Reflections on Baseline Data Collection: Lessons from Mount Darwin, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Rural societies, economies and the state interact to engineer change for the benefit of the citizenry. Within this set-up, philanthropic organisations act as catalysts of development by supporting on-going programs being implemented by the state, while also bringing in new initiatives. Numerous interventions by philanthropic organisations are underreported yet there is so much to learn from their interventions aimed at catalysing development (Bertaud, 2018; Nkwake, 2020). Bertaud (2018) used the analogy of pollinating insects to explain the indispensable role that organisations must play in acquiring knowledge from areas they operate in and disseminating it widely.