We utilised decades of experience in building Progress, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (PEAL) frameworks and processes, alongside our track record of monitoring and evaluating Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) initiatives, to help develop a PEAL Framework that fits the needs and principles of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Macroeconomic policies have gendered impacts but many of them neglect important areas such as unpaid care work and reinforce and replicate power inequalities, including those between different genders.
Recognising this, the Foundation’s WEE Strategy (2022 – 2027) sought to strengthen the gender-responsive macro-level WEE field and expand gender-responsive macro-level economic solutions. It also aimed to strengthen WEE advocates working at the macro-level, and leverage the influence of international finance institutions (IFIs), multilaterals, and bilaterals.
Our role
Itad supported the Foundation to deliver its strategy by undertaking a PEAL process. We aimed for the PEAL process to be iterative, conscientious and mutually enriching.
Through the process, we hoped for Hewlett, grantee partners and the wider field to benefit from shared learning and understanding of how the WEE Strategy was delivering on its Theory of Change (ToC) and progressing toward improved gender-responsive macroeconomic policy supporting women’s opportunities, well-being and agency across East and West Africa.
Methods and approaches
Our overall approach was guided by the Foundation’s guiding principles, Itad’s own complementary values and by the PEAL values as set out in the ToR.
We worked with the Foundation’s WEE team to develop a PEAL plan that was:
- Inclusive: we acknowledged the reference to the GEG Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice (DEIJ) principles outlined by Hewlett, as well as committing to a feminist evaluative approach.
- Relevant: the starting point for our PEAL plan development was the WEE strategy Theory of Change. All learning questions, data collection and analysis methods and reflection activities flowed from this specified Theory of Change. We also reflected on the learning questions themselves with grantees, and co-developed indicators to ensure optimal relevancy.
- Practical: we also sought to navigate through complexity by using simple language, and focusing on getting the fundamentals of the PEAL framework right. In addition, our grantee engagement plan was built around non-extractive and inobtrusive data collection approaches that minimised the reporting burden for Grantees
- Adaptive: we recognised that the Foundation and Grantees would have to take an adaptive approach, responding to opportunities and changes in political contexts to achieve the WEE strategy outcomes. We therefore took a flexible approach that could cyclically adapt to any shifting strategy priorities and activities on the ground.
- Transparent: we ensured that the content and processes surrounding the development and testing of the PEAL plan were accessible and transparent to Hewlett and all Grantees, thereby facilitating the adaptive learning process.
Outcomes and impact
We developed and maintained a PEAL framework for the Hewlett Foundation’s WEE work that was reliant on clear and logical links between strategy objectives and portfolio activities. It focused on achievable goals and was clear how much monitoring data a PEAL framework can realistically gather and use within given resources and timescales.
