Outcome Map
Outcome Map visual.
Creating a picture of how different types of outcomes relate to each other helps clarify what The Youth Cafe intends to do. We use the “outcome map” as a tool to depict what we expect will happen as a result of our initiatives, strategies, activities, and programmatic efforts.
Using an outcome map, we have visually laid out The Youth Cafe’s pathway of change. Our outcomes are “mapped” in a causal sequence, although we understand that change is typically more complex than a simple cause-and-effect relationship. In some cases, our outcomes occur sequentially, while other times they occur simultaneously. The Youth Cafe’s outcomes sometimes occur independently from each other or are highly interrelated. They may result from a single strategy or multiple ones, leading to common goals or separate ones.
In order to create an outcome map that helps to clarify the connection between all outcomes – those describing impact, influence, and leverage – we have created a “so that” chain. The “so that” chains reflect the work of building core capacities as well as implementing specific strategies, activities and program actions. Impacts, influence, and leverage outcomes are achieved when The Youth Cafe’s core capacities are developed and functioning well.
The Youth Cafe’s outcome map has been developed through the following procedure:
Step 1: Clarifying Goals.
First, we identified the ultimate impacts we want to achieve in our youth programming. The impacts are framed as ambitious visionary statements across our eight thematic working areas and all stand for our end goal of advancing youth-led approaches towards sustainable development, social equity, innovative solutions, community resilience, and transformative change. All our impacts don't relate to any specific program beneficiaries nor are they the results of a specific strategy. Our impact statement involves the contributions of many strategies, cross-sectional team members, and partners.
Some of our ultimate impacts follow:
Young people are not discriminated against based on group characteristics, including gender, race and ethnic origin, religion and belief, disability, age, and sexual orientation, hence policies foster inclusivity and diversity.
Young people have enhanced capacity to generate, collect, synthesize, and disseminate evidence and learning, and facilitate their use to inform policies, programs, and operations.
Young people are meaningfully engaged and partnered with, through social media, mainstream media, and other innovative information technologies platforms for digital communication by young people pushing for agendas that promote and seek to solve complexities of young people’s precariousness in Africa.
Youth advocate for and foster innovative, impactful, and progressive policies that promote their socio-economic, cultural, and political participation and engagement at national, regional, and global levels.
Step 2: Identification of Powerful Strategies
Our strategies have been derived from the programs that are currently in place and address our ultimate impacts. These strategies include program strategies, campaigns, initiatives, collaborations, public awareness efforts, capacity-building efforts, and self-reliance efforts.
Some of our strategies include the following:
To build partnerships, and scale-up potential, partner with young people to build a better, more resilient Africa while linking the region and the world Our projects must, whenever possible, have a multi-stakeholder and cross-sector approach where they draw concrete links between younger and older generations on one hand and Africa and other regions on the other, enabling exchanges, resilient continent for all generations, building of networks and coalitions, cooperation with “unusual” or underutilized actors such as those in the private sector and media players (mainstream and digital), share costs with other actors whenever possible, mutual learning, maximize synergies to avoid duplications and a joint search for solutions.
To base The Youth Cafe’s projects on research, learning, and adaptation, to be data-informed using accessible data collection and analysis techniques, to have solid and innovative evidence methods; and to be documented and regularly monitored and evaluated to determine changes associated with them. Ultimately, we hope to create spaces for reflection and constructive feedback loops to generate new project ideas, and to adapt our processes and materials based on lessons learned.
All projects at The Youth Cafe to have an effective strategy for sustainability and self-reliance. This includes building sufficient technical capacity, skills, and competencies for diversified revenue and funding streams, to act as agents of our own development, and nurture relationships with and search for future potential partners in coordination with our advisors and partners.
To address the needs, build the agency, advance gender-responsive, and rights-based approaches to youth development programming. This includes developing the capacity of young people/right holders (target groups) in all their diversity around the world to claim their rights and duty bearers (government institutions) to meet their obligations. The Youth Cafe recognizes that unequal power relations and social exclusion deny people their human rights and often keep them in poverty. Hence, there is a need to ensure that marginalized, disadvantaged, and excluded groups (such as women, children, persons living with disabilities, minorities, and indigenous people) are meaningfully engaged and participate in the implementation, review, and follow-up of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as well as other relevant global agendas and frameworks.
Step 3: Creation of "So That" Chains
We took our first strategy listed and created a "so that" chain based on the following question:
"We do X strategy so that y results are realized for The Youth Cafe or young people?"
The answer is the direct outcome or result of the strategy. We repeat the procedure until all the four strategies have been linked to the goal.