Signs of Hope and Challenges of Sustaining Women Initiatives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

This dissertation aims at uncovering the authenticity of initiatives launched in Addis Ababa on behalf of marginalized women and the dire need of sustainability to transform their lives. Without discounting the efforts made by the implementing agencies, the NGOs, it is apparent that there has to be a paradigm shift in how the programs are envisioned and implemented, with stringent methods of follow through and evaluation, to determine the effectiveness of the efforts extended by all stakeholders.
To ascertain the issue of lack of sustainability of initiatives launched, and to validate the gap in the need for a system change, extensive data collection was conducted through means of questionnaires, in depth interviews and focus group discussions. The target population and sources of information for this research included forty NGOs that were in the process of working on women initiatives, above 100,000 beneficiaries in Addis Ababa, as well as a number of stakeholders.. Out of the forty NGOs who intended to respond to this dissertation’s questionnaire, only twenty-nine responded. Additionally, there were 383 beneficiaries’ representatives of the 100,000 beneficiaries from the forty NGOs. All the intended interviews and FGD discussion were carried out successfully.
The objective of the dissertation was to identify the sustainability challenges faced by NGOs who launched women initiatives. This project also attempted to identify the best practices for revamping the system to bring profound transformation in the lives of women beneficiaries. To this end, from the findings of the research and the analysis, significant points or lessons learned were the short term nature of projects, lack of needs assessment, lack of evaluation of projects to establish their effectiveness, and lack of full participation and engagement of beneficiaries. It has also been established through the research findings that some NGOs are effectively implementing projects that can be used as best practices, where a number of lives have been transformed due to their methodical efforts, which have worked for a number of years. To bridge the gap and modify the processes identified through this dissertation, an intervention strategy is recommended that will require the commitment of all stakeholders to join forces to bring the needed sustainable transformation in the lives of destitute women. Pilot tests were conducted to validate the effectiveness of the intervention strategy, in addition to comparative analysis using the base line data from the initial data collection, to establish the transformation in the lives of the beneficiaries. Since commitment comes from ownership, responsibility to bring transformation is in the hands of all the stakeholders.
In addition, to validate the essence of foreign aid and its effectiveness or lack thereof in third world nations, and the role of NGOs in the transformation process of individuals’ lives, communities, etc., a literature review was conducted. From the review, it is apparent that compared to the billions of dollars spent on foreign aid, many in third world nations are still facing their inevitable fate, still enduring the recurring cycle of poverty. However, a few of contributing fundamental factors that stood out included the need for country ownership on the part of government and its constituents, good governance, and good policy environment.