Exploring the problem/s

 Program identification 

qui Vrinda bisognerebbe riscrivere queste cose nel linguaggio degli operatori della cooperazione internazionale e renderlo coerente con quanto si dice negli altri capitoli, programming .. evaluation, learning, communicating

We need to explore the issues or problems facing intended beneficiaries to gain a shared understanding of their importance, their underlying causes and how they are perceived by different groups of  stakeholders.  Examples of questions we might want to ask include:

• What do intended beneficiaries identify as the main issue or problem facing them? 

• Why is it a problem? Who, and how many people, recognise this as an important issue or problem?  

• Is it a symptom of a deeper problem? 

• Are there other related problems?

• What is the priority of the main problem being considered?

• Have intended beneficiaries or other organisations already tried to address the problem (or associated problems)?  What difficulties did they encounter? 

• Who is most affected by this problem?  Who are the most vulnerable or marginalised as a result of this issue? 

• Where are there potentials for partnerships to work on this issue?  What are their existing, or potential, capacities? How can we best support them?  

• What social processes are influencing the situation? Are there any related initiatives already in place?

• What can be done in this context?  What cannot be done?

This is not an exhaustive list, but it should help to get you started thinking about the issues involved.  There are a number of tools, such as the the problem tree analysis, that we can use to help us identify problems, and explore their cause and effects.   See:  the logical framework. 

In order to clarify such problems you may want to carry out a specific Baseline survey.

The activities that project teams carry out must produce outputs that will empower project beneficiaries to better interact with their communities and utilise project deliverables to achieve the project outcomes These outcomes will enable the communities to tackle the problems identified and produce changes in the factors generating these problems, thereby contributing to the achievement of the project objectives To make the project successful, it is necessary that project teams understand the requirements, needs and problems of the beneficiaries and that the beneficiaries understand the requirements, needs and problems of the communities. If the project team has correctly understood the needs and problems of the target beneficiaries, they will be able to utilise the outputs to empower beneficiaries, i.e. move from outputs to outcomes If the project beneficiaries have correctly understood the needs and problems of the communities, they will be able to empower communities, i.e. move from outcomes to impact Without active contribution of beneficiariers, project ouputs will not be utilised to achieve project outcomes Without active contribution of commmunities, beneficiariers will not be able to utilise outcomes to achieve impact.

 stage) is the decision document by the programme managers to assign organizational resources for developing further the project and move to the following phases of project initiation and detailed planning).

Note: It is important that the business case is written (or translated) in simple language (avoid technicalism) so that one can use it for the dialogue with beneficiaries and other stakeholders; such a dialogue is necessary in the following project development step (initiation) to define the project scope 

 See also

• Project origination 

• Scope management

• The factors causing poverty and suffering;

• the problem tree 

• Exploring the problem/s:

• Objective tree

• The logical framework