CARE Failing Forward

What happens when your brand new tool makes things worse for low performing entrepreneurs? Or restricts your most successful teachers so they can't unlock the full power of their skills? One of the most important questions you can ask about an AI tool is NOT, "is it working?" You really need to ask, "who is it working for?" and "How did the change happen?" Crystal Huang from IDinsight and Matthew Smith from IDRC talk about ways to evaluate AI tools, and how to think about if they really are creating the change you hoped for. Just like the internet didn't end poverty, neither will AI. What succeeds or fails will depend on how well we implement AI, and whether we can truly center how technology connects to humans and real life contexts. What do we do to take something that works in a controlled setting and help it survive the messiness of real-world implementation?

Lindsey Moore was working in AI before most of us knew what it was, and she can tell you the most common mistakes to avoid. Ignoring context, building ever more precise models that provide terrible answers, and assuming that AI will replace smart strategy and human decision-making are three on the top of her list. If you're looking to do more with AI, she recommends you invest in learning good research methods, double-down on your data architecture, find ways to counteract bias, and stay skeptical. Developmetrics' Large Language Model with was trained on 60 years of USAID documents, and taps into a wealth of expertise that doesn't exist anywhere else. It can tell you what has worked, and what hasn't, over decades of work in dozens of countries. Here's what it tells us: we often repeat the same failures over and over again. Why? Because failures are as much about organizations as they are about tactics. The newest widget won't solve an organizational culture that drives people away from spending time understanding the local context.

CARE has a more than 30 year history with savings groups--starting from the lowest tech version you can possibly imagine: 25 women with a box and a notebook in Niger. Building on that, in 2013, we launched the process of building Chomoka--an app that would help women in savings groups manage their record keeping and connect to digital finance. Christian Pennotti talks about that journey, and why we finally passed the work over to Ensibuuko. Building a successful, scalable enterprise around digital tools was ultimately better put in the hands of a tech company that focuses on banking tech for people who can't access existing tools. What did we learn, and what are we doing now? Tune in to find out.

"If you've already built an elevator to the first floor, why not take it all the way to the top?" Vidhya Sriram talks about the journey of savings groups (also called VSLAs) at CARE, and what it took to think not just about scale, but also about the biggest benefits to women. VSLAs do build savings and income, but they can also do so much more. She talks about understanding what women themselves aspire to, not what we aspire for her. She also talks how savings groups can be a platform for women to build economies, change the support women get from the people around them, and thinking about building not just savings, but also equality that benefits the whole community. Check out the report here.

What does it take for people and the planet to thrive? We have to show up. C.D. Glin, President, PepsiCo Foundation and Global Head of Social Impact, PepsiCo. After decades in social impact, government, and philanthropy, C.D. talks about some of his earliest lessons as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the new South Africa, and the inspiration of Nelson Mandela’s quote, “I never lose. I either win or learn.” Appreciative inquiry, meeting people where they are, and knowing you don’t have all the answers or some of the key lessons.

Tahira Nizari and Barnabas Mtelevu talk about what it took to overcome the challenges in the tea sector in Tanzania, and how assuming that smallholder women farmers could immediately join a global supply chain demanded new partnerships and new plans. How do you grow from an individual farmer to a business? Don't assume it will happen automatically. Just because you're a businesses doesn't mean it will work. On the other hand, you can't assume a development project is set up to meet market needs. A demonstration factory, joint ownership with women farmers, and getting global investment were part of the key in shifting to a more business mindset in the partnership between CARE and Kazi Yetu. It led to a 17% increase in tea prices and an 83% ROI. Learn more about how they did it here.

What's in a logo, and why does localization need to include participant-led logo design? Zinat Ara Afroze and Sairana Ahsan explore the logo competition to have frontline service providers design a logo for their own services. What did they learn? Only 9 people out of a potential 450 participated in the competition the first time around, and understanding why not, and what level of understanding it takes to draw a logo that sums up your job showcased how much more shared understanding there was to build. Zinat's recommendation for what you should do? Practice adaptive management and CLA. Check out their case study here.

"I wish I had known that my biggest source of learning would be my field colleagues. ...I believed in textbooks." Dr. Muhammad Musa reflects on 41 years of work in international development. His two biggest lessons are: learn from your frontline staff, and tell stories with impact. Some lessons he learned in the decades are to build a fearless climate--a climate of trust, where staff at all levels can learn from failure, and can take time to reflect. He also notes that moving from a project to a movement--one that changes a system--is the best way to create change. Technical solutions are not the only (or even the best) way to get the job done.

Christabell Makokha talks about always anchoring innovation to the success metric: have I solved the problem? Instead of focusing on the process, focus on the problem, and whether or not people's lives are getting better. She reflects on why innovation labs fail (inspired by this article from ICTworks). What's going wrong? We define innovation as "the next new thing" rather than leveraging creative problem solving. We struggle to find the balance between stand-alone innovation work and innovation integrated with existing programming We measure the wrong things--too much process measurement, and not enough problem-solving. Our risk appetite is too low, and our timelines are too short.

Titukulane's progress was achieved by addressing the failures it faced in the years leading up to 2023. When the program was first implemented, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, making it extremely difficult to implement field-level activities. However, Titukulane was able to turn around its failures by starting from the roots and addressing every aspect of the program. They focused on team building and cross-functional teamwork, built the capacity of the M&E teams, made field engagement a regular task for everyone involved, and engaged participants in multiple activities to diversify their income while keeping sustainability in mind. This was no small feat. Listen to Daniel Abbott, the Chief of Party of Titukulane, as he speaks about how closely he worked with the team to address every detail and achieve where Titukulane stands today.

It's not easy or obvious to not only work with adolescent girls in crisis settings, but also to let them lead. But it is possible. AMAL currently operates in Syria, Nigeria, and Somalia, addressing the unique vulnerabilities of adolescent girls in crisis settings, such as early marriages and adolescent pregnancy. The program includes components like a Young Mother's Club, Community Dialogues, and a health provider curriculum to improve sexual and reproductive health service uptake and enhance participants' life skills. Our guest speaker, Pari Chowdhary, highlights the importance of relationship investments, continuous quality improvement mechanisms, and including adolescent girls in program design and evaluation. The final hope is for the program to be owned and run locally by the adolescent mothers themselves.

If you looked at a problem and thought, "the answer is more capacity building and more guidelines" Florence Santos says you might need to think again. Based on her experience leading Monitoring and Evaluation at CARE, she's seen a proliferation of tools and resources that aren't really solving the underlying solution. If it's the recommendation you would always have made under any circumstances, you're probably not looking carefully enough at the solution. Florence reflects on how she would get to a solution with fewer tools and trainings, and more systematic follow through.

Frontline health workers play a critical role in delivering health services globally, especially to the hardest to reach populations. Despite their importance to health systems and universal health coverage goals, this majority female workforce faces diverse and ongoing barriers affecting their working conditions and capacity. Pari Chowdhary talks about how at CARE, we aim to bring support and work with and for FLHWs to achieve healthy outcomes across our programming countries, but also, we aim to bridge key gaps like equipping and training FLHWs.