Business as Unusual: Changing the Approach to Monitoring OVC Programs

1. Business as Unusual:Changing the Approach to Monitoring OVC Programs Karen G. Fleischman Foreit, PhD Futures Group/MEASURE Evaluation

2. The Problem Community-based OVC programs are expected to produce comparable data to facility-based health programs, but without comparable physical infrastructure and human resources

4. The Premise The information that community workers need to do their jobs is not the same as what implementers need to report to donors or governments

5. The Challenge • Foster use of M&E by communities • Ensure that community volunteers are not overburdened with information collection • Minimize unrealistic expectations

6. The Alternative Semi-annual or annual cluster-sample surveys to monitor program performance

7. How do cluster-sample surveys work? • 30 communities per program area • x respondents per community (e.g. 10, 19, 30) • Paid data collectors (could be para-social workers) • Mobile phone solutions for data transfer

8. Example from Tanzania Community Trace and Verify • Short (10-minute) survey of caretakers • Covers minimum package of services • LQAS sampling methodology • Pass-fail scoring

10. Questions? Comments?

11. The research presented here has been supported by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the terms of MEASURE Evaluation cooperative agreement GHA-A-00-08-00003-00. Views expressed are not necessarily those of PEPFAR, USAID or the United States government. MEASURE Evaluation is implemented by the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partnership with Futures Group, ICF International, John Snow, Inc., Management Sciences for Health, and Tulane University.