Archive for: Monitoring & Evaluation

USAID Sustaining Partnerships to Enhance Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness Development (SPREAD) Project: Integrated Community Health Program Mid-Term Program Evaluation

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The overall goal of the Sustaining Partnerships to Enhance Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness Development (SPREAD) Project (2006-2011) was “to provide rural cooperatives and enterprises involved in high-value commodity chains with appropriate technical assistance and access to health-related services and information that will result in increased and sustained incomes and improved livelihoods.” SPREAD was a unique example of integrated programming within USAID, a “wraparound” project that receives funding across several technical areas in Health and Economic Growth. SPREAD’s design had its roots in the Population, Health and Environment (PHE) approach to development, which promotes multisectoral collaboration or “integration” to create synergy and improve project outcomes across programs, particularly at the community level. This evaluation reveals stakeholder perceptions of the integrated approach, shares successes, challenges and lessons learned, and makes recommendations to inform future funding of integrated programming.

Year: 2010

Source: Public Health Institute | United States Agency for International Development

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    Economic Development

    Integration

    Monitoring & Evaluation

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    The Impact of Population, Health and Environment Projects: A Synthesis of the Evidence

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    The evidence of impact of integrated Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) projects is often isolated in project reports and not disseminated widely. To respond to that need, this report pulls together project findings across many integrated projects to assess and better document what is known about the results and benefits of integrated projects and where gaps in the evidence base still exist. This synthesis report examines and summarizes recent available evidence from integrated PHE projects to document what they are measuring and/or not measuring, assess the current state of PHE project monitoring and evaluation, and identify gaps in evaluation and research for current and future PHE projects to improve upon. Forty-three documents from 35 projects were reviewed in conducting this synthesis. Findings suggest that projects report data and impact in some areas, particularly family planning, consistently. The findings also note that many PHE projects have found it challenging to collect data and thus document their impact in other sectors, particularly related to their environmental and livelihood programming.

    Year: 2015

    Source: The Evidence Project

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      Community Health

      Environment

      Family Planning

      Integration

      Monitoring & Evaluation

      Population

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      Population, Health, and Environment Conference: Healthy Families, Healthy Environment

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      This Population Reference Bureau (PRB) brief from the second international Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) Conference, held in Addis Ababa Ethiopia in November 2007, shares key conference outcomes on implementation best practices; monitoring and evaluation; networking, advocacy, and media communication; and expanding and institutionalizing PHE interventions. The brief outlines needs, priorities, and ways that PHE implementers and advocates can capitalize on the conference to increase interest in and support of PHE integration.The PHE community came together to share experiences, coordinate efforts, and develop strategies to extend the integrated approach to new rural and remote communities.

      Year: 2014

      Source: Population Reference Bureau

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        Advocacy

        Environment

        Integration

        Monitoring & Evaluation

        Population

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        Population, Health and Environment M&E Training Tool Kit

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        This training toolkit aims to increase the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) capacity, skills and knowledge of those who plan, implement, and evaluate integrated health and community development programs in low-resource settings. The toolkit provides managers, technical specialists, and M&E staff with user-friendly, modifiable training components that can be adapted for a specific developing-country and programmatic contexts. The toolkit helps users conduct effective M&E from program inception to indicator selection through assessment design. The toolkit also promotes M&E efforts that highlight the integrated nature of these programs and the unique contributions Population, Health and Environment (PHE) programs make over traditional single-sector efforts. The Training Toolkit Components are:
        • Introduction to PHE M&E Toolkit
        • Training modules, PowerPoint slides including facilitator notes
        • Facilitator notes
        • A Guide for Monitoring and Evaluating Population-Health-Environment Programs

        Year: 2009

        Source: MEASURE Evaluation

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          Integration

          Monitoring & Evaluation

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          Population, Health and Environment in Africa and Asia: An Evaluation of WWF’s USAID and Johnson & Johnson-Supported Projects

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          This report describes the results of a 2007 evaluation of WWF (World Wildlife Fund) PHE (Population, Health and Environment) projects sponsored by Johnson & Johnson and USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development). The PHE sites were located in Africa and Asia, where human-environment interactions are in constant flux, human populations are growing rapidly, and they depend most directly on and affect most profoundly some of the richest forest and marine ecosystems on Earth. The PHE projects facilitated basic health care and RH (reproductive health) provision with the working thesis that improving human health and environmental conservation jointly adds value to each independently. The report also recommends future actions on sustainability and scale up of PHE approaches, improved data collection and monitoring and technical support.

          Year: 2008

          Source: World Wildlife Fund

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            Community Health

            Conservation

            Integration

            Monitoring & Evaluation

            Scale-up

            Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

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            PHE Field Implementation: A Simple PHE Resource Guide/Compendium for Practitioners

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            The Building Actors and Leaders for Advancing Community Excellence in Development (BALANCED) Project developed this publication to provide field-based practitioners of PHE projects with a comprehensive set of ideas and resources for project implementation, from project design to evaluation. This Guide provides brief explanations and links to tools that are considered most useful to PHE practitioners in different stages of PHE project design and implementation. It draws on best practices and approaches used by nongovernmental organizations implementing PHE projects and the BALANCED Project’s experience developing and assisting other organizations to develop PHE projects in Africa and Asia.

            Year: 2013

            Source: The BALANCED Project

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              Implementation

              Integration

              Monitoring & Evaluation

              Project Design

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              Opportunities in Population and Health for Community Forest User Groups in Nepal

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              USAID commissioned a team to review the SAGUN PHE project in Nepal. In this evaluation, the team identified gaps, opportunities, lessons, and practices specific to the PHE approach. The team gathered with Community Forest User Groups, the Ministry of Health, and various national and international NGOs to discuss these findings in an effort to create a PHE project that would best fit the needs of communities. This report builds off these findings and focuses on PHE recommendations for Nepal moving forward.

              Year: 2006

              Source: United States Agency for International Development

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                Conservation

                Forests

                Monitoring & Evaluation

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                Nepal Natural Resource User Groups/Population, Health, and Environment Assessment: Final Report

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                This report focuses on the results of a USAID/Nepal funded project, Strengthening Actions for Good Governance and Utilization of Natural Resources (SAGUN) in various forested regions of Nepal. An analysis was made of the lessons learned and best practices for applying user-group management to forest conservation. Despite the some political unrest in the country, the assessment group discovered many positive key findings that demonstrated how the Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) approach works well from all perspectives: improved grassroots-level governance capacity; improved livelihoods empowering and building the capacity of excluded groups and the poor; increased coverage and quality of forests covered, and the biodiversity and organisms protected; and low cost and effectiveness. User groups in forest or buffer zones proved to be a great entry point for integrating forest conservation with other social issues. This report discusses the future of the user group approach, and possibilities of integrating it with PHE, community-based development, or community forest conservation.

                Year: 2006

                Source: United States Agency for International Development

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                  Conservation

                  Forests

                  Monitoring & Evaluation

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                  HoPE-LVB Project Evaluation Webinar

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                  Pathfinder International and partners in Kenya and Uganda have implemented the Health of the People and Environment in the Lake Victoria Basin (HoPE-LVB) project since 2011. The project aims to scale up its use of the population, health, and environment (PHE) community-development model at local, national, and regional levels by integrating PHE considerations in formal government development planning and policies. “PHE” refers to the PHE approach, which aspires to increase access to comprehensive reproductive health services and improve maternal and child health care practices while simultaneously improving natural resource management in project communities.

                  On April 30th, 2019, HoPE-LVB project implementers and evaluators discussed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) evaluation report on the model’s effectiveness and scalability. Released in April 2018, the USAID report addresses three key questions:

                  • What are stakeholders’ perceptions of the HoPE-LVB project model’s added value to family planning and reproductive health, maternal and child health, livelihoods, governance, natural resources management, or conservation?
                  • Has the HoPE-LVB project’s explicit focus on systematic planning for scale-up resulted in positive outcomes for the model’s institutionalization, sustainability, and expansion?
                  • To what extent did the HoPE-LVB project achieve its objectives as measured by its key performance indicators/results?

                  The evaluation of HoPE-LVB had been long anticipated, as the project was supported by cross-sectoral investments by multiple donors and represents a pioneering East African PHE project implemented at scale.

                  The webinar, scheduled at 9:00 a.m. EST on April 30, 2019, was hosted by the PACE (Policy, Advocacy, and Communication Enhanced for Population and Reproductive Health) project. It included the following speakers:

                  • Clive Mutunga of USAID provided introductory remarks on USAID’s support for PHE models globally and what USAID learned from the evaluation of HoPE-LVB.
                  • Eileen Mokaya of Pathfinder International provided an overview of the HoPE-LVB project.
                  • Richard Kibombo of Global Health Program Cycle Improvement Project (GH Pro) shared the evaluation’s results and his suggested next steps for PHE sustainability and scale-up.

                  Year: 2019

                  Source: Pathfinder International | Population Reference Bureau

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                    Community Health

                    Conservation

                    Family Planning

                    Integration

                    Monitoring & Evaluation

                    Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

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                    Healthy People in a Healthy Environment: Impact of Integrated Population, Health, and Environment Program in Madagascar: Final Report

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                    This report summarizes the results of a five-year population, health, and environment (PHE) program in three environmental corridors and threatened ecosystems in Madagascar. This implementation science research was carried out by the Environmental Health Project (EHP) on behalf of USAID to “determine if activities implemented in an integrated manner achieved better results than if the activities were implemented separately.” The purpose of PHE programs is to target sector-specific projects to foster greater collaboration and amplify the integration of the activities to a more efficient level. The report compares the results from the post-intervention surveys and the baseline surveys to explore the idea that integrated programs are more effective than those with a single-sector approach. In this report 29 PHE indicators are included that clearly show higher outcomes in integrated communities than non-integrated ones.

                    Year: 2005

                    Source: USAID | Environmental Health Project

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                      Implementation

                      Integration

                      Monitoring & Evaluation

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