Final Performance Evaluation of the USAID/Jamaica Social Enterprise Boost Initiative (SEBI)

The purpose of this evaluation of the Social Enterprise Boost Initiative (SEBI) is to determine whether the SEBI activity achieved its objectives and gain lessons for implementation of ongoing or future programs. The evaluation sought to identify: 1) implementation challenges, corrective actions to project management, and progress towards achieving expected results; 2) the factors that contributed to the success/failure of the different project components; 3) the effect of the activity on men and women; and 4) the extent to which SEBI contributed to the local social enterprise (SE) policy environment. The evaluation will serve to inform the United States Agency for International Development Jamaica Mission’s (USAID/Jamaica) Local Partner Development (LPD) program under the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) as well as the Social Enterprise Jamaica (SEJA), which is in the process of being registered as a non-governmental organization (NGO), with a view to continuing some of the work of SEBI once the project ends in December 2018. The exact nature of SEJA’s activities is unclear, although the Evaluation Team (ET) understands that the focus could primarily be on incubation services for SEs under the LPD program.

SEBI was initiated by the Jamaica National Foundation (JNF) and jointly funded by JNF and USAID. The rationale for USAID’s decision to support SEBI in Jamaica, implemented by (JNF), was based on several important factors at the time, namely: 1) low levels of business competitiveness and productivity; 2) a stagnant economy; 3) a high debt burden; and 4) high levels of crime in the country. The genesis of SEBI was in JNF’s observation that not-for-profit and other organizations operating in the social sector were struggling to deliver their core services mainly due to a reliance on grants and donations. The underlying goal therefore was to introduce the social enterprise model to these organizations so that they could start generating their own income and become less reliant on grants and donations. SEBI began in July 2012 and is due for completion at the end of December 2018, following three extensions agreed in Modifications 2, 3, and 5 in the Cooperative Agreement (CA).

The ET pursued three separate, yet interlinked, data collection activities that formed the basis of its methodological approach to conducting the SEBI evaluation as follows: 1. Face-to-face meetings on site with SEBI’s incubator and accelerator beneficiary clients as well as representatives from key stakeholders, including national and local government, the private sector, international community, civil society, NGOs, and business associations and agencies. In total, the ET met with 29 beneficiaries (20 incubators and 13 accelerators) and 30 stakeholders. Team members used semi-structured questionnaires to record answers for later comparative analysis and cross-reference purposes with findings from the other data collection methods, mentioned below. 2. The ET hosted four focus group discussions (FGDs) in the parishes (Trelawny, St. James, Westmoreland and Manchester) and one in Kingston with selected groups of SEBI indirect beneficiaries. In total, 31 participants attended the FGDs, providing views and responses to questions which were noted for later cross-referencing with findings from the direct beneficiary and public awareness surveys. 3. Two surveys were carried out by Market Research Services Limited (MRSL), based in Kingston, on behalf of the ET (see Annex 6 – Survey Reports for complete analysis of the findings from both surveys).