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TOSTAN ANNUAL REPORT 2 0 2016 Annual Report 3

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TOSTAN ANNUAL REPORT 2 0 2016 Annual Report 3 TOSTAN ANNUAL REPORT 2 0 2016 Annual Report 3 Leter From Our Chief Executve Ofcer Dear Tostan Friends and Family, As I sit here reviewing the fnal draf of this Annual Report 2016, I am fnding it difcult to know where to begin this leter! It was truly a historic year for Tostan, full of major programmatc, organizatonal, and strategic moments. Each is so important in its own way. Let me begin as this report does, by highlightng the completon in 2016 of Tostan’s Generatonal Change in 3 Years Campaign and project. This 150 village implementaton of the CEP brought about incredible changes across the region and I hope you will take a moment to learn more about this breakthrough project and the impacts it has created. These results and this way of organizing our work have been so important, in fact, that we have reorganized and doubled down on this approach. Now called the Breakthrough Generaton, this campaign is increasingly becoming the centerpiece of Tostan’s scaling. You will fnd this new phase—which gained incredible momentum in 2016—featured prominently on page fve of this report. A huge thank you to all of you who have contributed at all levels to making this happen. Our sense of what scale means for Tostan and how we can get there is becoming ever clearer, in large part due to Tostan’s new Strategic Engagement Plan 2016-2022, which we launched in the Fall of 2016. It is an excitng new departure for our organizaton. Indeed, this entre Annual Report is organized along the programming platorms it has clearly defned. Within each of these platorms, we had such tremendous breakthroughs this year. The CEP, both in the Generatonal Change and other projects, contnued to enable communites to address a wide range of issues. In partcular, I am deeply proud of the excitng burst of community-led actvity that defned the fnal months of Generatonal Change in Three Years, which saw 358 communites declaring the end of harmful practces and a new future for girls and women. Our CEP in the Prison Project and our other innovatons contnued to reach even more people. Our post-CEP partnerships contnued to help communites that have already had the CEP to achieve more of their goals and beneft from our latest and most important educatonal breakthroughs. And our training platorm contnued to grow via leaps and bounds, with new partnerships and nearly 40 countries now reached by this model. Finally, on a personal note, 2016 was also a year in which I announced my intenton to transiton to a new role within Tostan, stepping back from the CEO positon but remaining actvely involved. We are stll in the midst of the process, but I really must say that I feel so lucky to have had a Board of Directors, a Transiton Commitee, and so many friends and colleagues who have stepped up to support this next phase of our organizaton. In this year of big moments—from our defning strategies to our biggest programs and from our communites’ most excitng results to my own transiton—I feel so deeply grateful for all of you in the global Tostan family. It is because of all of you in the Tostan family —our facilitators and staf, our partners, our global mobilizers, our insttutonal donors, our volunteers, our sister organizatons— that we have accomplished so much in 2016 and see so much potental for years to come. Thank you, Molly Melching 2016 Annual Report 4 Our Vision: Dignity for All Our Mission: We empower African communites to bring about sustainable development and positve social transformaton based on respect for human rights. We believe that through this mission we can ensure every person—woman, man, girl, and boy—is able to live a life of dignity. 05/ 2016 Highlight: Generatonal Change in Three Years 06/ 2016 Highlight: Strategic Engagement Plan (SEP) 2016 - 2022 08/ The Community Empowerment Program (CEP) 11/ The Outcomes 12/ Governance 13/ Educaton 15/ Health 16/ Economic Growth 17/ Environment 18/ Cross-Cutng issues 20/ Post-CEP 20/ Child Protecton 20/ The Empowered Community Network 21/ The Peace and Security Project 22/ The Reinforcement of Parental Practces (RPP) 22/ Training 24/ 2016 Highlight: The Breakthrough Generaton 25/ Supporters and Partners 26/ Financials CONTENTS 2016 Annual Report 5 2016 Highlight: Generatonal Change in Three Years An ambitous project to empower millions in West Africa As Tostan entered 2012, the organizaton was at a turning point. We saw that if we contnued to grow as we had been growing from 2006-2011 by simply adding single, stand-alone projects, we would not be able to achieve our biggest potental and make the case for comprehensive, empowering educaton and development. Instead, we were going to slowly but surely end up with the fragmented reality so many NGOs face. Fragmented fnances and operatons aligned not to programs but to administraton. Fragmented monitoring and evaluaton that couldn’t capture broad impact, and, worst of all a fragmented program itself that only brought pieces and parts to our community partners when we could ofer so much more. To change this, we proposed an entrely new approach: to design a system of proposing, fnancing, managing, and measuring projects that could match the potental of the program we had spent so long building. It wasn’t easy, but our eforts bore fruit in 2013 when the Leadership Circle for Generatonal Change in Three Years (GC3Y) was formed and commited to making this happen, and in early 2014 we launched the GC3Y program in 150 communites in four countries. Now, three years later, if there is one thing that is clear at the end of this innovatve initatve, it is this: GC3Y was even more than we hoped for. Despite a history of constant funding gaps that previously defned Tostan, we ran this entre project with no shortalls experienced. To the contrary, we were able to adjust and adapt when needed, always putng communites frst. Against a backdrop of single-issue results frameworks, we were able to track dozens of indicators and incorporate our work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundaton’s support of our monitoring and evaluaton eforts to yield the report you fnd here. This three-year comprehensive report is a foundaton for us to build on in the years to come, as we explore the many excitng, intriguing, and challenging results we found. The results of this initatve were beyond what we had imagined: 4 West African Countries : Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Mauritania • 9,647 direct partcipants (81% women) gained knowledge on human rights, problem solving, governance, hygiene, health, literacy, numeracy, use of mobile phones and project management. • 358 declaratons for abandonment of Female Genital Cutng (FGC) and Child Marriage by all 150 partcipatng communites and 208 sensitzed communites reached through organized difusion actvites. • 120,000 USD distributed as Community Development Funds (CDFs) to class partcipants to ofer opportunites to carry out Income Generatng Actvites (IGA) that can meet the needs of their families. • 90% of all community members disagree with the practce of FGC, 42% of which would intervene to try and prevent a case. • 97% of all community members disapprove of child marriage, 44% of which would intervene to prevent a child being married in their community. This 2016 Annual Report contains many snapshots of change from this historic project. We also hope you will take a moment to read the full GC3Y Report to get a sense of the impact it created for so many. What’s more, this important initatve has evolved and become Breakthrough Generaton. 2016 Annual Report 6 2016 Highlight: Strategic Engagement Plan (SEP) 2016-2022 Beginning in late 2014 Tostan began assessment of its Strategic Plan 2010-2015, notng progress and also identfying ways in which the planning process itself could be improved. Throughout 2015 and through June 2016, the organizaton embarked on a deep planning process that led to the fnalizaton of a new Strategic Engagement Plan 2016-2022. Launched in September of 2016, the plan establishes a new framework to guide all of Tostan’s programmatc and organizatonal eforts. Our Core Strategic Focus: Demonstratng the Full Potental of Empowering Educaton and Community-led Development All of the successes of the past 25 years emerged from within Tostan’s core approach to working with communites at the grassroots to develop and deliver responsive, efectve programs. We haven’t created a range of separate, individual projects and programs. Instead, we have remained commited to a core educatonal process, and we always work building of this core. As proud as we are of community-led results in single issue areas, including those going to large scale, we do not see any one issue alone as our biggest strategic opportunity. Rather, our most profound opportunity is to bring the core of our work to scale, and see the full potental of transformatonal educaton at a tme when the world truly needs it. We envision a day when tens of millions of people and their families and communites have had access to an empowering educaton and can make positve change on whichever issues they face. Ambitous Targets Across Three Program Platorms By 2022 CEP POST - CEP TRAINING 2,012 African communites reached 3,228 previously-CEP-trained African 2,406 individuals and their through new implementatons of communites reached through post-CEP communites reached through the CEP and 304 communites and programs and partnerships Tostan Training Center prison populatons reached through empowerment programs modifed CEP implementatons Organizatonal Strategic Goals Strategic Goal 1: Extend Tostan’s programs to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people as efciently and sustainably as possible.
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