Something amazing happened when APA was put to work with the Women's Empowerment Project. WEP was designed to introduce five components sequentially: (1) literacy, (2) savings, (3) village banking, (4) micro-enterprise development, and (5) collective action for community change. Yet, to our surprise, women started new businesses and began increasing their income even before the project introduced its micro-enterprise curriculum and accompanying training initiatives. The initial APA intervention that occurred early on, in the literacy portion of the program, had this unanticipated result as the women were given an opportunity to share their stories of successes with other women and see the power of working together to save and share their resources.

Surveys done every six months during the program to assess the women's progress, measuring all components, regardless of whether or not they had been introduced, provided stunning evidence of this. After 18 months, while women were still working on the first three components, the surveys revealed that thousands of women had already started new businesses and were dramatically increasing their incomes, even though the fourth component, micro-enterprise development, had not yet been introduced. In fact, the books and training materials for this part had not even been printed!

The power of the APA approach within the WORTH model is indicated in the following data that demonstrate this unexpected phenomenon: In the 12 months from June 1999 to June 2000, the number of women who had micro-enterprises rose four-fold, from 19,000 to 76,000. During that same period women's gross earnings from their businesses increased nearly seven-fold, from $600,000 to $4 million - all before the entrepreneurship manual and related training materials had been introduced. While these numbers seemed unbelievable, even to us, they are as close to accurate as one can obtain under difficult Third World conditions and have been verified by several independent, external evaluators.

Two factors appear to account for these unusual results:

• Integrated empowerment messages had been woven into all literacy, village banking, and training materials, particularly in support of micro-enterprise development; including stories about women in business.

• Women learning from women: the empowerment stimulated by the Appreciative Planning and Action approach used throughout the program had encouraged women to share their successes and act to increase these successes. They were using the 7-Ds to share their successes, tell their stories, and take action for more success.

Once the entrepreneurship materials were introduced these numbers continued to rise. By the end of field operations in year three almost 90,000 women were in business and their collective earnings had topped $10 million - double what the donors had invested in the program and, as one observer noted, "A better return on investment than Wall Street could dream of!" Perhaps even more remarkable were data compiled at the end of field operations and again 14 months later, long after the project had wound up and donor funding had ended:

• Rather than finding the normal pattern of drop-out or withering away of results that so often follows the completion of a development initiative, the studies found that drop-out was negligible: For any woman who had to leave due to marriage, death, relocation, or other
  factor,, as many as seven women were in line to take her place.

• The number of groups and village banks continued to rise.

• Women were teaching other women, groups were starting new groups. Many women were stitching up their books and selling them to new groups they then helped get started.

Since the "A-Valuation" step was critical to the process by which APA was created, evolved, and regularly improved, and still helps us with on-going development every time we use it anywhere with any group, it might be useful to say a bit more about this important reflective step.

' A-Valuation' and Reflection: Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PME)

The 4-D process leads directly back to a new Discovery step through reviewing what has worked best, what was learned, how this affects our dream, and what new actions we can take to move forward and follow-up on what we have started. A simple '3-D' "A-Valuation" process, using 3 simple questions, is used at the end of every session:
(1) What's the best of what we did today?
(2) What does 'even better' look like? How can we do this better next time? and
(3) How do we get there? What do we do to see that happens?
Like any sound village or organizational development process, we found that APA initiatives require ongoing and regular follow-up - generally monthly for the first 6 months, then every 6 months thereafter until groups and/or organizations are functioning on a sustainable basis (± 2 years).

Fourteen months after the program ended, external evaluators estimated that as many as 500-1,000 new groups had been formed, including some 10,000 to 20,000 new women - a number most development projects would have considered respectable for a normal, fully-funded and operating program.

The women are carrying on in spite of the incredible obstacles facing the country. And how- are the\- doing it? The answer from the women: "Just as we have always done it: By sharing our success stories." The power of the Appreciative Inquiry APA process continues to yield fruit, long after the program professionals and donor funding have moved on.

1. With invaluable help from Marcia L. Odell, global director of WORTH programs

2. For more about what became known as the "Makalu Model," see my article, "Appreciative Planning and Action: Experience from the Field, in Sue Annis Hammond and Cathy Royal, Lessons from the Field: Applying Appreciative Inquiry, Plane, TX: Practical Press/ l hill Book publishing Co., 1998. The Appreciative planning and Action (APA) approach emerged through a process of developing, testing and adapting participatory techniques in Nepal that sought means on enhancing the capacity of PRA-based approaches to promote mobilization and empower among rural people. APA builds directly on Appreciative Inquiry, with additional input from PRA, Asset Base Assessment, Open Space and Future Search models.

3. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) popularized by Robert Chambers of the University of Sussex, UK

4. The basic 7-D process is being introduced across Africa. It has been used with 240 local grass-roots NGOs in Nepal, 6,000 economic groups across 21 districts of the country, with at least 125,000 women. It is now the underlying delivery process by which WORTH is beginning in Kenya, Tanzania, Guinea and Congo.

Moving Mountains: Appreciative Planning and Action and Women's Empowerment in Nepal
Appreciative Planning and Action: Mission Statement 
From Riots to Empowerment in Africa: Appreciative Planning and Action in a Liberian Refugee Camp