What is 5Q?

5Q is about asking stakeholders much more frequently about what their needs are and how a specific project can serve them: it’s about reducing the costs and increasing the benefits, you are responsive to emerging opportunities and responsive to the needs of the final beneficiary (5Q project leader Andy Jarvis).

Building on baseline information, asking sets of just five questions that change throughout the project cycle (project design, implementation, and evaluation phases) can generate a much faster cost-effective feedback loop for delivering the information needed to adjust priorities and adapt project implementation. Using a variety of technologies, capitalizing on the expansion of phone news by farmers in developing countries, and digital information platforms provides opportunities to connect stakeholders across levels and enhance participation of beneficiaries in program evaluation).

Context of the project trial site for 5Q

To ensure the effectiveness of the proposed feedback approach the project is tested at different stages of implementation within an already established project in Tanzania, funded by IFAD. The overall project goal is to improve food security and resilience of smallholder mixed crop-livestock farmers in East Africa, while mitigating climate change through increased adoption of sustainable agriculture practices.

Less is More5Q

Just Five questions

As opposed to more traditional tools, 5Q ac-knowledges that all off the learning is happen-ing during the project and that’s when it’s re-ally available (Andy Jarvis, 5Q project leader).Simple sets of five questions form the basis of the methodology. All sets of questions explore changes in the same categories of interest (behavior, knowledge, etc.), but the specific questions vary based on the type of stakeholder and the stage of the project. The ques-tions are crafted to be simple to avoid exclusion of indi-viduals based on education level, and, where possible, pictures instead of text are used to facilitate inclusion.

Contact:Andy Jarvis, 5Q project leader, a.jarvis@cgiar.org

Tenesia Benjamin, 5Q project Coordinator. t.benjamin@cgiar.org

Anton Eitzinger, Spatial Analyst and Climate Change Specialist. a.eitzinger@cgiar.org

Photocredits: Manon Koningstein (CIAT)

Linking methodological frameworks with ICT’s

It’s a combination between a methodological framework and a technical platform and it aims to support the monitoring and evaluation and the learning cycle of the project. (Anton Eitzinger, Spatial and Climate Change analist).Key to institutionalizing effective multi-level feedback systems is making the results publicly available for all stakeholders. Therefore, a web platform is used to automatically compare perceptions of different users from the cycles of questions. Using this information allows for quick and easy visualization of changes within socially differentiated groups, including gender disaggregated findings.

Systematic learning to maximize impact

Throughout implementation all sorts of things change: opportunities arise, there are new contextual situations, etc. You learn as you try and 5Q is about learning throughout the project. It’s about systematically learning, and systematically adjusting systematically, to maximize impact (Andy Jarvis).

Creating feedback loops will stimulate outscaling

Creating the feedback loop can really help relationships on the ground, the outscale process and making sure that what we do makes sense. The loop needs to be a real loop (Leigh Winowickie, IFAD project implementer)

Our learning-curve

We have seen that it is simple, it’s low cost and in the limited sphere of application that we’ve had, we’ve shown that it’s valuable. So now we should scale it out, try it out in different contexts, and refine it, improve it, and by doing so, generate benefits for these other projects (5Q project leader Andy Jarvis).

Farmer testimonials

Using tablets, I feel like others can see me, not only from the district, but from the nation. And I also feel like I can share with others outside. Using tablets I can be well known as a farmer from Mbuzi, but also to measure the performance of myself, with other farmers form within the district, or from within the nation. So I can know whether I am doing better, or others are doing better. So that is an advantage (male farmer from Mbuzi village, Lushoto, Tanzania).

Using the tablet during the interviews is very good, because I spend very few minuted to finish, as compared to the traditional way (female farmer from Mbuzi village, Lushoto, Tanzania).

There is a need to strengthen a link between the researchers and the farmers so we can solve the problem immediately when it arises (male farmer from Milungui village, Lushoto, Tanzania).