"You cannot fatten a goat on a market day - Nigerian Proverb" the Results Chain

This Nigerian proverb  is an excellent explanation that to achieve desired process, you need to factor in the dosage. I was made to believe that Dosage = dose x time +/- other factors. But treatment outcomes may not appear because the dose has been completed. There are other factors that must come into play such as underlying conditions, nutrition,  etcetera. 

 

 Back to the case of the famer and the goat.  The assessment showed that fat goats could easily be sold or sold at a better price because it was what everyone wants to buy. Also the assessment by the famer showed that the goat was not fat. This is what needs assessment and context analysis does. It clears the ground for expected results to be clarified and a plan to achieve them developed.   we will assuming the farmer knows  what makes a goat fat, the goat likes it and actually eats enough, ...... 

However, being already a market day, the farmer was faced with a dilemma of  getting a lowest price or not selling at all. But also, he must acknowledge that the process that leads to a goat being fat takes place inside the goats body, that he has no control over. Also to not that this proverb was then before goat fattening tablets were available, even then, thy don't work in a day. 

Community based organizations have always had a challenge of writing proposals looking for funding and the donor asking them to show impact in 1 year when the funding expires. Such proposals will show how the livelihoods of target  population will have improved in 12 months, just to make sure they meet the criteria of the donor. But in real world situation, they know most outcomes in community settings start showing up after a year. You cannot expect to see results in livelihood in only one planting and harvesting season. You cannot.

According to McKee, Manoncourt, Yoon, and Carnegie (2000) as cited by FHI360,  the behavior changes happen at individual, interpersonal, or community/social. In most cases, it is incremental in that order.  training a borehole technician will only have a change in a community if open defecation is eliminated. Community leadership must be having capacity and authority to ensure community members adhere to clean community initiative. All this cannot be achieved in a year. But we know it can be achieved, and will lead to sustainable results.  

When an evaluation is conducted after 1 year, you will realize that the outcomes have not been achieved.  This is only because the promise was to deliver outcomes (sometimes impact), in a short time. The evaluation will also factor in this time.

For community organizations, there is always a way around this. For example, if the funding being applied for will compliment work that was done by another organization or even the same organization, and using the maturity model, you assume the community is already on the road to results, but still needs a little nudge, it can be a well argued case. But such information should be included in proposals to avoid being unfairly judged later.