Measuring What Matters: Unveiling the Power of Collective Impact Evaluation

In today's complex and interconnected world, addressing societal challenges requires a collaborative approach that transcends individual efforts. This has given rise to the concept of collective impact, a strategy that involves diverse stakeholders working together to tackle shared problems. Yet, the real challenge lies not just in the initiation of these collective efforts but in evaluating their effectiveness. The crux of this evaluation process lies in "Measuring What Matters," an approach that goes beyond conventional metrics to capture the true impact of these collaborative endeavors.

Collective impact initiatives bring together stakeholders from various sectors, including non-profits, businesses, government agencies, and local communities. The synergy generated by these collaborations is intended to create sustainable and positive change. However, assessing the success of such endeavors requires a shift in focus from quantitative data alone to a more holistic evaluation that considers the qualitative aspects of community experiences.

One essential aspect of evaluating collective impact is aligning the measurement process with the overarching goals of the initiative. While quantitative data provides valuable insights, a more comprehensive understanding is achieved through qualitative assessments that capture the nuanced stories and testimonials of those directly impacted. This human-centric approach offers a richer perspective on the true dimensions of success.

Moreover, engaging the community in the evaluation process is integral to measuring what truly matters. Empowering individuals to share their perspectives ensures that the evaluation is not just an external analysis but a reflection of the needs and aspirations of the very people these initiatives aim to serve. It's about listening to the voices on the ground, valuing their lived experiences, and incorporating their feedback into the assessment framework.

Considering the long-term impact is another critical facet of collective impact evaluation. These initiatives often require time to yield tangible results, and success may not be immediately apparent. Patience becomes a key virtue, and evaluations should account for the incremental progress and systemic changes that contribute to the overall success of the collaborative efforts.

In conclusion, measuring what matters in collective impact involves a nuanced and community-centered approach. It transcends mere statistical analysis by focusing on the stories, experiences, and long-term transformations that truly reflect the effectiveness of collaborative efforts. As we navigate the complex landscape of societal challenges, understanding the impact of collective endeavors is not just about numbers – it's about embracing the human element and acknowledging the profound, lasting changes that truly matter.

The ready-made garments (RMG) industry in Bangladesh, in addition to strengthening the economy by generating manufacturing jobs and raising foreign exchange reserves, also promotes women's empowerment by serving as the largest employer of women workers. To be precise, the RMG sector, the nation's largest industrial sector, contributes 11.2 percent of Bangladesh's GDP and employs approximately 4.1 million people, with women holding a sizable 61 percent of the jobs. But this is, alas, a declining trend from the 1990s, when women made up almost 90 percent of the RMG workforce. What are the reasons behind this decline, and are those reasons indicative of a larger problem? The probable answers are complex and multi-faceted, as is almost always the case), and necessitate a holistic lens to convey them appropriately. Over the decades, the RMG sector has provided a vast number of rural young women with not just economic opportunities, but also the freedom and control to make family planning decisions. Despite its positive contribution to increasing women's empowerment, the sector has not made the same rate of progress in ensuring decent work environment, improving job quality, and diversifying job roles for women workers (currently 5 percent of supervisory roles are held by women, most of whom are employed in low-skilled work like sewing and cutting). In light of these gaps, women workers typically exit the labor market prematurely, causing the industry to lose skilled workers. More often than not, women who leave the industries either get absorbed in the economy through informal but vulnerable employment or do not get engaged in any income generation activities. On the other hand, as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) becomes an inevitability, there is a strong case and push for Bangladesh to adopt to the future of work, investing further in technologies and digitalization, in order to remain competitive in the global apparel sector. However, this likely move may have significant ramifications for the same women workers who helped build its solid foundation. A study on the adoption of 4IR in Bangladesh conducted by a2i, a special programme by the Bangladesh government's Prime Minister's Office , indicated that digitalization and automation of the RMG industry would risk the livelihoods of 2.7m workers in the next 20 years. Women RMG workers are disproportionately at risk from these projected layoffs, as they are generally employed in low-skilled jobs, have limited education qualifications, and have less access to opportunities such as supervisory or multimachine operation training that could potentially contribute to career mobility and flexibility. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exasperated this overhanging uncertainty of livelihoods. In Bangladesh, the pandemic led to nationwide lockdowns in 2020, which resulted in the closing down of several factories, negatively affecting the lives of thousands of factory workers. The closure of factories, in turn, led to retrenchment in several major factories, decreased work hours, cuts in bonus and overtime payments, compounded by other major issues brought about by the times of economic uncertainty. Even after the direct adverse effects on workers, the pandemic had several indirect, but equally negative, consequences. Due to national lockdowns and factory closures, an accelerated demand was generated for further investment in digitalization and automation on global value chains. There will be no turning back because up and down the supply chain, as everyone is digitizing due to favorable pre-conditions. APIs have made tech integration simple, while rapidly developing and sophisticated Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms make tech adoption economical. The Bangladesh RMG sector is slowly and surely following suit, where the new technology will have the potential to threaten redundancy for millions of workers. As highlighted at the beginning of this article, the answer to these uncertainties for women requires a lens that is holistic. It is not just a discussion of securing livelihoods for these women workers, as the problem itself goes beyond employment uncertainty. The income insecurity brought about by the pandemic and the 4IR is compounded by various other factors for workers, such as an increase in gender-based violence faced by women during the lockdown, lack of basic health services, safety nets, nutrition, and food security issues, etc. Even the children of workers were also affected by 38 weeks of school closure, negatively impacting the overall wellbeing and double burden of the women RMG workers . The lack of enabling factors negates the depth of the choice architecture of women RMG workers, constricting the availability, feasibility, and attractiveness of different choices and limiting the available options. Even in the face of incessant demand for digitalization to pursue higher productivity, we have to take a step back, pause and reflect thoroughly on how it can bring unintended consequences for countries like Bangladesh. It pays to be mindful that women constitute 51% of the population, and if we do not plan ahead, the country can experience a reverse movement in its achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 3,5 and 10. To ensure the country's inclusive economic growth, the multi-layered nature of these issues affecting the women RMG workers in Bangladesh will need collective action for them to be addressed. Along with the emerging need to focus on skill development for women's career mobility, there is a need for a parallel, collaborative effort to provide the necessary enabling environments in health, safety, and confidence to ensure women’s continuous participation, and the development of an inclusive RMG sector that is prepared for the future but not at the cost of leaving women behind. To conclude, it has become imperative that the key stakeholders such as policymakers, businesses, NGOs, and development partners join together to address the growing vulnerabilities of women workers who have been the backbone of the country for so long, as the problem itself has grown to be interconnected, with a limited scope of improvement on any one aspect if addressed in silos. Like in the solving of a very complex Rubik's cube, the solution itself is systematic, but aligning one face requires being mindful of the effect it has on others .

A collaborative program like Oporajita should always be more than the sum of its individual parts. Working within a collective impact initiative entails collaborating and continuously adding value through co-creating major foundational elements, such as the common agenda, shared measurement systems for measuring combined change, etc. The uniqueness and beauty of an initiative like this is the partners' ownership in building it. Oporajita is, and will always be, a huge team of like-minded but diverse individuals, working towards their goal of system change. But with the existence of said huge team comes the need to decide on an ethos for working together. When Oporajita's partners work together, they can achieve great things. But to be successful, they need to have a shared understanding of how they're going to get there. That's where the idea of shared accountability statements came in. For Oporajita, shared accountability meant a set of values and operating principles that guide the partners to collaborate and collectively work to prepare women garment workers for the future defined by automation and bringing positive systems change. The Asia Foundation acting as the backbone organization, started their planning to co-create these statements along with partners. Image: Partners brainstorming during a Collective Impact Convening The first of the steps began in one of the initial all-partner convenings in Gazipur, where an external consultant "Take a Break" was onboarded to guide and discuss the initial thoughts, feelings, and convictions of all partners. In the lush greenery of Gazipur, partners literally and figuratively took a break from the bustle of daily tasks and reflected on the fundamental values they would want to showcase and follow for Oporajita. Take a Break facilitated multiple sessions of soul-searching and brainstorming of where the values converged for the collective. The diversity of Oporajita is one of its key strengths, but that also entails aligning where values might clash and how to tackle the situation when things do not go to plan. The discussions did not stop at values, but also spoke extensively on how everyone would be collaborating through "shared operating principles", extending to the work being done on the ground with implementing partners. After sessions and discussions, and back and forth, the co-creation and collaborative spirit came through, as partners decided on their fundamental values and operating principles broadly, and then specifically. Take a Break took care of the broader strokes, while The Asia Foundation aligned with partners specifically: refining statements, revising wording, etc., in a true co-creative fashion. After iterating to remain inclusive to all partners and colleagues, the shared accountability statement can be viewed below. If the common agenda is the guiding star for Oporajita, the shared accountability statement is the road that leads us there, forever developed to be a sum greater than its parts.

Since the official launch of Oporajita: Collective Impact on Future of Work in October 2022, partners jointly committed to collaborating to achieve the common vision - safeguarding the livelihoods of women garment workers. The shared outcomes from this vision take the partners to all spaces relevant to the lives of women garment workers, as the collective impact approach emphasizes addressing systems-level challenges holistically. This means working in both workers’ communities and factories and engaging other key stakeholders that directly impact the workers’ lives. With that in mind, seven implementation partners for Oporajita jointly organized two district-level inception meetings with a total of 161 participants, one in Savar and another in Gazipur, held on the 14th and 16th of February, respectively. Savar and Gazipur are the major geographical areas for operations for implementation partners, and partners considered it imperative to collectively inform and engage local stakeholders about the goals and scale of Oporajita, to ensure the success of the initiative and achievement of the common agenda. The two inception meetings invited local government representatives, press and media, and local NGOs working in the area to come together for an event of discussions and introductions . The objectives were to inform the audience about the launch and initiation of Oporajita on the ground, the common agenda for the collective, and how each partner would be contributing through their projects. The events also aimed to spark discussions on avenues of support from local stakeholders, which was received positively by the audience. In the Savar inception meeting, Mazharul Islam, Upazila Nirbahi Officer (government official representing the subdistrict) of Savar, expressed enthusiasm about the program, expressing strong interest to support the implementation and encouraging the collaborative elements of the various partners working together. He also expressed his support from his representative subdistrict, stating: “All the NGOs here are participating in this work together with the government of Bangladesh, and I invite all the NGO workers and stakeholders to work together on behalf of Savar Upazila” Indeed, this was the first time that partners jointly organized a collective event. From the initial need identification to organizing the events themselves, partners, in coordination with the backbone organization, directly collaborated and ensure the smooth execution of the meetings. This camaraderie was reflected in the events themselves, as various participants commented on the collaboration already showcased through the partners, as they came to the events and presented as a joint unit – rather than the sum of its combined parts.