Mid-Term Review of the AGIR Programme - Sida

1 I N T R O D U C T I O N
Field Visits to CSOs: The AGIR mid-term review team used a ‘purposeful sampling’
process to select AGIR partner CSOs to visit. The final selection of these CSO partners
sought to strike a balance between the thematic areas of each AGIR subprogramme
and the geographical and territorial linkages (central and local) within
which each operated. Additional criteria applied to the selection process involved the
weighting of ‘core CSO partners to emerging CSO partners’, as well as the focus of
each CSO’s work. Time and resource limitations for the mid-term review process also
limited how many CSOs were visited and in what areas (geographical of Mozambique).
This purposeful selection process was used to ensure that the review team obtained a
broad perspective of the different experiences across the different intermediaries´
partners. Of particular interest was assessing the effectiveness of the programme in
creating capacities and linkages at both central and local levels that trigger the necessary
trickle down (capacities at central level being replicated at local level) and the
desired trickle up effects (advocacy work informed and fed by the work and experiences
at the grass-roots). The purposeful sample therefore also included locally-based
organisations in the effort to assess the added value of the approach of the programme
of focusing on national organisations. With this in mind, the review team decided to
focus on two provinces – Nampula and Tete – and to visit AGIR CSOs in each of
these areas.
The selection of Nampula province was based on its history of embracing a vibrant
civil society with an active participation in governance issues. This province, along
with Manica, pioneered the participative planning and financing processes at the district
level in the 1990s through the Community Participatory and Consultative Institutions
(IPCCs). This experience, considerably documented, is considered a hallmark in
decentralisation and for local participation processes in the country. While often used
as a reference for subsequent dissemination at the national level, it is also the cradle
of the community participatory and consultative institutions that inspired the local
councils enshrined in the decentralisation law. The province’s civil society organisations
are skilled in areas aligned with critical thematic groups (governance, water and
sanitation, etc.) that contribute considerably to the relative strength of the Provincial
Development Observatory. 14 While it is not the only province in Mozambique to
demonstrate this kind of vibrant civil society, there is a solid foundation to consider
Nampula; it is a province with a long history of having strong engagement with a
vibrant and active civil society.
14 The province is credited with being the first to adopt the term “development observatory” instead of
“poverty observatory”, as this forum was originally named.
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