Learning from a river of ex-post project evaluations, tools and guidance… Thanks USAID!

by | Nov 10, 2019 | Aid effectiveness, civil society, ex-post evaluation, Ghana, Impact, impact evaluation, Indonesia, Maternal Child Health, MCHN, NGOs, post-project evaluation, sanitation & hygiene, Senegal, Sustainable development, USAID, water/ sanitation

Learning from a river of ex-post project evaluations and tools… Thanks USAID!

Dear ex-post aficionados. It’s raining ex-post project evaluations. Here’s hoping learning from such evaluations in water/ sanitation, maternal/child health and even capacity building/ peacekeeping, and their number increases!

 

1. WATER/ SANITATION & HYGIENE:

USAID has a series of six ex-post evaluations of the water/ sanitation and hygiene sectors since 2017! What is exciting is that they are also looking to the future. These evaluations will “provide insight into what happens after an activity ends, and how to mitigate challenges in future programming, potentially. The series will inform USAID’s WASH activity design and implementation and contribute to a larger sector discussion on achieving sustainability.”

The E3 water division (Water CKM ) took sustainability on as their strategy and have made great strides these last two years. They have done five ex-post project evaluations, cited below, and MSI has completed one more wat/san/ hygiene ex-post evaluations, specifically:

Madagascar Rural Access to New Opportunities for Health and Prosperity (RANO-HP) – Published June 2017
The first evaluation in the series explores the sustainability of the sanitation and hygiene components of the RANO-HP activity, implemented in 26 communes from 2009–2013.

Indonesia Environmental Services Program (ESP) – Published August 2017
The second evaluation in the series examines the sustainability of water utility capacity building, microcredit, and financial outcomes associated with the ESP activity, which was implemented from 2004–2010.

Ethiopia Millennium Water Alliance (MWA-EP) – Published May 2018
The third evaluation in the series examines the long-term sustainability of outcomes related to rural water point construction, rehabilitation, and management, as well as participatory sanitation and hygiene education and construction related to the MWA-EP activity, implemented in 24 rural districts between 2004–2009.

Financial Institutions Reform and Expansion–Debt and Infrastructure (FIRE-D) – Published September 2018
This evaluation is the fourth in the series. It examines how urban water and sanitation services in India have changed since FIRE-D closed and to what extent policies, practices, and financing mechanisms introduced through FIRE-D have been sustained.

Millennium Water and Sanitation Program in Senegal (PEPAM/USAID) – Published July 2019
The fifth ex-post evaluation in the series looks at the PEPAM project (Programme d’Eau Potable et d’Assainissement du Millénaire au Sénégal), implemented from 2009–2014 to improve sustainable access to WASH in four regions of Senegal.

 

USAID-funded by MSI: USAID/Ghana’s Water Access, Sanitation, and Hygiene for Urban Poor (WASH-UP)– published Nov 2018

Also USAID and Rotary International developed a WASH Sustainability Index Tool, “to assess a WASH activity’s likelihood to be sustainable according to the following factors: availability of finance for sanitation; local capacity for construction and maintenance of latrines; the influence of social norms; and governance.” This is similar to what we learned from USAID/ FFP/ Tufts/ FHI360 12 ex-posts that resources, capacities, motivation and linkages (aka partnerships, including governance) are vital to sustaining outcomes and impacts.

 

It will be interesting to see whether they examine the other ex-posts for excellent lessons, as they have the Senegalese evaluation:

  • “Whether or not to subsidize sanitation access …Based on this evaluation’s findings and exploration of the literature, subsidies can help improve the quality of household latrines, but increasing use of those latrines remains a challenge.
  • In contrast, CLTS (a nonsubsidized approach) is often credited with increasing use of unimproved latrines, but serious questions linger about quality and long-term sustainability of the latrines built after CLTS triggering, particularly as it relates to moving up the sanitation ladder. This evaluation… provides the opportunity to examine the potential value of a hybrid approach….
  • The handwashing results suggest that low-cost, low-quality handwashing stations such as tippy taps do not lead to sustained behavior change. It may be worth considering hygiene investments that reduce the behavior change burden on targeted beneficiaries.

2. MATERNAL/ CHILD HEALTH & NUTRITION:

 “Sustainability of a Community-Based CHOICE Program to Improve the Health and Nutrition Status of Mothers and Infants in Indonesia,” The report focused on whether the USAID-funded CHOICE program had left sustainable impacts: improving the health and nutrition status of children under the age of five, as well as the health status of pregnant and lactating women and mothers or caretakers of young children in the Pandeglang District of Indonesia. “After examining the data collected from the PSS, the researchers found that there were significant improvements in many indicators—such as births attended by skilled personnel, the treatment of diarrhea, and the nutritional quality of food fed to infants—in the six years after the CHOICE program ended. However, despite these improvements, the researchers found no significant statistical differences between villages that received the CHOICE program interventions and comparison villages, which did not. This speaks to using such a comparison methodology to focus on actual contribution and rule out the “rising tide lifts all boats” phenomenon.

 

3. CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT & PEACEBUILDING:

USAID’s Regional Office in Thailand evaluated its capacity building and peacebuilding program 1.5 years ex-post.  While civil society was strengthened and there were inroads made on peacebuilding, “many interventions initiated during Sapan did not continue post-Sapan, although some did remain. For example, “stakeholders cite evidence of continuing to use some governance tools in local governance related to service delivery [although] because of limited financial resources after Sapan ended, they had to change some of their interventions and reduce the range of people they could include. There are lessons for whose capacities are built, two-way feedback loops with local partners, using local organizations such as universities to sustain training, planning sufficient time for partners to internalize training lessons, etc.

 

4. USAID FUNDED GUIDANCE:

‘Impact Evaluations’ have a new focus on long-term impact, rather than effectiveness during implementation (which was at least the original intent of impact evaluation in the 1980s)! In September 2018, USAID and Notre Dame issued a Guide for Planning Long-term Impact Evaluations as part of the Utilizing the Expertise of the ERIE Program Consortium. The guide covers the difference between traditional impact evaluation designs and data collection methods and how to apply them to long-term impact evaluations (LTIE). It also shares examples across a range of sectors, including later evaluating past impact evaluations, which ended before final evaluation.

Finally, in new 2018 USAID guidance, ex-post evaluation is clarified as the source of the sustainability of services and benefits. USAID clarifies that “questions about the sustainability of project services and benefits can be asked at any stage, but must usually be adjusted to take evaluation timing into account. Thus, for example, in a mid-term evaluation, a question about the existence of a sustainability plan and early action on that plan might be appropriate. An end-of-project evaluation could address questions about how effective a sustainability plan seems to be, and early evidence concerning the likely continuation of project services and benefits after project funding ends. Only an ex-post evaluation, however, can provide empirical data about whether a project’s services and benefits were sustained.”

Such richness that we can learn from. Keep the momentum going on the 99% of all global projects yet unevaluated ex-post, and change how we fund, design, implement, monitor and evaluate global development projects!

Are We Done Yet?

by | Mar 14, 2015 | Accountability, Aid effectiveness, Evaluation, Food for Peace (FFP), Food security, IATI, International aid, Local Participants, Maternal Child Health, MCHN, Open Data, Project design, Sustainability, Sustainable development

Are We Done Yet?

When are we off the hook, so to speak, for the well-being of the participants whom we said we'd make healthier, better fed, more educated, safer, etc?

 

America’s Agency for International Development (USAID) is the main channel for international development aid.  It is also an organization interested in learning from its programming and numerous contracts support such work. One such contract by FHI360/FANTA was Food for Peace tasking them to review the agency’s Title II development food aid from 2003-2009 covering 28 countries. This Second Food Aid and Food Security Assessment (FAFSA-2) Summary  found that such programs can “reduce undernutrition in young children, improve health and nutrition outcomes, and increase access to income and food” and also found practices that did not work well. 

 

While USAID has made enormous strides in the intervening six years on monitoring and evaluation (I was a consultant to USAID/PPL/LER from 2013-14), excellent recommendations that would support great, sustainable programs are unfulfilled:

Recommendations #1, 4 “USAID/FFP should develop an applied research agenda and sponsor studies that focus on the implementation of Title II programs in the field to better define what works and what does not…. [and] should select the review panel for new Title II applications… and give reviewers a ‘cheat sheet’ on interventions and approaches that USAID/FFP is and is not interested in funding because they work better or do not work as well, [and] provide this same information in the Request for Assistance” [Request for proposals].

 

Yes, all across our industry there is little learning from past evaluations for future design and Valuing Voices believes local participants and stakeholders need to be consulted to tell us what (still) works and what they want more of not only during implementation but long after. Their voices must support great design, as it’s their lives we go there to improve; they must be involved in the design of these original requests that non-profits design and fulfill. Further, the study found that only 1/3 of all evaluations were included in USAID’s database[1], and as Valuing Voices’ partner Sonjara has written in our blog, aid transparency requires data retention and access for learning to happen.

 

Recommendation #3 “USAID/FFP should include options for extensions of awards or separate follow-on awards to enable USAID/FFP to continue to support high-performing programs beyond five years and up to ten years… [as] longer implementation periods are associated with greater impact.”

 

This would address the ‘how much impact can we accomplish in 1, 3, 5 years” question that many of us in international non-profits ask ourselves. Finally, the graphic below is self-explanatory – USAID sees its role ending at close-out.

www_fsnnetwork_org_sites_default_files_fafsa2-summary-feb2013_pdf

The crux lies in their honest statement: "It was beyond the scope and resources of the FAFSA-2 to explore in any depth the sustainability of Title II development programs after they ended." While they state that there is merit in having impact while you intervene, such as "having a positive impact on the nutritional status of the first cohort of children is of immense benefit in its own right", they go on to say that "ideally, one would like to see mothers continuing positive child feeding practices and workers continuing to deliver services long after programs end… [yet] whether the [maternal child health and nutrition] interventions are sustainable beyond one generation is unknown and would require research."   This is because funding is pre-programmed, fixed to end within set 1, 3, 5 year increments, and no one goes back to learn how it all turned out.  This is what most needs to change, this illusion that what happens after closeout is no longer our issue, that the ‘positive impact’ we had while there is enough.

They are not alone. I think of NORAD, the Government of Norway's development arm as very progressive. So I went to  NORAD's website and searched for 'ex-post' (we do a lot of that at ValuingVoices). So like our World Bank blog on finding real ex-post evaluations, many many things are considered 'ex-post', including one actual evaluation in Palestine with fieldwork which asked participants and a few that looked at institutional sustainability. Many of the 100+ 'finds' were actually documents recommending ex-post. Typical of our other searches of other donors.  I emailed NORAD whether there were more with participant voices, yet they assured me they did them. Maybe our problem is in definitions and taxonomy again. Maybe we should call them post-project participant feedback?

Most of my colleagues would agree that the sustainability of activities aimed at making communities food secure in the long-term and independent of aid is a shared goal, one which short-term assistance aimed at huge impacts such as to ‘make communities food secure’ and ‘sustainably decrease malnutrition’ (common proposal goals) is unrealistic. We need participant voices to teach us how well we served them. We need to return, learn “what works and what does not”, and Value Voices in true sustained partnership. We all look forward to being done. 

 

[1] “Another major obstacle to transparency and learning from the Title II program experience was the fact that only one-third of the final evaluations were publicly available on the Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC), despite the requirement that Awardees post them to the DEC…. [There was a lack of] cross-cutting studies or in-depth analyses of Title II evaluation results to advance organizational learning  [and] much greater use could be made of the evaluation data for systematic reviews, meta-analyses, secondary analyses, and learning.”