USAID General Publications

Artificial Intelligence Action Plan - 2022-05-20

USAID, 2022

As AI technologies are embedded and intertwined in digital ecosystems, a responsible approach to AI should include strengthening key aspects of the enabling ecosystem. This includes data systems, connectivity, and local workforce capacity. In addition, there must be a focus on strengthening the civil society structures holding AI systems and actors accountable, and shaping policy environments that in turn encourage open, inclusive, and secure digital ecosystems. Together, these investments will support governments, businesses, and individuals to sustainably and equitably benefit from the use of AI technologies

Technical Guidance for Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting for Emergency Activities - 2022-02-20

The mission of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) is to provide international humanitarian assistance, alleviate suffering, and promote human welfare to the world’s most vulnerable populations through partnership with U.S. or non-U.S. non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including private voluntary organizations (PVOs), and public international organizations (PIOs). Through its emergency awards, BHA provides life-saving humanitarian assistance and disaster risk reduction (DRR) that reduces suffering, and supports the early recovery of populations affected by both acute and protracted emergencies. BHA responds to emergency situations, or complex crises, and seeks to help internally displaced people who have been forced to flee their homes, as well as providing food assistance to refugees who have crossed national borders.

The primary purposes of monitoring, evaluation and reporting for BHA emergency activities are to:
● Fulfill BHA’s obligation to ensure the effective and efficient use of resources; and
● To support adaptive management decisions to achieve the best possible outcomes for beneficiaries.

Community-Led Monitoring Technical Guide - 2021-07-01

Purpose

This guide supports the implementation of EpiC’s comprehensive community-led monitoring (CLM) system, comprised of four components: LINK, Community Scorecard (CSC), Adverse Event Prevention, Monitoring, Investigation, and Response (AEPMIR), and Implementer Security. The guide provides steps and tools for implementation, outlines attributes of each component, and illustrates how the components come together to function as a single monitoring system. Each component can also be implemented on its own. Per the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Country Operational Plan (COP) 2021 guidance, CLM systems are a critical aspect of the PEPFAR programs. All PEPFAR programs are required to develop, support, and fund a CLM system in close collaboration with independent civil society organizations (CSOs) and host country governments. The AEPMIR component helps address some of the PEPFAR requirements for programs implementing index testing.

Introduction

CLM is a system that empowers program beneficiaries, CSOs, and networks to routinely monitor accessibility and quality of HIV services and client satisfaction. As a solution-oriented system, CLM is designed to use this feedback to inform changes and monitor improvements needed to ensure clients—especially members of key populations (KPs), priority populations (PPs), and people living with HIV (PLHIV)—receive optimal client-centered HIV care and services and response to individual concerns they raise if immediate support is required or desired. The main objective of the EpiC CLM system is to empower local communities to monitor and improve the quality of HIV services through the collection and presentation of information. This includes providing feedback on services, proposing and negotiating solutions with health providers and other decision-makers, and monitoring progress toward addressing specific issues.

Designing for Behavior Change - for Agriculture, Natural Resource Management, Health and Nutrition - 2013-01-20

This field-tested, six-day curriculum responds to community development managers', program planners' and behavior change officers’ need for a practical behavioral framework that strategically aids them in planning for maximum effectiveness.

This curriculum, originally adapted from the Academy of Educational Development’s BEHAVE tool and developed into a maternal and child health curriculum by the CORE Group Social and the Behavior Change Working Group, has now been tailored, updated and extensively field tested for food security field-based staff to include more case studies, stories and examples; clarification of determinants and key factors; Barrier Analysis (a rapid formative research approach); a half day of field work using formative research; guidelines for selecting appropriate behavior change activities; and more.

Household Hunger Scale - Indicator Definition and Measurement Guide - 2011-08-20

Despite long-standing efforts to improve the food security situation of populations globally, food deprivation and its physical consequences remain a continuing problem in resource-poor areas throughout the world. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimated that, in 2010 alone, 925 million people worldwide did not have access to sufficient food to meet their dietary energy requirements.

Arguably, one of the first steps to effectively addressing food insecurity is to establish reliable methods for measuring it. In the absence of reliable measurement, it is not possible to target interventions appropriately, to monitor and evaluate programs and policies, or to generate lessons learned to improve the effectiveness of these efforts in the future.

M&E Fundamentals - A Self-Guided Mini-Course - 2007-01-20

Nina Frankel, Anastasia Gage, Measure Evaluation, Updated 2016

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is an essential component of any intervention, project, or program. This mini-course covers the basics of program monitoring and evaluation in the context of population, health and nutrition programs. It also defines common terms and discusses why M&E is essential for program management.

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Identify the basic purposes and scope of M&E
• Differentiate between monitoring functions and evaluation functions
• Describe the functions of an M&E plan
• Identify the main components of an M&E plan
• Identify and differentiate between conceptual frameworks, results frameworks, and logic models
• Describe how frameworks are used for M&E planning
• Identify criteria for the selection of indicators
• Describe how indicators are linked to frameworks
• Identify types of data sources
• Describe how information can be used for decision-making

This course is based on the M&E fundamentals web course created by MEASURE Evaluation for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Global Health Learning website: It follows an interactive version found online on USAID’s Global Health eLearning Center at http://www.globalhealthlearning.org/course/m-e-fundamentals.