From June 6th to June 10th 2008 the Football for Hope Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) Workshop was held in Cape Town/South Africa to kick-off the pilot phase for the M&E system to be developed as one element of the Football for Hope Movement. Football for Hope is the key element of the strategic alliance between streetfootballworld and FIFA.
The workshop took place at the Grassroot Soccer headquarter in Cape Town with the participation of five streetfootballworld Network Members and Football for Hope Implementing Partners, that will take part in the M&E-pilot phase: Colombianitos (Colombia), Breakthrough Sports Academy (Zambia), Play Soccer (Malawi & Zambia), Street League (UK) and Grassroot Soccer (South Africa & Zambia). The results of the M&E-Workshop will have a groundbreaking impact on the “Development through Football” Community and the Workshop itself showed a great moment of networking.
The Football for Hope M&E pilot project, developed and implemented by the Swiss Academy for Development (SAD), delivering the content, and Aqumen, responsible for the IT-based infrastructure, in close collaboration with the University of Bern and Celaton from London, has started early April 2008. The streetfootballworld Network Members and Football for Hope Implementing Partners that participate in the pilot phase are working across the five thematic fields of the Football for Hope Movement: Anti-Discrimination & Social Integration, Children’s Rights & Education, Health Promotion, Peace Promotion and Environment.
MEASURING THE IMPACT OF DEVELOPMENT THROUGH FOOTBALL
In order to guarantee quality programmes on the ground, to accurately measure the results and impact of the various programmes supported in the framework of the Football for Hope Movement as well as to generate a global picture of the impact of football on human and social development based on scientifically-obtained data, a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation system is being developed and implemented.
The 14 months pilot phase for the development of the system will end in May 2009. This pilot phase will combine the creation and application of M&E frameworks and tools, and IT infrastructure to record and report on the information collected within these frameworks. The analysis of the information collected from the five local organisations will serve to determine the nature and extent of the impact of grassroots football in achieving development objectives and to provide a basic M&E framework for assessing the contribution of the Football for Hope Movement in the five thematic fields.
SHARING A GREAT NETWORKING EXPERIENCE
The atmosphere at the workshop was very cooperative and productive. The different streetfootballworld Network Members worked and learned together and from one another. This positive ambiance was especially a result of the work done by the representatives of SAD and Aqumen who were in charge of the organisation and the content of the workshop. As representative of streetfootballworld and Football for Hope, Network Development Manager Thomas Weidner attended the workshop. He was delighted about the workshop and its results: “This was a wonderful moment of exchange and cooperation within the Network, a major step in gaining experiences in the field of M&E and last but not least a milestone for the further development of the Football for Hope Movement and the “Development through Football” community”.
The participating streetfootballworld Network Members and Football for Hope Implementing Partners are already excited about the implementation and look forward for the Follow-Up Workshop which will take place in Zambia in January 2009 initiating the completion of the Football for Hope M&E pilot phase.
Text: Benjamin Horn
