THRIVE Monitoring Dashboards

By Jose Luis Figueroa, Director, Economic Empowerment, World Vision USA International Programs Group

World Vision is delighted to announce that have put in place our THRIVE Monitoring Dashboard.  Very shortly we will invite our interested donors and stakeholders to use the dashboard to regularly review our progress.

The THRIVE* project model aims to sustainably build improved and resilient livelihoods for smallholder farmers.  It is one of three ‘building blocks’ within World Vision’s global Livelihoods Sector approach.  THRIVE focuses predominantly on economically active rural households, helping them make the shift from subsistence farming to small commercial farming. Our goal is to help them build increasingly productive and profitable livelihoods. Ideal farming candidates for THRIVE are households with dependent children and fall within the “marginal poor” or “food vulnerable” categories.

The THRIVE project model begins by building the foundation of an empowered worldview. On that we add increased agricultural productivity and profitability, financial and economic inclusion, sustainable management of natural, social, and human resources, and an understanding of how to both manage risk and create a culture of preparedness. Specific interventions include regular savings development (savings groups), sustainable and profitable agriculture, local value chain development, access to financial services, access to improved markets, on-farm and off-farm natural resource management, and disaster preparedness and response (risk mitigation, disaster recovery, managing short-term shocks and stresses). 

To measure program progress against our targets, World Vision and TANGO have developed a standardized Monitoring Dashboard, which will be updated quarterly. To design the dashboard, World Vision selected TANGO to help us because it met a number of criteria – credibility in the industry, a good track record, strong understanding of USAID/US Feed the Future grants and indicators, and interdisciplinary skills. TANGO specializes in providing expertise that links recognized research and best practices. TANGO works on food and nutrition security, livelihoods, resilience, climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and recovery, vulnerability analysis, agriculture systems, markets and value chains, gender equality and social inclusion, and child labor.

While our dashboard is "not quite ready for prime time," we want to show you what we expect to shortly roll-out for not only World Vision staff to use, but also our donors. Check it out!

*Other offices in World Vision call THRIVE the Building Secure Livelihoods model.

Another “Virtual Vision Trip” to Malawi

Christopher Shore was recently on a Vision Trip to Malawi to see the THRIVE work there with a number of donors. Scroll through the following “video postcards” that Chris posted to Instagram on his travels (Christopher.Shore.WV) to get a sense of how well things are moving in Malawi with THRIVE.

• Welcome to Malawi
• Father Mackenzie part 1
• Father Mackenzie part 2
• Savings Group with their New Oil Press
• Kingsley and the New House
• Evelyn – a THRIVING woman
• Robert and His Shop
• Departing Malawi

• Vision Trips (please contact your World Vision representative about participating)
• Kilimanjaro Climb plus Tanzania THRIVE (February 2-15, 2019) with Vinh & Leisle Chung
• Tom Allen Regional Tour (October 24-26) in Chicago, Illinois
• Strong Women Strong World (November 30, 2018) in New York, New York
• Strong Women Strong World (December 7, 2018) in San Francisco, California
• South Florida Economic Empowerment Summit (January 26, 2019) in Naples, Florida
• Michael Mithika US Tour (January 25-February 9, 2019)
• Every Last One Conference (March 8-9, 2019) in Carlsbad, CA
• THRIVE / Building Secure Livelihoods Forum (April 1-5, 2019) in Lilongwe, MALAWI

Prayer Requests

PRAISE

• For the surgery and healing of Jim van Peursem in Tanzania. Jim had surgery to free a constrained nerve in his arm.  The surgery was successful, although Jim had a serious infection afterwards.  Jim’s infection has now gone away, and his arm is doing well.
• For EXCELLENT events in both California and Pennsylvania, where a total of about 70 donors heard about our THRIVE work.

REQUESTS

• For the planning processes for 2 large events

           - South Florida Economic Empowerment Summit

           - THRIVE Forum in Malawi

• For the planning for the Every Last One Summit in Carlsbad
• For THRIVE donor meetings in Minneapolis, and Madison
• For One Vision Technology Fund meetings in Dallas and Houston