Between August 4th and 7th, a training workshop was conducted in Masvingo, Zimbabwe, with Field Monitors (FM) from the World Food Programme (WFP), as part of the evaluation phase of PICSA. Graham Clarkson and Martín del Valle participated in this activity.
During the first day, the evaluation instruments were reviewed, question by question, ensuring that the wording was clear, culturally appropriate, and easily translatable into Shona and Ndebele, the local languages spoken by families who had participated in PICSA over the past three seasons.
The following day, a field visit was carried out to practice and pilot the instruments. At Murabwi Primary School, each FM administered the quantitative survey with a farmer who had already incorporated PICSA into their seasonal planning, which allowed for familiarization with the flow and understanding of the questions, as well as the identification of potential adjustments.
The next day, the team visited the Muchakata Business Centre to pilot the qualitative survey. On this occasion, groups of FMs were formed, based on their duty station, each working with one farmer. Since most of the questions were open-ended, a different approach to piloting the instrument was explored: one FM was responsible for recording the answers to the questions while the other two engaged in the conversation with the farmer. This format enabled the farmer to explain and visually map out a narrative of the change/s that they made as a result of the PICSA training.
On the final day, a meeting was held between the teams from the University of Reading and WFP to reflect on the questions used in both surveys. Adjustments, suggestions, and ideas were discussed as part of the piloting stage, with the aim of refining the instruments for the evaluation process.
Sincere thanks are extended to WFP Zimbabwe and the Department of Agricultural, Technical, and Extension Services (AGRITEX) from the Ministry of Agriculture for their continued collaboration and for making the PICSA team feel so warmly welcomed.
Farmer visualizing the process of change that they undertook after PICSA training.