;

• Be written in 12 point Times New Roman font with 1-inch margins;

• Be grammatically correct and contain no spelling or punctuation errors;

• Be proofread by field and headquarters staff before sending to FFP for review; and

• Contain the following elements:

1. Executive Summary

2. Table of Contents

3. Introduction

4. Background/Literature Review

5. Methodology/Approach

6. Results and Analysis

7. Findings and Conclusions

8. Recommendations

9. Gender Action Plan (derived from recommendations)

10. References (include all documents reviewed and utilized in the creation of the final report)

11. Annexes (must include the Statement of Work and any tools used in conducting the analysis)

Background and Literature Review and Methodology/Approach The gender analysis should adhere to the following:

Include, but also extend beyond, a review of available national-level quantitative and qualitative data on gender;

Incorporate a USAID Mission gender analysis if available. However, the Mission analysis should not serve as the only source of information for the project-level gender analysis. Additionally, as per ADS 205, a Mission-level gender analysis cannot be used in lieu of conducting a project-level gender analysis. Every new project is required to conduct a separate and new gender analysis;

Be designed in order to understand current gender issues and changing trends that may affect activity implementation. There is no required approach or tool that must be used to conduct this gender analysis. Instead, the focus should be on a design and approach that will lead to the most applicable gender results at the project level;

Be designed to gain an understanding of the ways that gender issues affect access to activity interventions, decision making, and behavior change or activity uptake, and how they relate to and impact the achievement of food security objectives;

Use a variety of representative qualitative data collection methods in order to understand the nuances of the project implementation environment including, but not limited to, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and stakeholder interviews;

Utilize available quantitative data from other studies to inform this analysis.

Projects are not required to collect new or primary quantitative data during this activity; however, this analysis should explore all available information including results from quantitative studies in order to triangulate and inform the qualitative data to the extent possible.

Attention should be given to the types of groups best suited to answer the gender analysis questions. For example, which questions are best answered by a desk or literature review? Which questions are better answered through key informant interviews or focus group discussions? Which questions should have multiple groups consulted for triangulation of data?

Consider that sufficient timing is needed. In general, the planning of the gender analysis should take approximately two-three weeks; primary data collection four-six weeks; data entry and analysis approximately four-six weeks; drafting of the final report approximately three-four weeks; and final report editing and incorporation into the project three-six weeks. While the timeline may vary slightly, it is important not to rush this process and allow for necessary and sufficient time for revisions to the draft report and time needed to apply the results throughout the remainder of the activity life cycle; and

Applicants are required to understand and adhere to IRB processes when appropriate, which includes following the requirements both inside and outside of the U.S. When an IRB is deemed necessary, programs must receive all required approvals before any data is collected for the gender analysis. Any IRB process should be adequately planned for and reflected in the above timeline (on average it take 2-3 months per IRB process to receive approval once research protocols are submitted). For more information regarding IRB process at USAID see the

ADS on Protection of Human Subjects in Research Supported by USAID:

Data Analysis, Findings/Conclusions, Recommendations, and Action Plan

FFP expects that the results of the analysis will serve to guide gender-integrated activity implementation and be incorporated into activity actions for the remainder of the activity life-cycle. The results from a gender analysis should change the type and implementation of activity actions to take constraints identified by the gender analysis into account. To produce quality results and recommendations that can be fed back into activity actions, a “Gender Action Plan” must be created as part of the gender analysis final report. The following should be considered when drafting the recommendations and Gender Action Plan in the final report:

Recommendations generated from the analysis should be feasible, actionable, and realistic.

Recommendations should take any necessary budget constraints into account.

Relationship between findings (facts and figures), conclusions (inference), and recommendations (courses of action) must be clearly identified in the report in order for readers to understand the logic and for the suggested recommendations to be evidence-based.

Results should be presented by using a combination of charts, tables, direct quotes, and summarized narratives.

It is highly encouraged to quantify qualitative data when appropriate for ease of comparing data and to contribute to a concise and informative final report.

Results and findings should be presented as analyzed facts supported by strong quantitative and qualitative data.

Sources of information need to be properly identified and sample sizes of reported data and results need to be disclosed. For example, when reporting information gathered from a focus group discussion, it should be clear how many people in one or several focus group discussion(s) held a particular view being reported.

Staffing for the Gender Analysis Conducting a high quality and successful gender analysis requires having qualified staff to assist in the exercise. To ensure that qualified staff is participating in the gender analysis, FFP awardees should:

Utilize activity gender staff and engage headquarters’ gender staff throughout the process. It is important that activity staff at both the field and headquarters level play a role throughout the entire gender analysis process. This will lead to a higher quality end product that is more useable and applicable to the activity;

Ensure that activity staff still has substantial involvement and oversight during the process if an external gender expert is hired, as required by ADS 205. This means that activity staff is expected to play a role in the development, implementation, analysis, and application of the gender analysis results; and

Ensure that, in addition to gender expertise, a multi-disciplinary team with capacity in quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis is involved.

USAID's Gender Equality and Female Empowerment Policy aims to improve the lives of citizens around the world by advancing equality between females and males, and empowering women and girls to participate fully in and benefit from the development of their societies.

USAID’s ADS 205 explains how to implement across the Program Cycle new USAID policies and strategies to reduce gender inequality and to enable girls and women to realize their rights, determine their life outcomes, influence decision-making, and become change agents in households, communities, and societies.

More information on addressing gender in programming can be found in USAID’s Addressing Gender in Programming page.

http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/GenderEqualityPolicy.pdf http://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment/addressing-gender-programming http://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment/addressing-gender-programming

D. Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation

On September 23, 2014 President Obama signed Executive Order 13677 on Climate Resilient International Development. This new Executive order combined with two previous ones, Executive Orders 13514 and 13653, establish a strong foundation for coordinated and consistent action to incorporate climate-resilience considerations into policies and procedures throughout the Federal Government. Executive departments and agencies with international development programs must now systematically factor climate-resilience considerations into international development strategies, planning, programming, investments, and related funding decisions. As part of this process, FFP is coordinating with USAID’s Global Climate Change Office and USAID’s recently finalized Climate Adaption Plan. Specific guidance on how this new executive order applies to all new USAID awards will be forthcoming.

At a minimum, applicants should include a description of how the program will plan to adapt to climate change stressors that would otherwise adversely affect the performance of climate-sensitive program activities such as potable water, groundwater-sourced irrigation, road durability/erosion and vector control. This description of how climate sensitivity (e.g., how proposed interventions will address climate stresses) and safeguarding of ecological goods and services (e.g., groundwater recharge, soil fertility, slope stabilization) should be integrated across the design of all relevant activities, in light of the environmental integration effort in the RFA.

Adaptation activities, if proposed in a development project application, should aim to build the resilience of communities, individuals, and natural assets to climate change and variability. Doing so will help protect existing FFP investments from climate impacts, safeguarding development gains and economic security. Additionally, all USAID climate change adaptation activities must be informed by a climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA). While applicants are not required to conduct a separate climate change vulnerability assessment, they should describe how they are using information from existing resources to design any adaptation activities. In general terms, vulnerability is defined as the degree to which something or someone is likely to be harmed by a stress. In the context of climate change, it is the degree to which social, economic or environmental systems are likely to be harmed by adverse impacts of climate change stress. The idea of vulnerability is further elaborated in USAID’s Climate Resilient Development Results Framework.

Executive Order 13677 on Climate-Resilient International Development

Executive Order 13514 on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance http://www.usaid.gov/climate/climate-resilient-development-framework http://www.usaid.gov/climate/climate-resilient-development-framework http://www.usaid.gov/climate/climate-resilient-development-framework http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-09-26/pdf/2014-23228.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2009-10-08/pdf/E9-24518.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2009-10-08/pdf/E9-24518.pdf

Executive Order 13653 on Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change

USAID’s Climate Adaption Plan

E. Environmental Safeguards and Compliance

Environmental degradation, climate change, and natural disasters are well-known challenges to development assistance and humanitarian aid, as they can negatively impact sustainable development and resiliency goals. Improving environmental impacts of FFP projects leads to both positive food security and environmental outcomes (e.g., safe and available water, NRM, reduced hunger and malnutrition, etc.). Ensuring environmental compliance in FFP food assistance projects aims to:

1. Do no harm to local environment of land, water and flora/fauna, including humans (e.g., project-related deforestation, medical waste management, safe/effective pesticides, water quality assurance);

2. Improve community resilience to environmental degradation (consider the added impacts of climate-related shocks);

3. Rehabilitate degraded natural resources that are relevant to project’s food security objectives (e.g., poor soil fertility, contaminated drinking water,);

4. Strengthen knowledge, attitudes and practice of target participants to better manage community natural resource environments for enhanced project sustainability and resilience to shocks related to food security.

Technical Design and Integration of Food Security Activities

Environmental safeguards and compliance should be integrated within the application and described in the Environmental Safeguards Plan annex.

Meeting the environmental safeguards and compliance goals of FFP food assistance projects consists of the following four requirements:

a) Consultation of Existing Environmental Analyses

A wealth of information on climate change, environmental…