Kansfonds is a faith-based foundation that bases itself on Catholic social teaching. Its aim is to stimulate solidarity towards vulnerable people and ensure that the most vulnerable people can participate in Dutch society.

Avance has provided Kansfonds with strategic support since 2017. For example:

• the development of a programme-specific and overall foundation theory of change
• facilitating participatory critical reflection and the recalibration of strategy
• developing selection criteria based on the organisation’s mission, impact goals and religious and philosophical underpinning.

One of the concrete outcomes of the partnership between Kansfonds and Avance was the setting up of the Franciscus Foundation. During the development of the Kansfonds’ overall theory of change it became clear that Kansfonds wanted to reach the most vulnerable in society via a specific type of organisations: drop-in houses. The needs of these drop-in houses were different from that of the organisations in Kansfonds’ regular portfolio. To serve the drop-in houses effectively,  a separate programme was needed.  To do this, Kansfonds set up the Franciscus Foundation. A foundation that provides a different type of financing and other support to truly make a long-term difference.

The Sustainable Development Goals Partnership (SDGP) programme of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) supports public-private partnerships by Dutch and local companies,  local governmental organisations and NGOs and/or knowledge institutes.

The Netherlands Enterprise Agency uses SDGP to contribute to achieving food security and private sector development on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With the ‘impact pathways support trajectory’ Avance as partner of RVO helps these partnerships to kickstart their project successfully and contribute to Sustainable Development Goals 2 (ending hunger), 8 (decent jobs and economic growth) and 17 (partnerships for the goals) in developing countries.

All SDGP subsidised public-private partnerships (PPPs) have to monitor and evaluate their progress towards achieving the project objectives. Avance supports the PPPs in further developing their impact pathways and setting up their M&E plans:

• we start by providing feedback on the impact pathways of the PPPs so that these are neither too simplistic or complicated
• we advise on measurement priorities and the selection of research methods. Feasibility of the plans is important here
• during the baseline study we are available to support the adaptation of the M&E plan if necessary
• besides supporting the PPPs, we also support the RVO project advisors

Does multi-stakeholder collaboration in a complex political context work and, if so, how? In 2018 Avance conducted the mid-term evaluation of the Dutch Agreement on Sustainable Garments and Textiles commissioned by the Dutch Socio-Economic Council.

The Agreement aims at a more sustainable garment and textile sector. In the evaluation, Avance did a contribution analysis to study sector change at European level. We combined qualitative, participatory and quantitative techniques such as interviews with over 50 companies and brands. We also carried out three case studies in India using a format inspired by outcome harvesting. Avance facilitated the process in a participatory approach to manage the various interests involved in the evaluation while at the same time optimising learning. A summary and the full report can be found here.

In 2019 Avance implemented the mid-term evaluation of the Golden Line programme which works to economically empower women in and around artisanal small-scale goldmines in Ghana and Tanzania.

The programme is implemented by Simavi, Solidaridad and Healthy Entrepreneurs and financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Click here or more information.

In collaboration with a team of local researchers, we collected over 500 surveys, facilitated focus group discussions on topics related to gender (gender-based violence and household decision-making) and interviewed the stakeholders involved. Both local and international staff at various levels were consulted to jointly reflect on the findings and recommendations which are summarised in this report.