Building Sustainable M&E and QA/QI Systems: EGPAF-Lesotho Technical Assistance Support to Adventist Development and Relief Agency
The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) of Lesotho is a faith-based organization that serves to mitigate the impact of poverty and other life stressors. ADRA works across a variety of sectors, including nutrition and food security, health, and water, sanitation, and hygiene. Health-related interventions include campaigns to bolster awareness and demand for HIV prevention services. The Faith and Community-based Initiative (FCI) is one of ADRA’s foremost projects and aims to improve HIV education and awareness within the church.
Technical Capacity Assessment
In support of the FCI, ADRA partners with faith communities to reduce stigma and enhance demand for HIV testing services. The Technical Capacity Assessment identified several gaps in ADRA’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capabilities, particularly regarding quality improvement (QI) and quality assurance (QA). These challenges collectively hindered the overall quality of service delivery and the ability to scale services.
A small organization, ADRA did not have a centralized M&E department or dedicated staff, leaving the partner unprepared to meet donors’ documentation and reporting requirements. The depth and quality of the documentation produced was inconsistent. ADRA thus faced challenges with data validation, and data submissions to donors had been rejected due to duplications and other errors.
Training of Trainers
To strengthen ADRA’s technical capacity at the organizational level, EGPAF provided training and supportive supervision geared toward M&E (including QA/QI assistance). The tailored curriculum combined technical knowledge with implementation experience. This allowed EGPAF to present best practices for meeting donor standards despite the partner’s resource constraints.
ADRA staff then held virtual step-down training sessions to observe COVID-19 safety measures. In meeting this need, however, the organization saw its own need for additional support in the use of virtual platforms. This sharing of expertise only reinforced the continued learning environment both within and between the organizations.
ADRA staff applied lessons from their training in remarkable ways. First, the team created a secure, centralized data filing system that makes it easy for staff to access the data they need to analyze and report. Staff then developed formal M&E and QA/QI plans which clearly tied program indicators to organizational priorities.
Supportive Supervision for Quality Improvement
EGPAF worked with ADRA to develop a supportive supervision process that would be incorporated into its QA/QI plan. This included a set of dedicated tools that ultimately improved data quality by ensuring that procedures are adhered to in the field.
The organizations also developed a weekly schedule for site visits. Since increasing its supportive supervision visits and implementing the updated supervision tools, ADRA has received no new data rejections from donors.
The organization reports that field officers have come to understand how their work determines the achievement of organizational goals. As a result, they are holding themselves to higher standards – demonstrating improved performance and greater motivation to reach potential clients.
“Field officers are encouraged by the supervision. They feel like we are with them on this journey [to improve data quality] and are very positive. Now they feel like it is [the] norm for them to reach the people that they are supposed to. Our field officers [now have] a larger scope and they know that they need to focus on everyone that is in our target.”
– Ms. Boomo Poka, ADRA’s FCI Project Manager
Supportive Supervision for Monitoring and Evaluation
EGPAF’s training emphasized the need for standardized data collection and regular data review as part of ADRA’s M&E plan. Accordingly, ADRA developed a standard data collection tool for its field officers and implemented a weekly data review process at their headquarters in Maseru.
Weekly goals are set for each field officer, to ensure that the organization provides sufficient service coverage across both geographic areas and demographic factors. For example, the data review found that field officers in the FCI project were reaching disproportionately fewer men than women, and it was realized that this was in part because men do not typically gather in churches and faith groups.
As a result, the field officers shifted their outreach strategy to include areas where local men typically gather, like sporting activities and bars. Overall, field officers saw improvements in their ability to generate demand for HIV services. Moreover, they revamped their documentation processes: shifting from a culture of informal reporting and limited record keeping to accurate, real-time documentation of activities.
Community of Learning
Just as EGPAF shared its expertise with ADRA, this organization provided valuable feedback about EGPAF’s TA activities. Initially, EGPAF used the same technical assessment for all local partners, including those that offer non-clinical services. Being a smaller, non-clinical entity, however, ADRA found that some components of the standard TCA were not applicable to its operations. In a testament to the truly symbiotic relationship between EGPAF and its partners, this revelation triggered the shift to tailored TCAs for different organizations.
