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Organizational Learning & Evaluation Capacity Building

Invisible until it's exercised: Defining and measuring the results of evaluation capacity strengthening with local stakeholders in low- and middle-income countries

Thursday, October 12, 2023
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM ET
Location: Room 204

Location: Room 204

Abstract Information: The Local Capacity Strengthening Policy issued by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) emphasizes improved performance as the ultimate measure of how successfully communities are being equipped to meet their priority needs. Strengthening evaluation capacity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is crucial for sustaining development results, and typically involves strategies such as training and learning by doing, often with limited attention to conceptualizing or measuring results beyond participant satisfaction and self-reported improvements in latent capacity for tasks like data collection. New metrics and fit-for-purpose approaches reflecting local actors’ performance in the context of local systems are needed to formulate and learn from stories about evaluation capacity strengthening. This roundtable will focus on work by Data for Impact (D4I), a USAID-funded project supporting countries to generate and use high quality data for health and development. Presenters will outline local research organizations’ partnerships with D4I in two countries, highlighting how capacity action planning and follow-up incorporate performance objectives and embody important principles like mutuality and building on existing capacities. The partner from the Democratic Republic of the Congo will describe a three-pronged strategy used to foster active researcher networks and create new resources to support grant writing and other performance outcomes. The partner from Nigeria will detail capacity strengthening focused on qualitative analysis, with customized training and supportive research co-engagement resulting in locally generated analysis products. Attendees will discuss their own ideas and challenges around identifying and communicating the performance outcomes from diverse evaluation capacity strengthening investments in LMICs.

Relevance Statement: Considerable international investment is dedicated to strengthening capacity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as a mechanism for sustaining development results. USAID’s new Local Capacity Strengthening (LCS) Policy defines capacity as “a form of potential… not visible until it’s exercised… it is through performance, or the exercise of capacity, that local actors demonstrate the achievement of their own development priorities.”1 Yet researchers have long noted a lack of understanding around the relationship between capacity and performance in different contexts, uncertainty about how improved performance should be defined, and limited attention to the external factors influencing capacity strengthening outcomes.2 Practical examples included in the LCS Policy and associated guidance largely reflect capacity strengthening for health service implementers with little attention to research practice, which compounds these issues for local actors and their partners from outside the Global South working in the research and evaluation space. A recent systematic review of research capacity strengthening interventions involving university affiliates in LMICs identified literature describing 14 interventions; just three papers mentioned using a conceptual framework and none described the use of a theory of change connecting outcomes to the intervention.3 In response to the need for concrete examples and tools for researchers looking to align their collaboration with the principles and practices evinced in the LCS policy, this presentation will offer a model for engagement and templates to develop theories of change and assessment plans that are specific to evaluation capacity strengthening in LMICs and reflect a focus on supporting improved performance within the context of local systems. 1. USAID (2022, October 25). Local Capacity Strengthening Policy. Retrieved March 15, 2023, from https://www.usaid.gov/policy/local-capacity-strengthening 2. Brown, L., LaFond, A., & Macintyre, K. E. (2001). Measuring capacity building (p. 51). Chapel Hill, NC: Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 3. Vicente-Crespo, M., Agunbiade, O., Eyers, J., Thorogood, M., & Fonn, S. (2020). Institutionalizing research capacity strengthening in LMICs: A systematic review and meta-synthesis. AAS Open Research, 3, 43.