1.       Purpose

A strong context and change analysis is a key component to achieving programme quality.  By fully assessing our external environment in relation to our internal capability and global strategy, a context analysis should help us to make hard choices on how we focus our resources (time & money), and how we define our role and approach, and how we ensure that Oxfam is engaging with the right partners.

Most countries have developed some level of context and change analysis over the past several years.  Drawing from the learning of these processes, we are now looking at establishing an ongoing cycle of country analysis that allows us to:

• Continually refine and improve our programme focus by strengthening our analysis of the trends and opportunities in the contexts in which we work;
• Improve on the alignment of our programmes to regional and global strategies, as well as improving the learning loops from country processes to inform global strategy;
• Develop our staff skills and confidence in strategic thinking, analysis, and determining programme focus.

2.       Expected Outcome

The overall expectation is that 50% of our programmes will have an updated country analysis/national change strategy by September 2007 and all country teams will update their analysis by September 2008.  The analysis should be presented in a 4-5 page summary format and posted to the relevant Regional Programme Manager, with copy to Sam Bickersteth in the Programme Policy Team.  For countries that have completed an analysis in the past 6 months, the expectation is that CPMs check their existing context analysis against this guideline, and take a judgement with their RPM on whether further work is required.  Our goal is to get into a cycle of updating country analyses every 3 years (or sooner where context is changing more quickly) as part of our corporate planning cycle.

3.       How Country Analysis links with other plans, processes and OPAL

The Country Analysis is the link between Oxfam’s global strategy, the regional vision, and the country programmes/projects as expressed in Programme Implementation Plans (PIPs).  These linkages should be made explicit by:

a)       Reflecting global and regional priorities in the internal context analysis

b)      Reflecting the core change proposition in each of the PIPs and explaining how that programme contributes to achieving that change (in Programme Context section of PIP Full Description)

The Country Analysis should be a living document that is continually updated (through conversation, not necessarily in update of documents) as part of the country team’s ongoing monitoring and evaluation of its programme.  One way this happens is through the Annual Country Review which checks that the context analysis and the overall change proposition remains valid.  Within each programme team (eg livelihoods, women’s rights, protection), there may also be an annual reflection on the specific context relating to that programme.  The form and frequency of these reflections should be defined by the CPM as part of their annual cycle, and ideally should be timed to feed into the regional vision documents that are submitted in September each year.

4.       What is contained in Country Analysis?

The format of the Country Analysis does not need to follow a specific outline, but it must contain the following information:

a)       Analysis of the nature of poverty and suffering in the country

                                                   i.      The face of poverty: who (gender, ethnicity, age, HIV prevalence), where (geography, seasonality), nature of poverty and inequality

                                                 ii.      Key drivers of poverty & inequality (political, social, economic…)

                                                iii.      Key drivers of vulnerability & risk (natural, conflict…)

b)      Analysis of the political context in the country

                                                   i.      Government strategies for poverty reduction and disaster risk reduction.

                                                 ii.      Strategies and scale of response by key actors (multilaterals, DFID, private sector, other major national and international NGOs/networks) in relation to poverty reduction

                                                iii.      What are the key change processes that have a potential to significantly reduce poverty, inequality and risk?

c)       Oxfam’s capability

                                                   i.      SWOT on Oxfam’s current and future potential

                                                 ii.      Oxfam’s regional and global strategies/priorities that relate particularly to that country

                                                iii.      OI agreements and priorities in that country

                                               iv.      SWOT on Oxfam’s current portfolio and relationships with partners[2]

d)      Strategic proposition

                                                   i.      Priority changes that need to happen to impact on poverty and where Oxfam can have the most impact (this should be limited to 3-4 main areas of focus based on a judgement of key external challenges and internal capabilities/opportunities)

                                                 ii.      How we think these changes will happen  (our change theory)

                                                iii.      What is Oxfam’s contribution (our programme focus and role given all of the above)

                                               iv.      What are the key relationships & partnerships we need to develop to deliver these changes?

e)       Vision (optional)

                                                   i.      What we hope to see for that country in 10 years

                                                 ii.      What we want Oxfam to look, feel, act like over the coming 5-10 years

5.       What is the process of developing the Country Analysis

The CPM holds the responsibility for defining a process that is appropriate to their team and context.  In some cases this may mean a full programme review and re-strategising process (where we are asking fundamental questions about our focus and role).  In other cases, it may mean a light update of our context analysis in order to check we are keeping in tune with an evolving set of opportunities and challenges. 

There are four “must do” aspects of the process that CPMs need to incorporate into their process design.  The core focus of these exercises is to help the team to develop and refine their change analysis, as captured in section d) above. 

These are:

                                                   i.      Stakeholder interviews:  teams must seek out feed-back from internal and external stakeholders on their analysis.  These interviews should include contacts outside our immediate partners and allies (eg academics, government departments, private sector, media, other Oxfam departments) and direct engagement with people living in poverty.  For consultation with people living in poverty, this can be done through consultations with existing “beneficiaries”, or teams may explore approaches to immersion and consultation in diverse poverty contexts to bring in new perspectives. (For information on types of immersion, see IDS Bulletin, Issue 22, July 2004).

                                                 ii.      Change analysis:  Teams should conduct a change analysis at both the country level (what do we think are the processes that are likely to lead to national level change towards poverty reduction?) and at the programme level (what are the processes that are likely to lead to change within, for example, primary education, gender relations, vulnerable livelihoods?).  Several tools will be made available on the Oxfam intranet Programme pages (Programme Cycle Management).

                                                iii.      Gender & Inequalities Analysis:  to ensure our strategies reflect gender differences in both the nature of poverty, as well as the opportunities for change, and to capture the inequality issues in that country, including inequalities relating to HIV.

                                               iv.      Vulnerability Analysis: to ensure our analysis considers the major areas of risk of major disaster, displacement, or disruption of coping mechanisms (connect to OI contingency plan).

                                                 v.      Risk analysis: drawing on the above analysis teams should identify the main risks to achieving the change we want to see and how will we manage both the external and internal risks

Most importantly, the Country Analysis should be seen as a way to engage teams in the issues that will shape Oxfam’s work into the future.  In this sense, Country Analysis is a means for engaging teams in an ongoing strategic conversation in order to refine our focus and strategies over time.

Note that “power analysis” --- the analysis of how people, institutions and groups wield power within systems---is not part of the “must do”.  This is because power analysis most effectively comes in at the next level of analysis and planning---in the identification of specific strategies for achieving change within programmes.  Power analysis should be seen as a “must do” at the level of programme development.

6.       Quality assurance and constant improvement

The Country Analysis is the responsibility of the CPM, with accountability through the management line to the RPM.  The RPM should agree with all CPMs the timing and process for developing/updating their Country Analysis, and has ultimate sign off on quality.  The quality check should be looking for:

·         Does the analysis show evidence of application of required tools? (above)

·         Is the core proposition aligned with global and regional strategies?

·         Does it present a convincing “core proposition”.  A strong core proposition answers the following questions:

o        What is the change we want to see?

o        How do we think that change will happen?

o        What is Oxfam’s contribution?

7.       Where to go for support

Most regions now have Programme Quality Advisors/RPMs who will support these processes and link them to other regional initiatives.  Centrally, we are building up a bank of materials and examples for CPMs to draw on that are available via the Programme Cycle Management pages on the Intranet (coming soon---in the interim, please ask Becky Buell).  To get advice on designing a process that fits the particular needs of their team, CPMs can contact Regional Quality Advisors/RPMs and draw from support in Oxford through the Programme Policy Team.  Sam Bickersteth, Head of PPT, will keep an overview on the process, and is first point of contact for securing the support needed.  Progress on Country Analyses will be brought to IDSMT in Jan 08, and Jan 09.

B. Buell, with input from:  Martin Beaumont, Anila Vandresha, Grace Ommer, Nellie Nyangwa, Jan Nowell, Ritu Schroff. 

20.02.07