MEASURE Communication Final Report - Population Reference ...

MEASURE Communication Final Report
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alumni listserv, sending out periodic reminders of participant
objectives, and conducting follow-up evaluations,
the team was better able to document training
impacts, reinforce new concepts, and increase participant
commitment to practicing effective policy communication
techniques.
Results Framework
and Evaluation
Approaches
MEASURE Communication was guided by a results
framework that evolved over the life of the project. This
section briefly explains the project’s research-based
results framework and the techniques staff used to monitor
and evaluate activities. Specific impacts are highlighted
in the activity sections that follow.
Results Framework
In FY01, MEASURE Communication developed a new
results framework that better articulates the role of information
in the policy process and how specific project
activities contribute to improved policies and programs. 2
Using a nonlinear model to capture the realities of policymaking,
the framework identified problems, solutions,
and politics as streams that move through the policy system.
Policy change occurs when these streams converge
to create a “window of opportunity” for change (see
Figure 1, page 6).
The policy process can be influenced by carrying out
activities relevant to each of the streams to create these
windows of opportunity. The three main ways to intervene
are by focusing attention on issues to get them on
the policy agenda (agenda-setting), creating or strengthening
coalitions that keep attention focused on issues
(coalition building), or increasing the knowledge that
policymakers have on issues (policy learning). Each of
these three categories of policy work can be supported by
communication interventions. The project added two
more categories to reflect the foundation needed to
strengthen the capacity of host-country counterparts and
the development community to use country-specific data
and research for policy change. Thus, the new results
framework was designed to document the affects of
MEASURE Communication’s interventions on the policy
process. The Intermediate Results (IRs) based on this
approach are listed below. The old framework focused on
kinds of activities, i.e. publications, journalists’ networks,
and capacity building. The new one focused on why these
activities are important components of policy change. As
such, the new Intermediate Results were a better reflection
of the Strategic Objective of the overall MEASURE
Program. (See Attachment 1 for the indicators used to
measure results.)
MEASURE-I’s Strategic Objective: To improve and institutionalize
the collection and utilization of data for
monitoring, evaluating, and making policy decisions.
MEASURE Communication’s Intermediate Results:
● Process through which key population, health, nutrition,
and environment (PHN/E) issues are placed and
maintained on the policy agenda strengthened.
● Coalitions or alliances around key PHN/E issues created
or strengthened.
● The effective dissemination of PHN/E information to
priority policy audiences supported.
● Individual and institutional capacity to disseminate
policy-relevant PHN/E data and information
strengthened.
● Policy communication techniques developed
and tested.
Monitoring and
Evaluation Approaches
The MEASURE Communication staff developed effective
approaches to track project activities within the new
results framework. This section provides an overview of
these monitoring and evaluation (M&E) approaches.
In-country activities
The in-country M&E activities mirrored those presented
for specific kinds of activities in more detail below; for
example, including bounceback questionnaires with
mailings, tracking newspaper articles, and sending follow-up
surveys after workshops. Evaluation of in-country
work was tailored to the size and scope of the activity as
well as each USAID Mission’s strategic objectives and
intermediate results. Monitoring information was collected
on a routine basis. In addition, the project conducted
special studies for several of the in-country efforts.
Following are a few examples:
● In India, the MEASURE Communication team
assessed the policy impact of the National Family Life
Survey (NFSF)—one of the largest and most
resource-intensive, USAID-supported national surveys
in the world—and the MEASURE program’s dissemination
activities. The team sent questionnaires to
all the 680 members of the NFHS-2 mailing list,
which included public- and private- sector PHN programs,
research institutions, universities, USAIDfunded
CAs, and donors working throughout the
country. The mailing yielded an astounding 25 percent
questionnaire return rate (the usual rate of