The best way to see how the Rapid Results Approach impacts people's lives is to see and hear it. Choose either country, sector, or theme that interests you and launch our media page where you will find video, pictures, and recordings from those who are intimately involved in this work.
Eritrea
One of the initiatives in Eritrea focused on increasing the use of Voluntary Counseling and Testing Services-referred to as VCT. The 100-day goal was: During the last 2 weeks of June 2003, achieve a 25% increase in the number of users of VCT services, with the first week in March 2003 as a benchmark, and get user satisfaction rating above 80%, measured through user surveys.
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Kenya
At the end of the initial wave of RRIs, 14 of the 16 teams had achieved or surpassed their goals. Here are some of the results that were achieved in the first 100 days:
The Laikipia Irrigation Project was completed, increasing the number of farmers with access to irrigation from 117 to 203. The goal of the RRI was to enable more farmers to plant and water their crops, a feat that was visible at the end of the RRI. Similar efforts in the past had taken over two years to complete.
In Eldoret Water Service Company, lost or "unaccounted for" water was reduced from 40% to 32%.
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Nicaragua
At one level, the Nicaragua experience with Rapid Results was about improving the productivity of pig and cow farmers. At a more profound level, it was about a transformation in the way people in the agricultural sector work together to support goals they are committed to.
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Eritrea
In February 2002, the Minster of Health of Eritrea, Dr. Saleh Meky, and the team he had assembled from his own Ministry and others (including Education and Labor) were eager to get going on the country's five year HIV/AIDS strategic plan. The team had just completed its draft plan. In normal times, the draft would be shopped around for a few months so it could be finalized, and then its various components would be parceled out to Government organizations so each could advance a particular segment of the plan.
But these were not normal times. Minister Meky and his colleagues had been to too many conferences where other African health officials described how HIV/AIDS had ravaged their countries. And even though the infection rate in Eritrea was in the single digits, the Eritreans did not feel they could afford to wait before acting, nor to take the risk of business-as-usual, hit-or-miss implementation.
So, when the World Bank project leader responsible for the HIV/AIDS program in the country, Eva Jarawan, approached the Minister with the idea of using the Rapid Results Approach to jump-start and fuel the implementation process, he was ready to listen.
The first conversation with the Minister about the idea of rapid results took place in late February 2003. In March, with help from Jarawan and her consulting team, six rapid results teams were launched in the Central Region of Eritrea. Each team set a truly ambitious goal-a result that would achieve a significant gain on one priority theme in the five-year strategic plan. And each goal had to be achieved in 100 days or less.
One of the initiatives, for example, focused on increasing the use of Voluntary Counseling and Testing Services-referred to as VCT. The 100-day goal was:
During the last 2 weeks of June 2003, achieve a 25% increase in the number of users of VCT services, with the first week in March 2003 as a benchmark, and get a user satisfaction rating above 80%, measured through user surveys.
One hundred days later, the weekly number of clients had ramped up by 80 percent, from 220 in early March to 390 in the last week of June! The trend line moved steadily upward (except for the Easter lent period), and continued to rise beyond the initial 100 days. Moreover, user exit questionnaires (developed as part of the VCT Rapid Results initiative) showed a consistent 95% level of satisfaction with the quality of the VCT service.
In order to achieve their initial goal, the rapid results team opened three new VCT sites, trained five additional counselors, distributed Rapid Test kits, procured some new equipment and furniture (videos for waiting rooms, for example), and put in place a systematic tracking and monitoring system-accomplishments the team confessed they would never have thought possible when they embarked on this effort.
VCT was only one of the results areas that were tackled in the initial wave of Rapid Results initiatives in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. Other Rapid Results teams delivered equally impressive results. Here are few illustrations:
The Orthodox and Catholic Churches each started a new home-based care program in Asmara staffed by trained volunteers, with a total of 117 families receiving care at the 100-day mark (exceeding their goal of 100), while the Evangelical Church added a nutritional care component to its on-going home-based care program.
Of the 100 commercial sex workers who participated in the 100-day peer support program, 72 have become regular users of female condoms (exceeding their 50% goal), and 34 have started using VCT services (somewhat under the 50% goal).
In addition, a school-based HIV/AIDS prevention program was started in six schools, focused on delaying the onset of sexual activity among young people and increasing the percentage of condom users among sexually active students. The data suggests that this effort actually influenced student behavior within 100 days, and it has fueled a rapid ramp-up of school-based prevention activities country-wide.
This led to repeated waves of Rapid Results initiatives in the Central Region, as well as an organized effort to introduce the Approach in four of the other five Regions in the country. Two years into the effort, at the end of 2004, UNAIDS reported that the Eritreans had managed to stabilize the HIV prevalence rate at 2.4%.
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Kenya
In 2005, the Government of Kenya adopted a wide ranging reform of its Ministry of Water and Irrigation. Under the reforms, formerly centralized regional water offices were "spun-off" into their separate water service companies. These companies were supposed to become financially self-sufficient within a relatively short period of time.
The new policy constituted a rather radical change from the former way of doing things. Front-line workers were being asked to become customer-orientated. Regional Managers that had been previously asked to accept orders and financial support from above were now expected to be self-directing and generate enough revenues to become self-sufficient.
The Permanent Secretary of Water, Professor George Krhoda seized on this opportunity to mobilize the devolved Water Agencies around achieving real results. Putting aside the usual preparations and analytic reports, he challenged the Managing Directors of the Water Agencies to set and pursue specific goals in areas such as reducing unaccounted for water, and he challenged his Ministry Directors to do the same in the areas for which they were responsible.
RHS&A consultants helped the MD's and the Ministry Directors identify areas of focus, and they trained local coaches to provide support to Rapid-Results teams that set their own goals in each of these areas. Initially, 16 RRIs were launched, covering themes ranging from reducing unaccounted for water to reducing time to process payment to contractors to getting boards of water authorities recruited and functional.
At the end of the initial wave of RRI's 14 of the 16 teams had achieved or surpassed their goals. Here are some of the results that were achieved in the first 100 days:
The Laikipia Irrigation Project was completed, increasing the number of farmers with access to irrigation from 117 to 203. The goal of the RRI was to enable more farmers to plant and water their crops, a feat that was visible at the end of the RRI. Similar efforts in the past had taken over two years to complete
In the Athi Water Service Board, the RRI team was able to increase monthly revenues by 160%.
At Ministry headquarters, one RRI team was able to reduce the average time it took to process procurement orders below KSHS 500,000 by 50%. A year later, an impact evaluation study showed that that this improvement level had been sustained.
In Nakuru Water Service Company, the number of open accounts with functional meters was increased by 56%.
In Eldoret Water Service Company, lost or "unaccounted for water" was reduced from 40% t0 32%.
As importantly, team members acquired a new sense of confidence in what they - and their newly formed companies could accomplish. Front line staff got more excited about their work. And senior managers gained experience in what it takes to mobilize their organizations for higher performance.
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Nicaragua
A large-scale project aimed at increasing the productivity of 120,000 farmers in the country, by 30% within 16 years, had been launched in Nicaragua. The project seemed to have all the right elements built into it: strengthening quasi-government institutions; directing research on farmer productivity; stimulating a private sector market for provision of technical advice to farmers; building an information system to link R&D efforts with farmer needs; and others. Moreover, each of these elements (or project components) was being pursued by a diligent and committed team.
Yet, two years into the effort, there was little visible impact on farmers. The project activities were mostly preparatory-geared to getting the systems, processes, and institutions in place. This omission is what caught the Minister of Agriculture's attention. It was also on the mind of the World Bank team leader in charge of the project. Norman Piccioni had the uneasy feeling that apart from himself and the newly appointed Minister, no one working on the project was losing sleep over the fact that no farmers had yet been touched by the effort.
Piccioni decided that he could not afford to wait. He knew that all the activities that had been mapped out in the 16 year project were necessary for achieving the hoped-for outcomes, but without some impact, and fast, he felt that the long-term project was at risk. There were already some indications that the Minister might pull the plug on it. And Piccioni was increasingly concerned that without some change, all the activities and the good intentions behind them might not get translated into actual impact.
Within three weeks, five rapid-results initiatives were launched, each aimed at one area of strategic importance for the agricultural sector (e.g. pig farming, dairy production, and corn feed development). Each initiative involved a cross-organizational team that set its own 100-day goal and developed a 100-day plan to achieve it.
One hundred days later, here is a sample of the results that were achieved:
One cooperative in the Leon municipality of Nicaragua tripled the sale of milk produced by 60 farmers by focusing on improved quality and better marketing.
A group of 30 farmers increased pig weight by 30% using an enhanced, protein-enriched corn (leveraging existing technology).
At one level, the Nicaragua experience with Rapid Results was about improving the productivity of pig and cow farmers. At a more profound level, it was about a transformation in the way people in the agricultural sector work together to support goals they are committed to.
More than two years after this Rapid Results support took place, the momentum continues, with waves of projects infusing the agricultural sector with results and enthusiasm, and releasing untapped implementation capacity. Here are a few samples of the additional 100-day results that were achieved:
By increasing value-adding steps to the selling process, 27 small-scale producers were able to increase selling price of their corn, chilote, and pepián produce by 15% in 120 days. To scale-up, the new process (which included improved packaging and
"The Rapid Results Initiative approach has provided an exciting and challenging means of "kick starting" school based HIV/AIDS prevention in Eritrea. Rapid Results has generated enthusiasm, initiative and creativity amongst program staff leading to the speedy achievement of impacts that have changed the lives of thousands of young people and community members for the better."
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Dr. Michael Beasley, PCD Research Fellow, Partnership for Child Development, Imperial College School of Medicine
"A few tennis balls may be the key to increasing consumption of fortified foods in Kenya! Intent on breaking the 'pass the tennis ball' speed record, participants in the stakeholder workshop for the first food fortification RRI in Kenya let go of their preconceptions of the rules of the game and learned a powerful lesson about how things get done. They are now applying this lesson to oil fortification. Working closely with new colleagues from different agencies and sectors, members of the technical team are being stretched as they consider all means possible to reach their targets in 100 days. By supporting RRIs as part of the country's food fortification strategy, senior decision makers in government and business are sending a clear signal to their staff that innovation is required and rewarded. While the results of the fortification initiative can only be assessed at the end of the first 100-day period, experience in other sectors suggests that in countries where public-private partnerships are established, and fortification strategies exist, the judicious use of RRIs could significantly hasten the achievement of fortification goals, and stimulate innovation in nutrition program implementation and public private partnerships."
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Milla McLachlan, PhD, Sr. Technical Consultant, MicroNutrients Initiatives, Kenya
"Instead, this initiative [UNESCO's Community Multimedia Centre initiative] has been developed along the lines of what has been called Rapid Results Initiatives... We would also suggest..based on the highly successful CMC experience, that for other pilots, more attention be given to Rapid Results approaches."
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"There is a lot of talk these days about results in development: results frameworks; results strategies, results-based management; and so on. Many of us in the development community are struggling with these concepts and how they fit in the programs and operations we support. Nadim and his colleagues at Schaffer and the Rapid-Results Institute have paved a path that we can all benefit from. Their Rapid Results Initiatives link results achievement with human motivation, confidence, and capacity. And they have proven time and time again that when given a chance and an opportunity to contribute, people everywhere will rise to the challenge and deliver. This work has given me hope that we will crack the code on client ownership, empowerment, and accountability."
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Susan A. Stout Manager, Results Secretariat The World Bank
"Over the years, much of our approach to development has been shaped by the universal solution of the day that sweeps in on a wave of enthusiasm, produces meager benefits and then is replaced by yet another new thing. The latest example is the obsession with the design, targeting and prediction of development, all in the name of results. From this perspective, capacity must be 'built' in order to achieve the desired results or outcomes. Part of the attraction of this engineered approach to development is its ability to give the impression of control and accountability, usually done through the use of meaningless (v)indicators and contrived objectives. To make matters worse, many current development interventions are becoming larger, more 'harmonized' and more difficult to coordinate.
There are times when the planned engineering approach can work. But for the most part, it fails in the face of the complexity, uncertainty and rapid change that characterizes most contemporary situations. And it usually pays little attention to the existing motivations, resources and behaviors of the participants. This is where Rapid Results (RR) can add real value by departing from the current dogma. Instead of building capacity to achieve results, RR reverses the flow by using the pursuit of results to motivate people to build their capacity for implementation and achievement. Instead of focusing on acquiring and disseminating knowledge, it helps people to use their existing knowledge to achieve better results
RR also takes issue with big, laboured, planned, top-down approaches to development. It assumes that none of the participants is smart enough at the outset to 'design' a detailed intervention that will remain intact over time. Instead of spending months or years figuring out where and how to start, it advocates looking for pockets of energy and commitment, getting started and adjusting as the work proceeds. It sees the process of 'emergence' and not engineering as the key to effectiveness. And finally, RR implicitly sees itself as intervening in complex development systems. From that perspective, huge gains can come from small interventions that are built on learning and adaptiveness."
