BRIDGE can be particularly useful and successful as a capacity development tool because it aims to systematically transfer ownership and responsibility for the conduct of BRIDGE to the client organisation or country. Ideally this occurs throughout the first two or three years of the rollout of BRIDGE. The aim is to have the client organisation or the country develop and implement a professional or community development strategy which is taken up and institutionalised. Commitment from senior managers and a pool of accredited facilitators will be necessary so that control of BRIDGE is transferred from international donors or funders.

Transition marks the completion of a program to the satisfaction of the client. On this occasion, program records and documentation are completed and relevant sections delivered to the client. A transfer document is drafted. The purpose of the transfer procedure is to ensure the following:

• contractual conditions have been satisfied
• delivered outputs conform with specifications
• the program is integrated into the ongoing business
• legal and psychological ownership is transferred
• all accounts are paid

Transition also marks the point at which the program team's responsibility for development ends and the end user is fully capable of taking on whatever the project produced. Purely at a practical level, this requires certain adjustments by both parties. However, there is also an important psychological element in transition that program managers ignore at their peril.

Capacity building and the transition process for handing over responsibilities to counterparts should begin at the start of the intervention. In transferring responsibility for a program, program managers should prepare a transition strategy, which includes sustainability strategies, and should also include close consultation with the clients. The transition comprises three main elements the:

• documentation process
• closing of programs and workshops - through some sort of celebration
• sustainability planning process (dealt with in Part 10)

Documentation

All projects generate many documents. Provided the project's logical framework has been followed, the preparation, dissemination and filing of all documents should be a straightforward process.

Archiving of BRIDGE documentation is a responsibility of the BRIDGE Office. It is the responsibility of the implementing organisation to get all the correct documents to BRIDGE Office securely and within reasonable time frames. All relevant documentation should be emailed (or sent) to the BRIDGE Office. Progress or summary reports should also be supplied to provide material for inclusion into the quarterly BRIDGE newsletters.

Program reports

To ensure that BRIDGE partners are informed of BRIDGE events the office requires a descriptive article about the workshop or event. In addition to this article please send the following files, reports or documents:

• Scoping or needs assessment report
• Workshop report including
• Names of facilitation team
• Implementing organisation details
• Donor details
• Participant profile
• Workshop content
• Lessons learned
• Workshop agenda
• Participant list
• Group photo and other workshop photos
• Participant evaluation report
• Facilitator evaluation report
• Any feedback on the module/s run (suggested improvements, criticisms, compliments)
• Lead facilitator report 
• Media coverage

All of the above reports will be archived in the BRIDGE Office as a repository of information on past BRIDGE events.

TtF Reports

Lead facilitators usually bear the responsibility of writing and sending the TtF report to the implementing organisation and the BRIDGE office. The information in these reports may vary from organisation to organisation, but in general there are common features that should be included in every TtF report.

In general, a TtF Report could include:

• scope of work
• short overview of the TtF
• selection of materials material's production
• facilitation team
• participants and quality of participation
• venue
• evaluation summary by participants
• recommendations by facilitators (for future TtFs, for TtF Facilitators Notes)
• media coverage
• general observations and conclusions

Also, a TtF report for the BRIDGE website could include:

• a short summary of the TtF context in terms of the broader BRIDGE program
• summary of facilitators and participants (where they come from)
• a group photo
• a short summary of evaluations

BRIDGE Office role

The BRIDGE Office will publish all news articles written for the website with the related photos of the event. The remaining reports or documents will be archived in the BRIDGE Office.

One of the challenges of creating such a comprehensive curriculum on electoral administration is keeping it up to date and relevant. For this reason, the curriculum has been designed to be an active document that can be updated as new information becomes available, and is open to improvements and innovations from those who facilitate and participate in BRIDGE workshops.

The curriculum is updated annually.  In between updates the BRIDGE Office collects feedback, suggestions and new material from facilitators and other stakeholders which can be incorporated at each update. Facilitators who are registered on the website will be notified of updates by email.

Updating BRIDGE Content

Reporting and documentation is also important to BRIDGE because it is through feedback from facilitators and implementers in the field that the BRIDGE Office is able to improve and update the BRIDGE curriculum.

The BRIDGE Office actively seeks feedback and suggestions from facilitators who have used the curriculum, in order to improve the content and make it easier to use. Facilitators and other stakeholders using the curriculum are encouraged to give feedback in various ways:

• Where they have created a new activity, submitting it for inclusion in the curriculum
• Where they have had problems running an activity, whether due to clarity, complexity or other reasons, letting the BRIDGE Office know, and providing any amendments or suggestions on improving the activity for easier use
• Giving general feedback on how they found the different activities or modules
• Giving general suggestions for improvements
• Identifying potential resources for use or reference in the curriculum
• Identifying any outdated content or documents that should be updated or removed
• Identifying any numbering or typographical errors

The most up-to-date version of the curriculum is the one that is available on the website. With each update, only a fraction of the total documents will be changed, so a system has been put in place to keep track of updates and make it easy to understand for facilitators and implementers. More information can be found on the update section of the BRIDGE website.

For facilitators and implementers working from a previous download, a hard copy or a DVD copy, this update section should be a first place to look for assistance on working out what has changed since the version they hold, and whether or not they need to substitute any of the updated documents.

Translators will also want to work from the most up-to-date version of the curriculum and should also refer to the website.

Version 2 introduced many new modules to the curriculum, expanding in response to demand.  However, the BRIDGE partners are open to the inclusion of additional modules outside of the 23 Version 2 modules, should there be a demonstrated need.

Ideas, suggestions and content can be sent to the BRIDGE Office to be kept on file for possible new modules to be introduced in the future.

Although evaluation happens at the end of an event or program, it should have already been considered from the very first stages of planning.  2.5 Planning for Evaluation gives an introduction to evaluation and outlines the steps taken in planning for evaluation at the beginning of a program.  A good evaluation process is built on strong foundations set at the beginning.

Evaluation by the client organisation

This would normally be achieved by collating the workshop evaluation sheets (daily, landmark, or end of workshop or program) and creating a written report which summarises the strengths and weaknesses of the program, and makes recommendations based on these findings. The report would normally be prepared by the program organisers.

End-of-workshop evaluation sheets, in which participants rate facilitators and contents, give an indication of how participants felt at the end of the workshop. But participants cannot, at the end of a workshop, tell the full story of whether they have benefited from the training, because they have not had time yet to put into practice what they have learned. It is therefore useful also to distribute evaluation sheets several weeks later and ask participants how they are using in their work environment the skills and information they gained from the workshop; how easy or difficult it is for them to apply new knowledge and skills; and what would make the program more effective. One should remember that the reason for training is not to improve how participants perform in the training room, but how they perform outside it.

Care should be taken when designing surveys: both open and closed questions should be asked. Open-ended questions are questions where there is not one definite answer. These can be useful, but the drawback is that they can sometimes be hard to interpret. Closed questions have a restricted set of answers from which the respondent chooses (one choice may be 'other'). It is easy to gather data from these types of questions. A report of these collated sheets would need to be prepared by the program organisers.

Evaluation reports should not be so lengthy that decision-makers don't bother to read them. To make an impact, and increase the likelihood that decision-makers read reports, evaluation reports should be broken up into easy-to-consume 'chunks' of information, for example 'Issues', 'Evidence' and 'Recommendations'.

If client organisations wish to evaluate the participants of a BRIDGE workshop (separate from the workshop organisers), using tests, they may do so. Formal tests of participant learning could be used some time after the workshop has been completed, ensuring that Learning Outcomes are matched with the test content.

Clients may also wish to assess the level of program stakeholder satisfaction (e.g. donors, sponsors) after a program.

Evaluation by and of the facilitators (and the program team)

If a client wishes to evaluate the facilitators of a BRIDGE workshop, they may do so. The BRIDGE partners have a process of 'quality control' of all accredited facilitators, which can draw on information from workshop evaluation reports. Facilitators themselves are encouraged to engage in self-appraisal and peer appraisal during the in-workshop monitoring (a self-evaluation form is included as a Facilitators Resource in every module). They are also encouraged to conduct post-workshop facilitator evaluations as part of their end of workshop debrief. They may also be responsible for preparing post-workshop evaluations on behalf of the program organisers or partner organisations. Results of these meetings could also be included in the final reports of the program.

In order for evaluations to reflect BRIDGE's capacity development philosophy and values, beneficiaries should not simply provide input or render opinions about activities or interventions; they should be participants who are involved in the evaluation process right from the start. The BRIDGE partners recommend that an 'empowerment' or 'participatory' evaluation approach be adopted where possible. In this approach, which is fundamentally democratic, the entire group - not just an evaluator - is responsible for conducting the evaluation (of a program) and assessing their own achievements. Evaluators are co-equal - with the client, beneficiaries or stakeholders - so that the whole process is a shared and collaborative one. This derives from the partners' acknowledgement and respect for people's capacity to create knowledge about, and solutions to, their own experiences.

Post-program evaluation tasks

Post-program evaluations can usefully be spread over three stages, the first of which seeks to assess the immediate impacts, the second of which focuses on mid-term organisational impacts and the third which looks at longer-term organisational impacts. Tasks to be performed at each stage are summarised in the tables below.

Table 5: Short-term evaluation

Table 6: Medium-term evaluation

Table 7: Long-term Evaluation

Evaluation reports

The program organisers would be responsible for preparing the reports associated with workshops and the program. These reports may be tailored according to the audience, which may include a client such as an EMB, donors, or other stakeholders.

The program report should:

• Be clearly dated
• Include the clearly stated purpose of the report
• Specify the training events being evaluated and the time period during which they took place
• Include an appropriate amount of detail for the needs of the intended audience
• Include information that is presented in an interesting and understandable way, with graphics that help to make the findings clear
• Not contain unnecessary information

Also, it should be clear who the audience for the report is, and the evaluators should have clear expectations for how it will be used by that audience.

An evaluation report should include the following components:

• Executive Summary
• Details of the training event(s) being evaluated
• time span
• number of times conducted
• number of participants
• number and names of facilitators (and accreditation status)
• purpose and objectives of the training event(s)
• key content areas
• Methodology
• composition of evaluation team
• objectives of evaluation
• selection of sample (size, characteristics)
• number and location of sites visited
• Analysis of findings
• Interpretation
• Recommendations (for changes in or maintenance of training, organisational systems and procedures, and environmental factors)
• Annexes/Appendices that could include data analyses