Adopting results based management in the non-profit sector: Trócaire’s experience

The increasing emphasis on aid effectiveness, accountability and impact measurement in international development and humanitarian work has generated a requirement for high quality internal systems for the management of programmes. To help to address this requirement, Trócaire adopted Results Based Management in the 20 countries in which it works. This paper provides an overview of Trócaire’s RBM journey, including the process of embedding the new approach in the organisation, lessons learnt from this process, the subsequent benefits that are emerging at field programme level and the challenges going forward.

Measuring sperm backflow following female orgasm: a new method

Background: Human female orgasm is a vexed question in the field while there is credible evidence of cryptic female choice that has many hallmarks of orgasm in other species. Our initial goal was to produce a proof of concept for allowing females to study an aspect of infertility in a home setting, specifically by aligning the study of human infertility and increased fertility with the study of other mammalian fertility. In the latter case - the realm of oxytocin-mediated sperm retention mechanisms seems to be at work in terms of ultimate function (differential sperm retention) while the proximate function (rapid transport or cervical tenting) remains unresolved. Method: A repeated measures design using an easily taught technique in a natural setting was used. Participants were a small (n=6), non-representative sample of females. The introduction of a sperm-simulant combined with an orgasm-producing technique using a vibrator/home massager and other easily supplied materials. Results: The sperm flowback (simulated) was measured using a technique that can be used in a home setting. There was a significant difference in simulant retention between the orgasm (M=4.08, SD=0.17) and non-orgasm (M=3.30, SD=0.22) conditions; t (5)=7.02, p=0.001. Cohen’s d=3.97, effect size r=0.89. This indicates a medium to small effect size. Conclusions: This method could allow females to test an aspect of sexual response that has been linked to lowered fertility in a home setting with minimal training. It needs to be replicated with a larger sample size.