ISF launches The Ripple Effect: A podcast celebrating partnership in International Development

Keren Winterford 

Welcome to the Ripple Effect, a podcast series where we dive into International Development research and impact. Together we’ll learn about the experience of research from those at the frontline, and how their experiences are making a difference. Grab your headphones, settle in, and let’s get started.  

Welcome to today's podcast, where we dive deep into the topic of researching organisational capacity strengthening. I'm your host, Karen, speaking to you from Gadigal land in Sydney, Australia.  

Thanks for tuning in to this first episode of our podcast series. Today’s episode we will sharing with you about an action research project which has been carried out by the Australian Volunteers Program, its partners in Fiji, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, and the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney. 

The Australian Volunteers Program is an Australian government funded initiative that supports global volunteering. 

The focus of our three-year action research is to explore organisational capacity strengthening, how and why this happens, and the broader development outcomes achieved through this change.  

We will be discussing today what it means to carry out this research in partnership and also what we’ve learned so far about organisational capacity strengthening. 

We have a great lineup of guest speakers to share with you their experience, and I'm going to invite each of the speakers to introduce themselves now. 

Quyen Mai 

Hi, everyone. I'm Quyen, deputy director at the Centre for Knowledge Co-creation and Development Research known as CKC. A young woman led nonprofit organisation in Hue City, Vietnam. And we specialise in social consultancy and research and community development, with the focus with women empowerment, green energy and cultural preservation. My pleasure to be here today. 

Qunson Marynathan 

Hi, everyone. I'm Qunson Marynathan and I'm from Sri Lanka, working for the Organisation of People for Engagement and Enterprise (OPEnE). Focusing on community capacity building. And I'm a monitoring and evaluation coordinator here. Nice to be here and happy to be talking to you all. 

Nimesha Gunasinghe 

Hello, everyone. I'm Nimesha Gunasinghe, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Coordinator for Australian Volunteer Program South Asia and Africa region. Supporting the countries of Tanzania, South Africa, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. Happy to be here today in this discussion. 

Huong Tran 

Hello, everyone. My name is Huong. I’m the regional Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) coordinator of the Australian Volunteers Program. I'm based in Hanoi, Vietnam, supporting the program in East Asia, covering Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia and Vietnam. 

Keren Winterford 

Great. Great to have you all here. And really looking forward to hearing what you've got to say today with us. So, our research, as you all know, is focused on organisational capacity strengthening. And, and this is a term that's used a lot in international development. So, what does what does our research understand of this term. We understand organisational capacity strengthening as an ongoing process of maintaining and increasing the capabilities of individuals, teams and organisations in order to achieve a range of positive, sustainable outcomes. And this definition is, is used internationally as well.  

An important aspect of this research, as you'll hear more, is where we're using that term very loosely. And we really want to understand, more importantly, what organizational capacity strengthening means to, partner organizations that we're working with.  

Another important part of the research is, is how we're carrying out research. And so, our research is locally led, adaptive and emergent. And there's multiple layers of inquiry and learning at the organisational level, at the country level, and then also at the multi country level. And we're taking a partnership approach to carry out our research with shared responsibility. And importantly, this broad perspective of organisational capacity strengthening so that each of the organisations that are participating, such as those, you know, represented today with Quyen and also Qunson, they can make sense of this term themselves. 

So firstly, I'd like to ask a question to Qunson and also Quinn, what has the project meant for your organisation's and what's been your journey so far being involved in this project to date? 

Quyen Mai 

Yeah. Very interesting. So CKC is young organisation. So, capacity strengthening is critical for us. The last few years has been the building phase for CKC. And we feel that at this moment we need to plan for next stage of development. So, participating in this research has been a timely opportunity for us. The researchers had been effectively integrated into our regular capacity assessment. 

First, it has provided with, an up-to-date approach that have proved to be useful and beneficial for other organisations just like us. So, we use the five-capacity approach here, and it's enabled us to look at the capacity strengthening in the whole process, considering both internal and external factors and built on that. The researchers also help us to be a very strong scientific framework. That will help us to gain the input for a tailor methods and tool that we think is very suitable for our condition and the resources at the moment. So, in the first year, we have applied the photo, voice and tools to collect the data, and this is the first time we conducted this type of tools ever. And we are very excited.  

And the third thing I also have to mention, that project has provided a generous technical and financial support. So, to help us to dig into the data, to analyse and to read it. So, it enabled us to come up with, suitable data for the for the next phase that we are asking. As I mentioned before. 

For the journey person, personally, I think that the journey as a result is quite similar to some other research that we have done. But the experience along the, the ways, are very interesting there is so many surprises and so many wow moment for me that I learned a lot. So just as I just mentioned, this is the first time we conducted with photo voice tools that gave us the opportunity to sit together with other local partners that we have been working for a long time, but we never sit together before, and now we really sit down and talk and discuss what this capacity means to and how we should improve, from what we have achieved.  

So, and also, we had the chance to sit with other sixteen organisation across the whole globe. So, this is a really a first-time experience for CKC, also for me to learn and, and, to, to exchange the experience. So, the bottom line is that the journey for me has been full of changes, and the change is very enormous and very beneficial for us. 

Qunson Marynathan 

Thank you. Quyen. Just like Quyen said, this was also a good journey for us here at OPEnE. We kind of already had sort of capacity building and capacity strengthening programs running into organisations. But we are also relatively young. Just an eight-year-old organisation started with three members. And now we are at about forty-two people. So, on the way, we had to look into ways where we had to change the methods and strategies to strengthen the organisation. 

So, a lot of vision and mission that didn't change, but the ways in which we can build our organisation for the better. We were looking for different ways, and we had already had these five capabilities to adapt it but was not very regular. With the help of, the Australian Volunteers Impact Program, we were able to fine tune into it. 

And just like Quyen said, it was a new endeavour for us to engage into the photo voice tool. To be very honest, it was, it seemed very easy in the beginning. When we adapted, we said, okay, we are going to do this. And when we started, we understood both the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation and also the difficulty in carrying out this research, because unlike most other researchers, this is a participatory action research where all the people in the organisation, or at least the key people in the organisation, had to participate, then just one analyst doing some research and analysing that. 

The most important part of this research is that it is called the participatory action research. So, when we asked our people to participate in the research, it was very obvious that most of them didn't even know the full idea about the organisation. What how it started, what it's doing, where it has to go. Everybody had an idea about their role, what they had to do, what they're supposed to do, and they were all good. But when it came to thinking about or analysing or assessing the organisation, it seemed like not everyone was in the know.  

So, it was an amazing journey for us to start from involving everyone into the project, into the research, and then making everyone understand the organisation. That itself was the capacity strengthening for the organisation. We are only halfway through, I guess, because we are continuously evolving and we are continuously using these tools and especially the photo voice tool was it proved to be a useful tool because when we got some of the photographs and asked people to analyse and see what they see and then express what they understand, and it was always a different perspective from a different person. So, it gave us an understanding that not everyone is looking at the organisation in the same way. So, we had to make sure that from within, inside the organisation, the staff had to have an understanding of what capacities they need to be built upon and what capacities the organisation needs strengthening.  

So, it was a good beginning. I would say it's too early to conclude, but it was a good beginning and we been through it, at least for in a year now that I am into the organisation for the past one year, I'm hoping for the best. 

Keren Winterford 

Great. Thanks so much. Great to hear about your journey so far. I'm interested Nimesha and Huong, you've been supporting four organisations in each of your, in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. And you've been supporting through them in this research. What would you say has been unique about this approach that's been carried out in this research? 

Nimesha Gunasinghe 

In contrast to the traditional research methodologies in participatory action research, it gives participants a sense of ownership, over the research process and also about the outcomes. 

Actually, our participants are active collaborators and provide strong commitment to both process and the outcome of the research. And I think this has been a unique feature in this, research methodology, empowering participants to take actions based on the research findings. 

And other thing is collaborative knowledge creation. This process empowers, stakeholders or partners, partner organisation and whoever involved in this research, to make, co-create, facilitate this process of co-creation of knowledge. They pull together their resources, their knowledge, their expertise, and make decisions about the research and the way forward plans and also the, they interpret their data based on their expertise and it's more ownership and collaborative knowledge creation. Is one other unique feature, which I'm seeing in this approach.  

And also, I think, this process enables us to, deep trust building among our partners and also our researchers. This research has been running over three years. So, it has been a deep understanding among our partners. So, it's a deep trust building. So, it enables in our data collection process to collect more depth of data. And when analysing also too deep understanding about the context.  

Those are the some of key unique things I'm seeing in this research. And also on the other hand, I think it's very, time consuming and, process as well, because it's more participatory and, more engagement with the stakeholders. So, on the other hand, it needs more time and resources, in engagement as well. Those are, some unique features which I am seeing, compared to the other research method of this as well. 

Huong Tran 

Yeah. I agree with Nimesha, and from my experience in Vietnam, I just like to add on, two more things. At the first, I see is unique, in this research program, research project, is the transfer of knowledge. Is the coaching and mentoring process. We the MEL coordinator learned from UTS and ISF and then we, pass on the knowledge to the partner organisation we discuss together and we doing the research together. 

So, it's the process of learning and growing professionally for all of us involved in the projects. And I believe, in Sydney, you're also seeing, as Qunson mentioned, that we have different point of view, different perspectives on the one chain at the organisation. So, it's the exchange of knowledge, is a different it to the other research project. 

The second part, I think, is also unique in this project, is the opportunity for the participating organisation to set experience and to have cross learning. So, the organisation not just only walk with the program in the country, but they also have the opportunity to work to collaborate with at the partner organisation in other countries that the Australian Volunteer Program is operated. 

Keren Winterford 

Great. That's wonderful. Really good to hear about the participatory action research. Both the positives and also some of the those challenges as well. And the reality is of, ensuring, learning and development and growth. Yeah. It takes time and effort from everyone. 

I'm interested. We've talked about, we're only partway through the research. So, this is a three-year research, project, and we're sort of nearly towards the end of year one. 

Qunson and Quyen, I'm interested to hear from you. What do you think has been the most interesting findings from the research on organisational capacity strengthening in this first year so far? 

Quyen Mai 

Yeah, so it has been very interesting, and we have found out a lot of resources, and just to state that CKC has been working with Australian Volunteer since day one, the very first day we established. And in this first year of research, we have found out a lot of positive results in on aspect of organisational capacity strengthening. And we feel like it’s like harvesting time for us. After seven year of establishment that we are now broadening our coverage, defining our visibility in the local area.  

There are some key things about the research finding that I would like to highlight. After the first year everyone had come into one line. So, before the research people talk about capacity strengthening but then each of us has some different perspective about what the capacity, how we should strengthen it, and especially our partners. They also hold different perspective and also expectation on CKC capacity strengthening. 

But then after this one year, after we have conducting the workshop with photo voice, everybody come together and now we have agreed what capacity strengthening good means to CKC. And in what way CKC wants to achieve this process with AVI and also with the research after three years. 

Now we have set the common ground for CKC which is very important in participatory action like this. I think when everybody is clear and going in one direction is very important, and secondly the first-year fighting has also confirmed that okay CKC has come to a new phase. Maybe we could not say that we are young anymore, but we should look for a new phase and a higher stage of development. And in this way, we think that we should better prepare a new set of strategies for capacity strengthening to achieve a new set of targets in this three years. So, we found out from that. 

Lastly is like connecting the dot for us when looking at the findings, because we see the pig picture of how volunteerism in general and how Australian Volunteers in particular have played the vital roles in the development of CKC capacities. We see traces, evidence, in the onset of different capacity. Five different capacity that here and there, their own way Australian Volunteer play some kind of role contribute something in each step of our development in the capacities.  

So, I think it’s really interesting for us to look back and also look forward. How we should collaborate with AVI on how we should integrate volunteer and volunteerism in our state development in the next few years. 

Qunson Marynathan 

So, the case was similar to what CKC went through like Quyen said. We also had to start with the research, thinking, we already have this five see a tool in place, and we are just adapting the for the voice to let's dive into it. And then once we started going, we understood, I think there are three major findings I could point out. 

One is that we thought everyone in the organisation is fully aware of the organisation. Obviously, it turned out not everyone has the same understanding of the organisation. That was a key finding for us because it's not just we have to train people on the project and how to do their job, but it seems like we have to train them fully to understand the organisation as well. 

The second finding, I would say, is that in the senior management, the perspective, all the understanding of different levels or different capabilities of the organisation was different. Just for example, if somebody considers code the organisation to be eight out of ten in one aspect and the senior manager would say, no, it's only five out of ten. So, the difference was very prominent. And it was also very important for us that we were able to understand, from everyone's background and everyone's measure of the development or the capacity, they gave us different scores. So, the finding is that, not everyone of us is looking at the same thing in the same way, but that was very important because it shows us a pluralistic perspective from within the organisation. 

I think the third one is, although we have been, analysing our gaps and filling in the gaps for the past years, in the past years, we found out that there are a few things that can be easily achieved than the other things in terms of capacity strengthening. That by doing this research as if we clearly identified the gaps or the areas of improvement, and if we prioritise the areas of improvement that could be done within a short time period, or with less cost or with less resources, then we could prioritise them, and can easily reach them now. 

So, I would say those are the three main findings that we got through this research. 

Keren Winterford 

Right. Thanks so much, both for sharing. So interesting to hear the value of surfacing those diverse perspectives in that recognition that not everyone sees the organisation in the same way. And, and different people have different perspectives on what is organisational capacity strengthening, and the value of establishing that, that common ground to move forward as well. That's, that's really exciting to hear.  

So, as we've mentioned, before, this research has intentionally taken a strong partnership approach. So, it's enabled each of these sixteen organisations who are part of this research, across the full country context. To essentially choose their own adventure, to design the research activities relevant to their own contexts, their own organisational contexts, their own country contexts, and to prioritise what they want to learn from the research to benefit their own development going forward. 

So, our institute, the Institute for Sustainable Futures, prioritises and values this strong, research approach. And we think that research and research outcomes are more relevant when research is carried out through a partnership approach. And that findings, research findings are best used, by those at the core and at the heart of the research. 

I'm interested in, in asking all of you now, from your perspective, what do you think has been the benefit of partnering and doing the research in the way that we have? We've talked about participatory action research, we've talked about involving everyone in the in the research, you know, at that organisational level, Huong has, spoken about the value of mentoring and train the trainer and sharing of knowledge and diffusion of knowledge. 

Yeah. I'm interested in your views on what you think has been the value of the way that we've carried out this research through this patterning approach. 

Qunson Marynathan  

Yeah. Karen, that's a good question. I think, we have seen benefits in different fronts. Say, as an organisation that is developing for the past eight years in a country like Sri Lanka, where it was all rehabilitation. Now we are trying to move into development, it's really, really difficult at a time like this, having research like this. And the organisation also had decided to do, monitoring evaluations, accountability and learning framework, the main framework for the organisation. And I am supposed to do that, I'm responsible for doing that. And so, these processes come hand in hand, like, we are doing this research on one hand, and we are also doing some capacity building from some of the funding partners. And we are also developing a MEAL programming framework for organisation.  

So, this is extremely beneficial because we are doing the same or similar analysis in two, three, different ways. And whatever our findings here, it can be immediately applied to the development of our MEAL framework. That's very important benefit of what's going on. And then the support and collaboration that we get, like from Nimesha, and Nimesha just to just a phone call away. And we can always reach out to her and ask anything. Although we haven't bothered her too much, but she's always there, available to answer and to advise or to collaborate to do whatever.  

And it's a good thing that, outside Sri Lanka, we haven't had, real interaction or exchange with any other organisations other than the funding partners. This is the first time I think we were able to share something with another organisation like CKC, and the person like Quyen getting into contact with some someone sharing our knowledge a little bit further, getting exposed to, other similar organisations is another benefit. It's not just outside Sri Lanka, but also within Sri Lanka. We had a partner organisation, and we get into a discussion, a meeting, we get different perspectives from different organisations. 

So that's kind of the level of, benefit because it also brings up the network. We also having another meeting on this 22nd of October, again with another partner organisation discussing about the research and the progress. That has been one of the benefits.  

And finally, I would say the most important benefit of them all is that, like the research says, it's participatory action research. We were able to make sure everyone, almost everyone in the organisation to take part. That's been a real capacity strengthening for the individuals at the organisation. So, I would say that was the most important benefit we got through this research.  

Quyen Mai 

Yes. I totally agree with Qunson here. And we also share the same, experience. Like what Qunson just mentioned. And for the CKC I just want to emphasise that in our name, we value the co-creation. So, the approach of this research is, like, totally highly aligned with what we are doing and what we are looking for, to achieve in the future. 

So, I think the co-creation and co-learning process, not only have at the organisational level, but until the individual level. So, everybody is included, everybody can take a part, everybody can raise a voice and contribute to the process. And, this process, is just an up to date and rigorous process that you always have an input, and it make an ongoing decision-making process. 

So, the result this year will be the input for the next year. And it goes on, until as far as we are conducting this approach. So, I think it's really beneficial for us not only in one time or in one moment, but is an ongoing, process of receiving this benefit, exchanging, adjusting from everybody and then achieving for more. And I believe on small organisation and on local area, having this research needs to connect to build this done participatory action. 

But it's quite limited to us to reach out, it impossible for CKC to meet open and impossible for Quyen to meet Qunson, but in this research it makes everything possible. And now we are here and then from this point, we also come to the second benefit that we can exchange the innovate innovative solution and scale it up. 

Just like CKC here in the first year we have learned from Qunson, we have learned from an OPEnE a very innovative, quantitative approach to assess the organizational capacity that we couldn't have done it before. But now we have learned from OPEnE. We have shared a lot of experience with Qunson here, and we think that next year we will apply this approach to CKC. And we also believe that the story that CKC brings to the research have also been shared, also been apply or been scaled in some other places in the research as well.  

So, to come to the last point, I think the benefits is enormous. And if we I feel like, sixteen organisation is together building a very strong foundation and this strong foundation help us to develop, high value and stronger to and to earn more opportunities. 

So, from this, from that research CKC have already reached out a lot of opportunities that we are meeting, that we are working at the moment, and I'm very excited if I can share the result of this opportunity soon in the in the near future. Yeah. So, it very interesting opportunity for us. 

Huong Tran 

I agree and just want to supplement to point to what Quyen and Qunson had mentioned. From the program perspective, I see the biggest benefit for us is an opportunity to get further evidence of how volunteer contributed to the capacity strengthening at partner organisation. And another benefit is in the connection and partnerships among partner organisation is developed and strengthened. 

With the diverse partners we have local NGO, INGO, research organisation and also government academic institution participating in this research. So, the knowledge, is diverse and we get the connection with those organisation and collaboration and partnership. 

Nimesha Gunasinghe 

Yeah. I think this, research process have immense benefit to all of us as being part of this research process. As my colleagues explained. So, I would like to reiterate the importance of the knowledge sharing and recycling process of knowledge recycle. Because, in this participatory action research, we collect the data, and we reflect on the data based on that we change our strategies. So, it's a real benefit to all of us.  

And also adding to that, the, deep understanding of the local context, I think this provide, deeply, understand on the context of our partners, context of our partner organisation operating context and the type of our partnerships. So, it gives a sense of deep understanding to all of us, especially, for our program, Australian Volunteer Program to understand about our partnerships and the partners context. 

This research platform where we have deep understanding and deep relationship built with our partners, that's one thing. And other thing is this provide context specific solutions like the partner capacity building. Where it is one of our program outcomes with how the volunteers support for the partner capacity building. 

So, we believe that this research enables to provide to solve this real-world problem with specific context, solutions which are adaptable and sustainable. So, this is one of a great benefit, as a program, as Australian Volunteers Program. We are looking to see the impact results of our program, through this research will definitely help us to see that benefit. 

Keren Winterford 

Great. Thanks so much. Thanks to all of you for sharing today. It's been really rich insights in terms of the ways of working. Both at this global multi-country research process, but also in your organisations as well to hear how the research is really touching each staff member in your organisation and how it's aligning to the work that you're doing and, and the ways that you work as well. 

So yeah, huge thanks to all four of you for sharing today. It's been a really rich, conversation. And so that wraps up our episode for today. We hope you've enjoyed the conversation, and you've got some insights from it. 

If you have any thoughts or questions, please feel free to reach out to us at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS, through our LinkedIn page, or also through our website or, or contact, me directly as well. 

So yeah, we hope you keep in touch and, and hope you, continue to be engaged in the work that we're doing. And please, look out for the next episode in this podcast series as well, where we'll be sharing, more from those that we're working with. And to understand what impact we can make. In terms of international development outcomes. And as Nimeshas says, that a context specific that are relevant and that are really meaningful to those that we work with. So, thanks again for listening.