Right2Grow Learning Catalogue

About Right2Grow

Right2Grow is a Strategic Partnership between six international non-governmental organizations and more than 20 local civil society organizations. With funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, (Policy Framework “Civil Society Strengthening”, grant instrument “Power of Voices Partnerships”), Right2Grow has been collaborating with communities, community-based organizations (CBOs), and civil society organizations (CSOs) in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, South Sudan, and Uganda from 2021-2025.

Why Right2Grow ?

1. Because there is an insufficient progress in tackling undernutrition, the main underlying cause of deaths among children under five. The world is off track to meet most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets linked to hunger, food security and nutrition; Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated this situation. 
2. Because the major causes of undernutrition are directly or indirectly linked to unhealthy environment, including inadequate access to basic water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. Yet billions still lack access to basic WASH services; poor and marginalized populations and women are disproportionately affected.
3. Because we see lots of promising policy agendas but their ineffective implementation, lack of multi-sectoral approaches and a range of national ministries accustomed to work in “silos”. 
4. Because there is a weak participation of civil society in decision-making processes related to nutrition and WASH while bringing perspectives of the most vulnerable into policy processes remains a big challenge.
5. Because the work of CSOs and CBOs is not enough focused on monitoring coverage, quality, inclusiveness, accountability and budgeting of government services and duties.
6. Because there is limited or no information on the costing, expenditure, availability, and quality of government services, resulting in weak transparency and lack of accountability.
7. Because national policy dialogues often lack in-depth knowledge and evidence of local realities and financial commitments do not meet the needs of the most vulnerable. 
8. And because Right2Grow believes that empowered communities and civil society organizations can be game changers for long lasting impact in the field of nutrition and WASH.

What we believe in ? 

By strengthening civil society and empowering communities, Right2Grow believes that locally-led solutions can ensure children are well nourished and able to reach their full potential.

Right2Grow believes that localization and shifting the power from international stakeholders to national and local actors is the way forward. By combining technical knowledge on WASH, nutrition, multi-sectoral approaches, and budget monitoring and expenditure tracking (BMET) with local knowledge, expertise and voices of the most vulnerable, Right2Grow creates smart, community-led sustainable solutions that civil societies are confident to uptake. Right2Grow sees a world full of great intentions, expertise and wealth, which does not live up to its promises and potential. At the same time, we also see strong women, men and children in affected communities ready to voice their needs and concerns, and ready to contribute their own part of the solution. Right2Grow works to bridge the gap between these powerful women, men and children – and local and national governments as well as international institutions and foras where decisions are made.

How ?

Right2Grow believes that sustainable progress can only be achieved by working with local communities, especially with women and other marginalized groups. Right2Grow therefore invests in communities, CBOs and CSOs to collect their own data and stories about nutrition and WASH realities, and helps them hold their nearest relevant government officials to account for what is needed, planned and – often not – delivered. We help build those stories into strong evidence to convince national and international leaders and government authorities to make better choices.

The voices of local communities should be heard and represented by legitimate local civil society organizations. These local realities need to be connected to the national and international dialogues where decisions and policies are made, and where resources are allocated. Multi-sectoral interventions are essential to address each of the underlying causes of undernutrition, including improved coordination between public authorities at national and local levels. Visibility into where public investments are made, along with monitoring government commitments, are crucial first steps in cross-sector engagement.

Introductive video

Accept cookies to watch this video

Testimonials

“The practical interventions and activities successfully carried out in other countries serve as a source of inspiration for those looking to implement them as well. It’s about learning how to improve our work to move forward and have a greater impact for children in our respective countries.”

“Learning is a process that allows us to capitalize on the knowledge gained during the implementation of the project. This knowledge is then formalized into briefs that can be used by project stakeholders and even their colleagues within their institutions.”

“The learning briefs are enjoyable to read, easy to use and apply. They also help document good practices—as well as bad ones—in order to further improve our fieldwork.”

“What’s truly interesting is the analysis of failures, because in any learning process or intervention, it’s through failures that we grow.”

“Learning is a process through which we must identify, document, format, share, and most importantly, use the knowledge we’ve acquired—especially within the Right2Grow framework. This helps us become more operational.”

“It gives us more tools, and from there, we become more dynamic and encouraged to capitalize on the various actions in the field. It also helps us sustain the advocacy groups’ actions in each province.”

“Our failures should not define what happens tomorrow. The past should not be the foundation of the future.”

Catalogue

Right2Grow has developed a strong knowledge management strategy to facilitate learning between consortium partners, including communities and local civil society organizations, and to sustain institutional changes beyond the program. Linking & Learning (L&L) is therefore at the heart of the Right2Grow program. By learning from each country’s practices, sharing programatic knowledge with others, and applying it, we can improve our approaches, enhance impact, and optimize the program.

Over the course of 2023, countries and global teams have been working to produce Learning briefs to document, analyze and share the key learnings from activities, initiatives and approaches they are proud of, implemented since the program began. The Right2Grow Learning Catalogue aims to bring together in a single document all the learning sheets from the program’s 6 countries.

As learning is about change, “In Right2Grow, we learn how to improve our impact and the way we work“, the learning catalogue focuses on providing ready-to-use programatic learning guides on what made the implementation of our activities, approaches and initiatives successful: What were the objectives? What were the key steps in the process, the good practices, the challenges encountered, and the solutions put in place to mitigate them?

It is intended to continue, beyond Right2Grow, providing teams with an easy access to Right2Grow’s knowledge both during the program implementation and after the program ends. It is intended to inspire, while avoiding reinventing the wheel, and to enable teams to benefit from past similar experiences to continually improve their work. This catalogue is therefore a compilation of more than 40 learning guides, which have been organized into chapters to make them easier to read.

⚠️ ATTENTION: for all persons outside Action contre la Faim, please access the resources in private browsing to avoid accessibility problems.

Summary