Increasing CARE’s Program Quality and Relevance in the LAC Region:

Developing Programs with Greater Impact-Potential Based on UCP Analyses

Since 2004, CARE Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) carried out analyses of underlying causes of poverty in Bolivia, Central America, Ecuador and Peru. The main reason for carrying out these analyses was to obtain information that would allow us to make a greater contribution to impacting on poverty in the region. This concern arose from realizing that CARE has worked in the LAC for five decades, but that despite of the successes of our projects, as well as those of many other organizations, about 100 million people live with less than one dollar per day and 200 million with less than two dollars. Moreover, poverty in LAC had increased in the last decade, both in absolute and relative terms. And though LAC is not the poorest region in the world, it is the most inequitable region: the richest twenty percent of the population holds 58% of the national income; the poorest twenty percent of the population holds 3% of the national income (in Asia, in comparison, these percentages stand at 40% and 7%).

When CARE LAC started these analysis processes in 2004, CARE globally had expressed the importance of understanding and addressing the underlying causes of poverty (UCPs). In line with the Millennium Development Goals, the regional strategy for LAC made a commitment to contributing to reducing poverty by 50% by the year 2015. For working toward this goal and in the light of the region’s bleak statistics in making progress, CARE LAC realized that only by better understanding the underlying causes of poverty would we be able design and implement programs with the potential of significantly impacting the lives of the most marginalized groups of the population in the region. Staff also understood that “business as usual”, that is, projects as we had carried out to date, would not make a dent on poverty. The UCP analysis process was undertaken to serve as the basis for developing innovative programs with a higher and more sustainable impact-potential at large scale. In summary, these were the objectives of the region-wide analysis process:

§  Gaining a deep understanding of the determinants of poverty in the region.

§  Reviewing CARE’s program strategies based on the results of poverty analyses.

§  Increasing our capacity to design programs with high potential of addressing UCPs.

§  Identifying which of our current programs were well positioned to address UCPs, and reviewing CARE’s role.

§  Jointly learning with partners about the determinants of poverty and strategies with a high potential for impact.

From the comic strip Mafalda by Quino. “Daddy, can you please explain why, instead of changing structures, everyone is holding them up and giving them a face-lift?”


Methods and results of analyses of underlying causes of poverty in LAC

To date, analyses were carried out in seven countries: Ecuador (2004), Peru (2005), Bolivia (2006) and the four countries of Central America (2006). The studies used the same methodology, which make results comparable and allow us to gain a regional picture of the underlying causes of poverty in LAC. The methodology had as its point of departure very simple questions:

What are the obstacles for reaching Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in country X? What are the factors that will prevent the country from reaching these goals?

These questions were the drivers of the analysis processes. Rather than doing an “abstract” research about the roots of poverty in the country, teams tied studies to what underlying causes would prevent the countries from achieving the MDGs.

Analyses were carried out for each MDG. Staff was assigned to one or more teams that looked in depth at the obstacles for reaching a specific MDG at national level. Teams used a variety of data sources, such as reviewing secondary literature, discussions with partner staff and community members, dialogues with experts and representatives of other organizations (government and non-government), etc. The analyses of obstacles for reaching MDGs lasted about three months in each of the countries. All senior program staff and many others participated in the process.[1]

The most interesting result of the analyses was that independently of which MDG was the point of departure for the study, the same underlying causes were found to be the main reasons for predicting that countries will not reach the MDGs. Though there were some differences in study findings from Bolivia, Central America, Ecuador and Peru, these were identified as the main underlying causes of not reaching MDGs in LAC:

§  Discrimination based on gender, ethnic origin and race (social position).

§  Poor and poor implementation of public policies (enabling environment).

§  Poor participation of citizens in decision making processes; apathy of many sectors of the population for engaging in processes (social position).

§  An economic model that excludes and not sustainable (enabling environment)

§  Dependency on foreign financial and economic interests (enabling environment).

§  A private sector that does not take adequately assume social and environmental responsibility and which is not controlled and regulated (enabling environment).

Poor policies and gender discrimination were highlighted in the analysis. Given that poverty in the region is much more pronounced among women than men, the fight against poverty is synonymous with promoting equity. Empowering women and promoting gender equity is an indispensable path to fighting poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean.

From the comic strip Mafalda by Quino. “Of course, instead of playing a role, women have “played” a mop in the history of humankind”.


It is important to point out that the analysis in Central America – based on a successful experience in Guatemala – included a systemic analysis of the identified UCPs which looked at the interrelationships between the causes and how they recreate the cycle of poverty. A next step is to carry out a regional-level systemic analysis of UCPs for a deeper understanding of the dynamics underlying poverty.

Program strategies and roles for CARE LAC

Based on the results of the studies, the teams in Bolivia, Central America, Ecuador and Peru developed program strategies to address the identified UCPs. Since the same UCPs were responsible for making little progress on all MDGs (health, education, income, reducing hunger, water and sanitation, gender equality, etc.), teams developed program strategies for addressing identified UCPs. For example, and as a result of the process, CARE Ecuador developed a program strategy which is common to all sectors. The process builds more cohesiveness in CARE’s program in the country since all interventions are now based on addressing key factors that impede progress toward overcoming poverty. This cohesiveness has, in turn, promoted clarity about CARE’s contribution and a more positive climate in country offices about our role and potential for impacting on poverty. And though these processes were carried out before the new CARE USA strategic plan was developed, they are clearly in line with the shifting to programmatic approaches. CARE Bolivia, Central America, Ecuador and Peru have clear program strategies based on UCP analysis to which all projects contribute. And though projects still exist, they are building blocks of a broader, strategic program.

Although each of the countries developed its own program strategy based on its analysis (with the exception of Central America which crafted one strategy for all 4 countries), at a LAC Leadership Team meeting in early 2007 the team looked at commonalities and agreed on the following strategic roles for CARE LAC region:

Track 1: Advocating
§  Advocate for change and/or application of policies at the local, national (including the North) and international levels based on the evidence of CARE and its partners.
§  Work with communities, civil society, governments and the private sector to generate evidence of successful strategies that impact on UCPs.
§  Enable successful strategies to be taken to scale, particularly (but not exclusively) by others.
Track 2: Supporting social movements
§  Work in solidarity with social movements to support their own efforts to address the prioritized UCPs.
Track 3: Building constituencies
§  Influence the attitudes concerning poverty and social injustice of the most privileged segments of the population in the North and South.

Internal obstacles to playing strategic roles with higher impact-potential

The LAC Leadership Team also analyzed the internal obstacles that CARE LAC has to overcome for playing the three strategic roles that have a greater potential of impacting on the identified UCPs. The obstacles identified were:

§  We don’t learn enough from others’ experiences and ideas (and many times even from our own experience).

§  Attitudes toward innovation: we don’t take risks, we fear making mistakes.

§  We invest an enormous amount of time and effort on the management of operations; our structures are slow and costly.

§  We lack competencies for roles that require promoting dialogue, as well as for other strategic roles.

§  A large part of our funding depends on a few, powerful donors.

§  Our institutional policies are rigid; they don’t allow us freedom to work in and address national contexts (be more relevant for the contexts in which we work).

§  We don’t make some key and important decisions for defining clear objectives and strategic roles for CARE. A great deal remains at the discussion level.

Though all obstacles were considered to be important (and need to be addressed), the obstacle on the lack of and slow decision-making on key issues was at the center of the LAC Leadership Team dialogue and seen as a key barrier to change. In essence, this long-standing lack of or slow decision-making does not refer to a fear of decision-making but a fear of having to deal with certain consequences. Furthermore, our inability to manage a healthy degree of tension/disagreement at CARE is also a basis of our lack of and slow decision-making process. One way to solve this dilemma is to become more disciplined about what is important to us in order to make value-based decisions on key issues that are substantiated by sound analysis. Having access to in-depth analysis that we can trust would help mitigate our hesitation for playing more strategic, programmatic roles. The desire to please all parties (internal and external) was also identified as a factor behind slow decision-making. As an organization, our inability to make some key decisions and to take a stand has stalled progress and has often kept us at a never-ending dialogue phase. In some instances when decisions were made regarding certain priorities, we often under-resourced them, an approach that undermines these very same priorities.

In summary, the processes in Bolivia, Central America, Ecuador and Peru – and in the region as a whole – have been of immense value for understanding the underlying dynamics of poverty in the region, for clarifying which should be CARE’s strategic roles in LAC for impacting on poverty, and for reflecting on the internal obstacles we face for playing these roles. The process has, in fact, allowed building a programmatic approach to CARE’s interventions in LAC. The process also posed challenges:

§  The analysis may point at some causes CARE has traditionally not worked on, and may be uncomfortable addressing. What should we do when this conflict arises?

§  The analysis may point at the need for CARE playing different roles in the contexts we work in. How fast should CARE change? How could governments, partners, communities and donors view CARE’s change process?

§  For playing strategic roles we have to overcome internal obstacles. What are the key obstacles to change? What do we need to do to overcome them?

A final word: Though progress in reducing poverty in the LAC region have been slow, even stagnant, the number of people living in poverty is lower than in other parts of the world. However, and given the wide gap between rich and poor, CARE has a lot to learn from its experience in LAC about how to avoid following a model and path in which millions are left out and excluded from development processes. The learning from LAC can be helpful for our programs elsewhere.

Reflections from CARE Ecuador on shifting to programmatic approaches
One of the background documents for the CARE USA strategic planning offers the following definition of a program:
A program consists of a set of focused and mutually reinforcing activities – some project based, some non-project based; some carried out by CARE, many carried out by others – that are founded on an analysis of underlying causes of poverty and social injustice, and which over time lead towards the sustainable achievement of a shared rights goal.
CARE Ecuador has developed programs that are founded on addressing UCPs. For example, and following the UCP analysis, the education program included as key strategies not only “typical” projects, but also a series of project and non-projects activities, inserting CARE in a citizens movements and several alliances with State and non-State actors, explicitly addressing most of the identified UCP, not just in Ecuador, but also in the Andean region.
Likewise, some of the traditional long term “integrated development projects” being implemented in a specific geographic area served as the foundation for developing innovative pilot projects and serve as the basis for a longer term program at the local level.
In both cases mentioned above, promoting equity, inclusion and good governance became important program elements, because without these, there would be no way to address the UCP.
An interesting example of this is CARE Ecuador’s work with the private sector. Until 2004, the work with the private sector had been mostly ad-hoc and non systematic. Having defined “a private sector does not adequately assume its social and environmental responsibility and which is neither controlled nor regulated” as a UCP forced the country office to analyze that issue in much greater depth, and as a result CARE Ecuador ended up defining a strategy for corporate social responsibility and insertion in a series of alliances around that issue. And while the range of options of intervention may vary (from partnership to providing technical assistance; from advocacy to confrontation), working with the private sector has become a “normal and expected” element of CARE Ecuador’s work. Taken together, it is becoming a “program” in its own right, although the program’s activities are funded and implemented as components of different projects, with non-project activities funded by small grants, workshop fees and some of the country office’s flexible funds.
Making the shift to programmatic approaches requires commitment, discipline, a long term view and prioritization in terms of resource allocation, to fill gaps and maintain not just capacity but also momentum at times that funds from traditional sources are not available. This means among other things that our talent management policies and practices need to be aligned with such program goals, approaches and horizons, and that multi-disciplinary teams need to learn to work together using disagreement and constructive conflict as a basis for dialogue and measured risk-taking. The other critical element is the use of organizational and social learning concepts and techniques, and practicing our program principles ourselves, within CARE and with our partners and allies. This is necessary to ensure consistency between what we advocate and how we act, and so our programs will begin to address UCP in practice and not just in name.

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