The Challenge
The aim of Sahaj is to build a thriving and inclusive agriculture sector, aiming to grow employment and income for Nepal’s rural population. This is achieved by improving the competitiveness and income of small-scale producers and SMEs by stimulating inclusive market growth for several agricultural sectors, with a special focus on women’s empowerment and marginalized households. To inform the investment decisions, Sahaj required an approach and tools to measure the impact of potential investments to effectively manage the portfolio of interventions. Subsequently, Sahaj needed to collect details as per its result chain and logframe indicators to monitor progress and impact of investments in an the Impact Database.
The NewForesight Approach
NewForesight developed the portfolio management framework and tool to
(1) allow for the selection of the most promising interventions and when all interventions are added up,
(2) forecast the potential direct and indirect impact.
The impact framework developed takes into consideration the likelihood of achieving the desired outcomes and the potential risks that might influence the outcome. NewForesight also worked with Sahaj’s Monitoring and Results Management department to design and develop an Excel-based and user-friendly tool that allows for tracking the impact of interventions of service providers on beneficiaries and linking activities (actual data) to outcome and impact indicators. This also included dashboards to display outcome and impact-level information and linking impact data to geographical information that can be exported to GIS for display.
The Result
We have worked with the Sahaj team to ensure that the Portfolio Management tool reflects the right elements and is fit-for-purpose for the team’s way of working. Setting up a practical and easy-to-use tool that helps the team assess and predict impact for the portfolio of interventions. The portfolio management tool and impact database are both operational and helping the team to make informed decisions about the program interventions.
