"This book critically examines how the media assistance and broader "development" sectors have appropriated the catch-all concept of sustainability, originally rooted in economic and environmental fields, to suit their agendas. Analysing 289 project evaluations conducted globally between 1999 and 20
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19, it scrutinizes the tacit discourses underpinning what Pierre Bourdieu termed "the imperialism of the universal" in fostering media systems in the Global South. The book reveals how processes of self-legitimation operate within an increasingly competitive aid market, highlighting a shift from "post-missionary" approaches to business-driven models. Focusing on the often-overlooked African context, it explores nuanced coping capacity in Uganda and the Eastern DRC. Amid questioning of the populist wave as well as power-motivated new entrants, it challenges the recurring aid pattern, emphasizing the urgency of centering social impact and values in media assistance. It offers essential insights for scholars and practitioners navigating the evolving geopolitics of development and public diplomacy. Michel Leroy has been active in media action for over 25 years, both as an implementer and as a consultant. A member of an international research programme on media action, he holds a doctorate from the University of Dortmund. He is now a researcher focusing on the social impact." (Publisher description)
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"This paper aims to trace the social construct of sustainability in the context of media development and define what is to be sustained, at the level of the intervention (the process of change) or its outcome (the impact on the medium itself). It is intended for all those who are concerned, closely
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or remotely, with ‘media action’ – and this expression is used here to mean any intervention (inside or outside a given media system) that promotes either communication for social change (the use of media for development purposes) or media development (the targeted development of independent outlets). This literature review focuses on the evolution of the concept of sustainability and the way it has been endorsed by the media, media action implementers and donors over time, as funds dedicated to media assistance have increased and the digital revolution has questioned most of the foundations of the media industry, with regard to production, distribution and information usage." (Abstract)
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"Our Valuing Voices ex-post research of 39 organizations’ evaluations of sustainability shows that most project results decrease (20-90%) as early as two years ex-post in addition to an Asian Development Bank study of post-completion sustainability found that “some early evidence suggests that a
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s many as 40% of all new activities are not sustained beyond the first few years after disbursement of external funding,” Most project exits are in the last quarter and sustainability handover assumptions are not validated expost. Learning from what was sustained helps us know how to exit for sustainability from the very onset of the project as compared to the typical project cycle. We encourage those tasked with funding, designing, implementing, monitoring & evaluating projects to use these longer checklists and view the full recording shared with participants. These checklists are aimed at donors/designers and implementers of foreign aid projects outcomes and impacts and can be adapted by local NGOs, national governments, private sector, academics, to create exit plans. Local participation in creating these and feedback on how well exit is going will help them sustain results." (Page 1)
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"A review of eight projects with end-of-project and post project evaluation reports suggest that post project evaluations can contribute to better understanding of the sustainability of project impacts and identify unexpected and emerging outcomes years after project close. The review highlights som
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e of the methodological issues that are unique to post project (as opposed to end of project) evaluation, and point to the advantages of planning for sustainability measurement from the outset of the project. In the majority of cases, the sampling approach adopted at the endline proved challenging to replicate post project because it was not designed to measure sustainability, or because of access to or demographic changes in the beneficiary population. Finding suitable projects for this review was difficult because so few post project evaluations are done, fewer are publically available, fewer still had comparable final evaluations and included local voices. Agencies that fund post project evaluations offer a range of reasons for doing so: to learn, to promote a success, to inform replication or scale, to provide justification for future funding, to promote accountabilities. What is less explicit is how findings are used within implementing and donor agencies, shared with partners, and influence future programming. As part of this report, Valuing Voices offers an evaluability checklist for doing a post project evaluation from the onset of the project, and a checklist for measuring sustainability through the entire project cycle." (Abstract)
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"Der Begriff der Nachhaltigkeit hat seit seinem Aufkommen den Anspruch an die entwicklungspolitische Zusammenarbeit enorm erhöht und den Fokus auf die Wirksamkeit einzelner Projekte und Programme gesetzt. Ex-post Evaluationen gewinnen von daher mehr und mehr an Bedeutung. Vor diesem Hintergrund zei
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gt die Autorin auf, wie die Qualität der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit in der Praxis adäquat nachgewiesen werden kann: Die Themen Evaluation, Nachhaltigkeit und Methoden werden unter Berücksichtigung wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse konzeptionell gelungen miteinander verknüpft. Es wird überzeugend die Notwendigkeit von angemessenen Konzepten und Methoden aufgezeigt. Der Autorin gelingt es nicht nur, Klarheit in die vielfältig vorherrschende Begriffsverwirrung zu bringen, sondern die Debatte auch konstruktiv voranzutreiben. Im zweiten Teil des Buches werden die Instrumente exemplarisch anhand einer vom Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ) durchgeführten Evaluationsstudie angewendet." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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