Hogar De Cristo – Argentina

How this story represents an international-local faith partnership in Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL): International research collaboration between Argentinian Catholic university, British university, and local Catholic NGO network & the evaluation of a programme run by local Catholic NGO network that provides an integral response to problematic drug consumption in Argentina

Hogar de Cristo (Home of Christ) is an Argentinian Catholic faith-based federation of 190 neighbourhood centres that provide an integral response to drug addiction.

Development of impact evaluation: The evaluation was part of a research collaboration between the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina and the University of Bath (UK). A researcher from the University of Bath contributed to the development of the theoretical framework of the project, which was based on Catholic social teaching and the experience of Hogar de Cristo.

Due to the nature of the project, as an academic practitioner collaboration with a faith element, translation between academic and practitioner terminologies, as well as between secular and faith-based concepts was constantly required. Hogar de Cristo was actively involved in the design phase of the project, which lasted four months. As QuIP evaluations use a theory of change to inform the coding process, the researchers started by creating a theory of change for Hogar de Cristo in a collaborative, participatory process.

One key point of learning from the project is that credible impact evidence can be obtained using qualitative data, and can be especially useful for understanding complex issues, which would have been otherwise difficult to capture through purely quantitative tools.

Click here for the Compendium of Good Practices on Conducting MEAL and Faith