Dr. Fletcher Tembo, the Director of the Mwananchi Programme, facilitated the Pan-African civil society empowerment and accountability learning event in Nairobi in June 2012. 

The event was a rich discussion between staff from eight DFID-funded demand-side empowerment and accountability programmes from across Africa, as well as DFID officers. Priority issues under discussion included theories of change, value for money, sustainability and results in voice and accountability programmes. 

Participants shared the dilemmas they were facing in their programmes, such as:

• What counts as results? How do webest track and measure intangible results among numerous programmes and outcomes?
• How do we approach the tension between attribution and contribution when it comes to analysing the impact of our programmes on results?
• How should we define sustainability?
• How do we go beyond civil society as organisations, to use multi-donor funds to incentivise effective citizenship within Africa?