back seat in the media to the more salient problems in the
fight an uphill battle against the seemingly intractable problems
posed by poverty, HIV/AIDS and malaria. For decades, American
and Western nonprofits have been working tirelessly to provide
relief to these nations, but the global financial crisis has begun to
dramatically reduce the resources available for these efforts.
The Denver-based Global Institute is one of the many
organizations focused on improving the conditions in this area
of the world. It addresses problems with an innovative approach.
Driven by Dr. Jamie Van Leeuwin, the institute is focusing
on improving service delivery through network building and
improving efficiency and effectiveness through research-based
program evaluation.
the slums of Kampala, Van Leeuwin turned to experts from the
UNCP Project for Crisis and Emergency Leadership (PCEL) and
the University of Colorado-Denver's Buechner Institute to train a
research team and develop an evaluation program.
"I was there as a consultant to train their people to do data
collection and evaluation. They really wanted more, but because
of federal law governing research, it was impossible to get IRB
(Institutional Review Board) clearance to do this sort of work
in a reasonable timeframe," UNCP's Dr. Warren Eller said.
"In a foreign country, there is no good way to make sure the
respondents are of age and competent to respond. Additionally,
they are a vulnerable population, so the logistics of the IRB
process would have meant that we could not actually participate
in the data collection from the people.
"We did focused interviews with the non-profit leaders," he
continued.
Heading the joint project was Dr. Eller and for UCD, Dr. Brian
Gerber from the School of Public Affairs. The two worked for
several months together to devise a program and spent a month
on the ground in East Africa training the nonprofit volunteers in