Monitoring the Organizational Strengths of Rural Producers' Organizations

Abstract

The organizational performance of 58 farmers’ organizations across 30 countries was measured with quantitative indicators largely derived from panels that assessed organizational capabilities. The paper analyses the usefulness of the data for two information needs of the commissioning donor organization: 1) longitudinal assessment of capacity building; and 2) comparative analysis to discover room for cross-organizational learning. The longitudinal analysis of the data points to a bias related with the evaluation context. Data collected by panels that differed in time highlight other strengths and weaknesses than those derived from scores of panels that assessed both actual and past performance at the same evaluation moment. The comparative analysis indicates that panel scores are correlated with the organizations’ geographical location, type of service provisioning and level of aggregation. Differences in panel scores seem to reflect context specific functions and not necessarily differences in organizational performance.