Are business brains better brains? Sierra Leone

We pioneered a radical participatory evaluation to determine the impact the Business Brains programme was having on girls and their communities.

Our work used a radical peer-based and strengths-focused methodology that aimed to go beyond what is normally understood as a participatory evaluation.

We trained and supported local staff from One Girl and Restless Development to:

• co-design key lines of inquiry and evaluation questions

• design and conduct focus groups and stakeholder interviews

• co-sense the learning from these interviews

• sift and prioritise the findings

• co-produce a shared set of recommendations for future action.

Engaging all the 11 programme staff in Sierra Leone,  at all stages of the evaluation. Together, we looked at the highlights, challenges, and areas where we could make this program even better to find out where the Business programme program stood.

“I’ve taken part in a number of participatory evaluations before, but this was the first time I have been involved in the design of the evaluation questions.”
Programme MEL Officer

We created a website on the Google sites platform that detailed step-by-step of the participatory evaluation process and also present the evaluation’s detailed findings in a user-friendly and dynamic format. One Girl later published the evaluation findings as part of their Research Report series:  Mind your own business.