What was achieved?

Outcomes and impact

In this article:

• Progress made towards the strategy’s intended goals and outcomes
• Knowledge produced and used
• Unintended outcomes and unexpected changes
• Sustainability of outcomes
• Efforts to advance gender equity and social inclusion

Progress made towards the strategy’s intended goals and outcomes

The 39 sampled grantees made considerable progress towards achieving the intended goals of the four transparency, participation and accountability (TPA) sub-strategies.

At the strategy’s intermediate outcome level, there is evidence of increased government responsiveness — including policy and legislative reform; and of the adoption and implementation of global norms for open contracting, tax, budget transparency and natural resource governance.

At the strategy’s ultimate outcome level, there are small pockets of documented evidence of improved service delivery, mostly in the areas of legal empowerment and service delivery monitoring. There is no evidence that these changes have contributed towards citizens receiving high-quality public services leading to better development outcomes; however, the Hewlett Foundation’s Outcome-Focused Philanthropy (OFP) does not anticipate that the TPA team would be able to measure ultimate outcomes within a four to five-year strategy period.)

Mapping evaluation outcomes by sub-themes to the TPA theory of change

Which themes saw the most progress towards stated outcomes?

We looked at the total number of outcomes achieved per thematic area; and the extent to which they achieved intermediate and ultimate outcome levels.

Number/proportion of outcomes:

• A total of 101 outcomes were documented across all nine thematic areas.
• Most successful thematic area in terms of number of outcomes achieved: budget transparency, achieving 16 out of 101 outcomes.
• Followed by: tax, achieving 13; and extractives/natural resources and multi-strategy, each achieving 12 of the 101 outcomes.
• Slightly less successful: Field learning, legal empowerment and service delivery monitoring each achieving 10 of the 101 outcomes.
• Least successful: procurement/open contracting and media, which achieved 8 and 7 out of the 101 outcomes, respectively.

Reaching intermediate and ultimate outcome level:

• Of the 101 outcomes documented across all nine thematic areas, 44 of these were achieved at the intermediate level and 3 at the ultimate outcome level.
• Most successful: legal empowerment with 80% of its outcomes reaching intermediate (7/10) and ultimate outcome levels (1/10).
• Closely followed by: service delivery monitoring with 70% of its outcomes reaching intermediate (5/10) and ultimate outcome levels (2/10). Media and multi-strategy were also successful in reaching 71% and 67% of outcomes at intermediate level respectively, but neither had outcomes reaching the ultimate outcome level.
• Slightly less successful: procurement/open contracting and field learning as half (50%) of their outcomes reached the intermediate level.
• Less successful: extractives/natural resources and budget transparency reached 33% and 25% of outcomes at intermediate level respectively.
• Least successful: tax with 15% of the outcomes reaching intermediate level.

Which spatial focus has seen most progress towards stated outcomes?

We looked at the total number of outcomes achieved per level (international, regional, national) and the extent to which each level achieved intermediate and ultimate outcome levels.

Number/proportion of outcomes:

• Most successful: international level with over half of the outcomes achieved (53 out of 101)
• Followed by: National level, with just over a quarter of outcomes achieved (27 out of 101)
• Least successful: Regional level, where the remaining 21 outcomes were achieved.

Reaching intermediate and ultimate outcome levels:

• Most successful: International level with over half (52%) of its outcomes reaching intermediate (25/53) and ultimate outcome levels (2/53).
• Closely followed by: National level with just under half (46%) of its outcomes reaching intermediate (11/27) and ultimate outcome levels (1/27).
• Least successful: regional level, 38% of outcomes reached intermediate level (8/21) with none reaching ultimate outcome level.

In which country has most progress been made towards stated outcomes?

We looked at the number of unique outcomes per country for our three focus countries: Senegal, Uganda and Kenya. Here we included national level outcomes and both international and regional level outcomes where these grantees operated in those countries.

Number/proportion of outcomes:

• A total of 56 outcomes have been achieved across the three countries.
• If we measure success as number of outcomes per grantees, then grantees operating in Senegal and Kenya have made more progress toward the strategic outcomes than in Uganda (Senegal: 2.67; Kenya: 2.64; and Uganda: 2.20).

Which activities have been most and least effective, and why?

Determining from the outcome data which activities have been most and least effective is difficult. This is because grantees are working within different country contexts and on different thematic areas, each requiring its own particular set of activities to achieve the strategy goals and outcomes.

For example, grantees working in the fiscal transparency sector have been most effective when their activities focus on working directly with government officials — building their capacity and putting systems and structures in place to inform policy and implementation.

Meanwhile, grantees working in the field learning sector have been most effective when they combine research with capacity building of researchers and decision makers and facilitating peer learning and collaboration among researchers, practitioners and policymakers to promote evidence uptake.

Despite the difficulty in determining which activities are most and least effective, four key findings around effectiveness of activities have emerged from the interviews with TPA staff and a review of the outcomes presented in the previous section.

1. Grantees implementing a combination of activities appear to be most effective at achieving change.

These typically include a combination of two or more of the following activities: research and evidence production; technical support, capacity building and empowerment of CSOs or citizen groups, particularly around how to understand and use research and evidence; network and coalition building; convening spaces for peer-to-peer support and collaboration at national or regional level; coordinated policy advocacy.

2. Grantees working both upstream with policymakers or decision makers (policy advocacy or engagement with policymakers) and downstream at community level (citizen engagement), and then linking the two, are most effective.

One illustrative example extracted from section on outcomes and impact, includes ACODE (Uganda) combining relationship building with Ministry of Finance upstream and citizen mobilisation at community level to influence more timely disbursement of funding for district level service delivery. In a similar example, CICODEV (Senegal) works simultaneously at community level to educate citizens around universal healthcare and facilitating increased enrolment in health insurance (MEFS), while also leading advocacy activities at national level leading to an increase in the national health budget.

The section on what enabled and constrained progress provides insights into the costs and benefits of this approach and also the importance of having strong, well-connected partners or sub-grantees on the ground as an enabler for government to adopt reforms.

The most effective grantees are those that are good at bridging the gap and connecting local level community engagement — spurring demand at local level — and maintaining strong relationships with national government officials. They are also combining their activities with research. (Hewlett Foundation staff member)

3. If grantee activities include creating links with regional or international networks then this strengthens the enabling environment in which they operate, helps to share lessons and strengthens their visibility. We explore this in the section on thematic and spatial breadth of grantmaking.

4. At the national level, forging links with the media was also mentioned as a particularly effective tactic which helps to broaden the reach across the general public with consistent messaging.

IBP stands out as an anchor grantee being successful and similar to ACODE in that they have spanned local, to national to international engagement [sic], which is effective and [have] been able to support local communities to have specific asks, but strong international and national policy level ability to engage. (Hewlett Foundation TPA staff member)

• Download the full evaluation report to deep dive into outcomes by the four sub-strategies (field learning; governance channels; fiscal transparency; and service delivery monitoring), and for multi-strategy.

Knowledge produced and used

Support to knowledge production

The Hewlett Foundation provides research grants to academic and non-academic platforms such as universities (e.g. The Accountability Research Center at the American University), think tanks (e.g. ACODE), research institutions and learning hubs (e.g. Oxfam America). It also provides support to institutions like Afrobarometer, who build the capacity of governance advocacy groups to produce high-quality evidence — for example, by making its survey samples and methodologies available for public use and runing summer schools that play a key role in building the capacity of African research and advocacy groups in conducting fieldwork and analysing and sharing research findings.

As evident from the section on progress made towards intended goals and outcomes, grantees produced a wide range of knowledge products with support from the Hewlett Foundation, including:

• Advocacy and social accountability guides and training manuals, e.g. WACSI social accountability guide; Oxfam Novib Voice Initiative.
• Research papers and journal articles, e.g. Academic institutions such as the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); Accountability Research Centre at the American University; and research institutions such as Afrobarometer.
• Position papers, think pieces, policy briefs, e.g. UCLA, ACET, CABRI etc.
• Academic research papers on research methodologies, e.g. experimental methods (University of California Berkeley) and fieldwork methodologies (Afrobarometer).
• Survey tools, fieldwork methodology guides, analysis plans, etc. (Afrobarometer).

Extent to which key stakeholders took up and used this knowledge

Grantees synthesised and packaged information in a format that citizens and governments can understand and use. They have employed different channels to share this with key stakeholders, including online platforms such as ‘knowledge hubs’ (repositories for data produced by grantees), websites, portals and social media platforms and in-person approaches such as symposiums, worksh0ps, conferences, and learning and policy events.

There has been considerable uptake among targeted users (policymakers, media, other grantees, field actors and citizens) of the knowledge produced by grantees. Of the 13 external stakeholders who responded to the question on knowledge use, 12 confirmed that they use knowledge materials produced by grantees.

With support from the Hewlett Foundation, we did two studies on local government financing and discovered a lot of money meant for local government is held by line ministries at central government and was being misused by technocrats. Findings from our study influenced the Presidency to request that the Ministry of Finance release the money. This led to increased local financing. (Grantee)

Capacity strengthening of other grantees and other CSOs

Knowledge produced by grantees with support from the Hewlett Foundation has been instrumental in informing the implementation strategies of other grantees and CSOs working in the TPA space. Interviews with external stakeholders who had made use of the knowledge products were used to validate this assertion.

For example, interview data shows that ATAF effectively used its tax justice research to build the capacity of individuals in revenue authorities, CSOs, and media practitioners on regional and global taxation matters. Similarly, anti-corruption research published by Global Integrity has also helped organisations to inform their implementation strategies.

We constantly use research produced by African Tax Administration Forum. Our main constituency is CSO and we rely on ATAF’s research. Big resource for our work. (External stakeholder)

Some of the work that has been done by Global Integrity as well as their published anti-corruption research has been helpful for people like us. It has enabled us to review some of approaches to our work using the resources that they have shared over the years and this has been really useful for us. (External stakeholder)

[The Institute of Social Accountability] has produced a number of knowledge products including papers and publications on various areas related to devolution and we have used those resources. (External stakeholder)

Our document review found evidence that Integrity Action’s service delivery model has been taken up by its local partners, as well as by non-partners who are undertaking projects funded by other donors. Integrity Action’s model is based on a community-driven, collaborative, and problem-solving approach aimed at improving service delivery.

Kwale County Natural Resource Network (KCNRN) was identified as an example organisation which adopted Integrity Action’s model of open citizen feedback in its USAID-funded water and sanitation programme in Kenya. Several other partners were said to have adapted this model to suit their own implementation strategies.

Interview data also shows that participants of capacity-building initiatives implemented by the Hewlett Foundation’s TPA grantees use the resources provided and the knowledge acquired to upskill others in the field. Tax Justice Network Africa (TJN-A) has seen alumni from its International Tax Justice Academy going on to train other CSOs on tax justice.

Over the years we have realised that some participants go ahead and train CSOs in their areas on tax justice. There is one alumnus from Togo who went ahead to train CSOs on tax justice in Togo and many alumni are making a difference in this area. (Grantee)

Influencing government decisions and policy change

The interview data shows that different government actors have been using some of the research produced by grantees to inform policy and its implementation. For example, an external stakeholder who was interviewed on behalf of the Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) in Kenya indicated that they were using evidence produced by the Water Integrity Network to improve water management in rural areas:

We have used the current [WIN] initiative in terms of improving water management in Kenya. We had initially focused on urban areas where we had a regulated service provider and had neglected rural areas where more than 50% of the population reside. This has been identified as a problem area in terms of policy and we are working towards fixing that. To fix it we used a tool box developed by Water Integrity Network. (External stakeholder)

Interviews with external stakeholders also suggested that grantee research and knowledge materials have in some cases influenced public finance policies and budget reforms. For example, one interview indicated that the National Treasury in South Africa has benefited significantly from working in collaboration with the Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI). The Treasury has used CABRI’s problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) approach to identify public finance problems and develop solutions through engagement with other stakeholders.

The PDIA approach was introduced to us by CABRI and has helped us in building relationships with stakeholders who input into the system. We have extended this approach to other areas of our work. The PDIA module is very successful in coming up with a problem and coming with a solution through engagement with stakeholders. (External stakeholder)

Interview data also shows that the Uganda Equal Opportunities Commission is a long-term user of FOWODE’s gender responsive budgeting research. FOWODE plays a key role in producing research on gender analysis of national budgets, conducting public expenditure tracking surveys, gender audits of sectors, and position papers on budget speeches to mention a few examples. A representative from the Uganda Equal Opportunities Commission reported that FOWODE’s research has enabled the Commission to lobby government on issues related to gender responsive budgeting compliance (however, it should be noted that FOWODE did not conduct any lobby work).

We have used FOWODE’s gender responsive budget research. We use this evidence to lobby in parliament and it was included in the Public Finance Management act. (External stakeholder)

While there is evidence from this evaluation that some of the research produced by grantees is used by grantees and government, some respondents find it difficult to track how much of their knowledge products were being used and by whom:

It is difficult to say who is using our knowledge products in conjunction with all the other activities we do with decision makers. We have been building relationships with them over the years and then presenting relevant research. We don’t want policymakers to base their changes on one project but based on relationships and knowledge translation materials we share with them.

Unintended outcomes and unexpected changes

Few grantees spoke about unintended outcomes or unintended consequences, and where they did these were mostly positive. For example, a grantee working in the tax subfield said that one unintended outcome of their work is that they and their advisors have been invited to sit on two subcommittees at the OECD and the UN Committee on Tax. Another grantee working in the legal empowerment sector said that the building of a strong coalition to push for policy change was to some degree an unintended outcome.

Two grantees in the field learning subfield highlighted unexpected changes. First, members of the COPASAH regional network developed a social accountability charter at a global symposium organised in 2019 to drive the agenda and create discussion on social accountability. As one interviewee stated:

The social accountability charter was not initially in the project workplan — it was at the Global Symposium we organised in Oct 2019 that we drafted it as part of our lessons learnt — to draft a charter that can drive an agenda and create discussion on accountability — this was unexpected outcome. (Grantee)

Regional assemblies from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe presented and received input into the charter from participants. An external stakeholder confirmed that the Social Accountability Charter was signed by all members of the COPASAH platform who made a committed to implement it within the regional network hubs of the platform. However, there is no clear evidence of the extent to which this charter has been implemented.

Second, UCLA PRG ran learning days workshops to train researchers in low-income countries (LICs) to improve their research capacity. Demand for this training increased and generated a larger pipeline of researchers from LICs being brought into the global network of resource governance experts.

Two grantees mentioned that a consequence of COVID-19 is that it emphasised the need for stronger health systems. Another said that the crisis was presenting more opportunities to secure meaningful commitments from governments and companies to raise awareness about women’s rights and gender equality in the context of natural resource governance. We discuss the impact of COVID-19 in section what enabled and constrained progress.

One grantee operating in a semi-authoritarian country reported an unintended negative consequence — that in becoming more assertive and raising their voice, staff members in the grantee organisation had been labelled a bad citizen and their bank accounts have been frozen by government.

In the area of fiscal transparency, one grantee in the open contracting sector reported that procurement authorities in targeted countries have become a source of information and are being relied upon to provide data, rather than the other way around. This is evidence that the capacity of these authorities to generate data has improved substantially.

Sustainability of outcomes

Outcomes for citizens

The evaluation identified evidence of considerable uptake and use of knowledge products among intended users. Some respondents argued that these ideas and knowledge gained through research will remain with citizens and grantee organisations and will influence their practice in the future. According to one interviewee:

There is a change in people’s ideas about what works — this is an outcome that sustains itself without any cost… it is changing how individual organisations operate — being more evidence driven and thinking about evaluation differently, I expect that to stay with organisations. (Grantee, field building)

A few grantees raised that they are making their work more sustainable by addressing the governance concerns that communities have identified. There is even one example where the grantee has supported the communities, they work with to come up with a way to finance health insurance.

We are making sure that what we do is responsive to what the communities are concerned about and that we add value. (Grantee, extractives)

A frequently mentioned sustainable outcome is building citizens’ capacity — their skills and confidence — to claim their rights gained. Interviewees argue that, when this capacity building has been targeted at already existing structures and organised groups of citizens, the change is more likely to be sustained because these groups will remain in place beyond the life of the intervention. However, this change remains to be seen.

We established local community committee and they were trained in public procurement and budget. And these committees will last and interact with local authorities. (Grantee, budget transparency)

Two grantees mentioned that, by training journalists, grantees can share information and knowledge more widely without further funding, as these journalists take it back with them into their public-facing work. Another factor that influences outcome sustainability is when citizens take part in gathering evidence and holding their local leader responsible.

Outcomes for government stakeholders

When government stakeholders gain skills alongside shifts in attitude and improved understanding of the value of the intervention then outcomes are sustained. There is evidence of this in both the multi-strategy and open contracting thematic areas:

Open contracting has further advanced countries — they kept using it in different sectors — once government starts using it they see the benefits. The narrative has changed and now with COVID it has drawn procurement into the spotlight — demand has tripled. (Grantee, open contracting)

This was confirmed for the Afrobarometer — when government sees the value of the data and funds it, then it shifts from being donor dependent and is more likely to be sustained:

The work is sustainable because African governments have come to accept this is a good thing to do and let down their resistance. (Grantee, multi-strategy)

Similarly, when grantees working at the community level demonstrated the value of community participation, local government attitudes began to shift towards appreciating the need to engage with citizens (grantee, media).

Policy-level outcomes

A number of grantees mentioned that they have contributed to policy changes. One concern raised is that policy reform is only the first step towards sustained change. While it builds a solid foundation on which to build future change, this change is not guaranteed and thus grantees need to focus on the next step in the policy change continuum — to advocate for policy implementation. This is where linking to regional and international networks plays an important role, as one respondent explains:

The only limiting factor is the accountability of government …we have the laws but we don’t have the political accountability. One way to ensure sustainability is to do networking to target policy and anti-corruption work with transparency international. (Grantee, multi-strategy)

Another concern is that the policy and legislative change could be changed again if the political will is not maintained.

These concerns are echoed in a recent article by Christopher Choong Weng Wai (2021) on the dangers of ‘policy-sation’. He argues that policy-sation constructs ‘achievement’ as a predominantly document-based process, and imagines the relationship between policy change and social change uncritically. The immediate danger here is that ‘the desired social change does not take place, but policy change constructed as achievement gives a deceptive appearance of progress’. The author is hesitant to offer concrete suggestions on what to do and rather suggests that this reflection might provoke a broader dialogue on thinking more critically about ‘how we can reclaim the place of social change in the policy space’.

These findings are echoed in the OTT scan of the TPA field that accompanies this evaluation (OTT, unpublished January 2021), which found that TPA actors and initiatives (including Hewlett Foundation grantees) have started paying attention to the ‘implementation gap’. It notes that, without implementation, policies and legislation will fail to improve development outcomes as intended.

Sustainability of grantee organisations

A number of interviewees shared their views about sustainability of outcomes at the level of their organisation. A dominant theme emerging is that those who have access to multiple funding partners are confident that their work will be sustained, while those that rely on one core funder (e.g. the Hewlett Foundation or the UK FCDO (formerly DFID)) are concerned about their future sustainability. Similar findings emerged in the Mexico Evaluation (February 2020) with financial sustainability being identified as receiving little attention from the Organizational Effectiveness grants or broader organisational strengthening efforts. Here, the Mexico Evaluation recommended that programme officers be more directive in encouraging grantees to focus on financial sustainability from the outset through Organizational Effectiveness grants and capacity-strengthening interventions.

Efforts to advance gender equity and social inclusion

The Hewlett Foundation’s TPA strategy set out to challenge gender-blind approaches and to identify bias, gaps and spaces for interventions in the TPA grantmaking field.

Prior to, and during the strategic period, the TPA team initiated several efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) through its grantmaking. They supported efforts to sustain women’s ongoing participation and enhance the voices of women and marginalised groups, and they made substantial contributions to initiatives started by the women.

An institutional commitment

The TPA’s DEI strategies fed into the Hewlett Foundation’s formal institutional commitment to promote DEI in 2018. The Global Development and Population Program (GD&P) embarked on a process to build trust and a shared understanding of these issues among staff and to clarify its approach to staffing and recruitment.

GD&P, consisting of five sub-teams including the TPA team, formed a task team to create an internal learning environment in which to discuss DEI in international grantmaking. The task team considered DEI both in relation to an organisation’s leadership, staff and internal practices, but also to its mission, activities, geography and relationships with partners and communities.

GD&P colleagues generated learning questions for staff, possible questions for grantees and data sources for continued growth and learning about DEI. The Program then provided guidance to its staff on how to structure a process and questions to ask about integrating DEI in new grantee searches.

The Hewlett Foundation convened learning events for existing grantees, focusing on DEI, and the TPA staff conducted a mini survey to generate a list of possible observable DEI features as identified by grantees. They reached out to 11 grantee organisations across all GD&P areas to ask whether DEI is a relevant consideration within their organisation and work, and what some of the observable DEI features are within their context.

In their responses to the foundation, almost all grantees reported that DEI was an important consideration in their work. DEI observable features included gender, region, nationality, HIV status etc., and spanned staff, boards, advisory committees and, to a lesser extent, the target ‘beneficiaries’/populations served by grantees’ work. However, there was a general acknowledgment that the three elements of DEI did not receive similar levels of attention (GD&P, 2018). These and other initiatives resulted in the development of various guidelines and toolkits for programme officers.

The Hewlett TPA strategy highlights the issue of gender inequity in its four sub-strategies (fiscal transparency; service delivery; governance channels; and field learning), developed in 2017 and 2018. From that point on (and after engaging with international agencies) the team started using the more internationally recognised term gender equity and social inclusion (GESI).

Supporting grantees

Programme officers also used the Organizational Effectiveness Grant Program (OE). These grants can be used for internally facing needs, such as recruiting and retaining a diverse staff and building an inclusive culture. Or for externally facing needs, such as ensuring the organisation’s work incorporates the perspectives and experiences of the underrepresented communities it is trying to serve (Hewlett Foundation, 2019).

According to TPA staff, GD&P spent $1.8 million on OE grants in 2020: $1.47 million on OE, and $330,000 on OE-DEI specifically. Of the 89 OE grants disbursed by the Hewlett Foundation’s TPA team between 2014 and 2020 (23% of the total), only two focused specifically on GESI.

We used the special grant: we aim to ensure that diversity equity and inclusion are woven into the organisation’s ethos and is reflected in all facets of our organisation’s functions, policies, and procedures. (Grantee)

GESI-specific grant support was also provided through general Project Support grants for 18 projects. Most of the total amount granted (70%) was in the extractives theme (with the remaining 30% split between field learning, legal empowerment, service delivery monitoring and budget transparency themes) (grant data analysis, 2021). TPA staff and GD&P colleagues undertook detailed engagement and planning around DEI, which resulted in a shared, heightened understanding of the concepts and the development of toolkits for engagement with existing and new grantees.

Our review of internal memorandums, learning event agendas and reports, draft terms of reference for the task team, draft guiding documents and other documents pertaining to DEI suggests that the Hewlett TPA team invested significant time working through the DEI issues and developing agreed understanding of what and how to communicate to diversity and gender related issues and concerns with grantees.

A strong women’s participation component

Most of the grantee respondents (70%+) interviewed indicated that the operationalisation of GESI initiatives in the Hewlett TPA strategy was strong on women’s participation. One interviewee indicated that the success was more limited when it came to the inclusion of other marginalised groups such as people with disabilities, sexual minorities and other excluded groups. This, according to the interviewee had much to do with the nature of the extractives industry that was dominated by males. The TPA team’s ability to encourage the participation of women and to ask pointed questions in this regard was echoed by several grantees and other interviewees.

One co-funder noted that Hewlett Foundation TPA staff were good at asking the right questions about what interventions mean for women and girls in certain policy issues, and said that the Hewlett Foundation’s TPA programme had a strong women’s participation component (though she was unable to provide details), but she couldn’t comment on other inclusion aspects, such disability and other marginalised groups.

A need to embrace intersectionality

Given the limited evidence of outcomes that advanced the position of marginalised groups beyond women and girls (or along gender lines), as we set out earlier in this report, this may suggest that little progress has been made in taking a broader, more intersectional approach (even since the GD&P review of DEI in 2018).

TPA staff suggested that incorporating a gender lens and pushing forward a more feminist approach to governance allowed for more shifts in policies and organisational perspectives. A co-funder interviewed indicated that gender and equity issues are intertwined and there was a need to embrace intersectionality as it is a reminder that context matters and that race, class and gender are interlinked.

I would prefer an intersectional gender lens integrated to how we work not into on the side but central to what we do I think the feminist approach is necessary but we must all work and should be informed by perspectives that accommodate all the nuances and interests of women across the globe. There are differences between all the feminisms, there are so many schools of thought. Yes, I believe that representation matters but it should not be the one woman that speaks for all women in a big company of men. (Co-funder)

The respondent’s plea for a more intersectional view of gender did not comment directly on the achievements or lack of achievements of the TPA strategy but indirectly alluded to the expected nature of participation by marginalised groups as well as how GESI initiatives are operationalised.

Grantee efforts to improve engagement between systematically oppressed groups and government

The majority of the grantee respondents interviewed (over 80%) indicated that they do have GESI goals or, if not, that they observe principles and values that embrace GESI.

I can only speak for the activities under the centre where we are streamlining and adopting approaches that ensure that equity is one of the issues we focus on — we are also able to do a number of studies about gender and what we do going forward is to see how the work we do — when we speak about transparency and accountability — how does it support equity, inclusion. (Grantee)

This feedback locates equity and inclusion at the core of transparency and accountability, and alludes to an increased number of studies focusing on gender.

A formative evaluation of the TPA strategy during 2018 found that grantees experienced difficulties in developing appropriate strategies for including and enabling marginalised groups to participate in governance channels (ITAD Evaluation Study, 2018).

As we discuss in the outcomes and impact section of this report, some grantees, particularly in extractives, had a deliberate and intentional GESI focus (though this was almost exclusively on gender, women and girls) and some had an in-built focus — for example, legal empowerment, which by definition focuses on groups whose voices and rights have been overlooked, side-lined or oppressed. For other grantees, outcomes that advanced the capacities and opportunities of systematically oppressed groups in TPA were still largely incidental.

On gender and equity we have a long history of this in our country and we have many tools and done a study on gender budgeting and a manual on gender in local government and also reviewed the approach of equity to analyse gender responsiveness budgeting. The Hewlett Foundation support and capacity building provided us with something unique and different — considering marginalized groups — this training was in 2018. (Grantee)

Some grantees pointed to their ability to increase the participation of marginalised groups. For example, the organisation of a ‘tax and gender’ workshop resulted in more interest from female participants and gender issues/content have been incorporated into the training programme. One co-funder mentioned that ONG-3D, provided significant support to women in their region:

They have done a lot of training for women at local level. A lot of peer-to-peer training. They invited women from rural areas to come to Dakar to share their experience on budget and representation. So this approach was very good. ONG organized a lot of TPA support to talk about and deal with access to information — health education and women — they share a lot of information on TV and media. (Co-funder)

The peer-to-peer approach was successful because the women realised that participation was about having the power to support themselves socially and economically. In Senegal the involvement of women is legislated but this does not necessarily translate into genuine participation. Senegal has taken steps to promote women’s rights by adopting constitutional measures such as the Convention for the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Women continue to face challenges and systemic difficulties. The widespread use of French (language) in institutions of power is also a barrier for some women who are not proficient in the official language. The peer-to-peer strategies of the women’s’ groups have countered these barriers and enabled the women to navigate on their own terms.

Many grantees recognised issues of diversity within their own organisations and the impact that this may have on the process of trying to change gender and power dynamics in the TPA field and in governance more generally:

Internally, we are conscious of being a group of white women from the global North trying to change the gender dynamics, we are also aware that there is complexity in governance and power dynamics of all institutions. We are hoping that something that we can work towards changing and with Hewlett’s help we can draw in more women from the South and change the face of our efforts. (Grantee)

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