From October 21 to October 23, 2015, members of the FBLI Coordinating Unit (CU) led by Hung Nguyen-Viet and FBLI China team led by Fang Jing worked together in Kunming City, China to conduct the harvest of outcomes generated from the activities of the FBLI China program over the last three years. This event is part of the program’s Monitoring and Evaluation’s (M&E) activity, which used Outcome Harvesting (OH) - an evaluation tool that helps identify, formulate, and confirm outcomes through a participatory approach. The M&E’s activity, which has been facilitated by the Coordinating Unit of the regional program since 2012, aims at collecting outcomes as changes in behaviors, relationships, actions, activities, habits, attitudes of the direct and indirect involved stakeholders. It, as such, provides lessons learnt for team members and related stakeholders in doing Ecohealth research.
The 3-day trip, including a day in room discussion and 2-day field trip, provided valuable information on changes in the research community, challenges in policy advocacy, administration and general conducting of Ecohealth research. Besides, the areas of mutual learning between FBLI China and FBLI Vietnam which shared a similar cultural and social context were also identified.
Photo 1: In room discussion with the FBLI China team, Kunming Medical University Campus, October 2015. Photo credit: Steven Lam
The teams also visited a study site in Yuanmou County, to understand vegetable plantations, crop-livestock system and farming households and observe the biological (urine) sampling to assess the exposure to and health risks of pesticide use in the area. Besides, CU staff could meet and interact with the staff of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) of Yuanmou County who are the main partner of FBLI China team.
Photo 2: Visiting open market in Yuanmou where graduated students do urine sampling. Photo credit: Giang Pham
Photo 3: Meeting with officers from Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) at Yuanmou County, Yuanan Province, China. October 2015. Photo credit: Steven Lam
This is the third outcome harvest facilitated by the CU after two attempts with FBLI Indonesia in November 2013 and FBLI Vietnam in January 2015. Experiences from Indonesia and Vietnam helped shape this activity in a more effective way. The next harvest is scheduled with FBLI Thailand in 2016.
After each harvest, a report is jointly produced by both the facilitator i.e., the CU and the research team in each country. These reports are material for the final report which capturing outcomes of all components and countries to draw a picture of how Ecohealth field have been building in four years (2012-2016).
Highlight of the evaluation with the FBLI China team can be found here
By Steven Lam, Giang Pham & Hung Nguyen-Viet
