Approach

Verona Groverman Consultancy’s approach was:

• Professional and committed
• Practical and action oriented
• Tailor-made and responsive

It included:

• Creating spaces to reflect, learn and act
• Involving participants and stakeholders
• Building linkages between people and between disciplines

Evaluation and facilitation turns upon interaction between people, women and men with differing perspectives and ideas, of varying social and cultural backgrounds and life experiences. Verona Groverman built on this human diversity to achieve learning and action, combining an outsider’s view with insiders’ knowledge and insights. Such evaluation and facilitation leads to concrete practical outcomes: new insights, a future scenario, a plan of action, a draft policy, enhanced skills, confidence, enthusiasm and commitment.

Her approach in her diverse assignments – being, evaluation facilitation, advising, capacity building – was characterised by features such as

• proper analysis or assessment of the existing situation, in close cooperation with those concerned,
• exploration of needs or of the desired situation as viewed by different stakeholders,
• implementation involving different actors in creative ways,
• design of feasible and realistic recommendations and/or action plans in a participatory way, and, lastly,
• assuring follow-up.

Essential elements for achieving satisfactory results are the creation of spaces to voice ideas based on mutual respect, the demarcation of common grounds and the promotion of ownership of the process and the outcomes. Results are satisfactory when they reflect equity in diversity.

Verona Groverman adhered to the Code of Conduct developed by NEDWORC, a network-organisation for development cooperation professionals, of which she was almost 20 years a member.