Thinking outside the box: creative learning for informed decision-making

Abstract Information: In large global health and development programs, evidence gaps on activity effectiveness can arise that are not easily addressed by existing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) indicators or are not identified early enough to be resourced through a more rigorous evaluation study. However, programs can and should leverage their routine M&E activities as opportunities to collect evidence on these questions. Act to End Neglected Tropical Diseases | East (Act |East) is a USAID-funded program supporting Ministries of Health in 13 countries in the control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases. Countries across the Act | East program have incorporated methods for additional data collection or analysis during routine M&E activities. By leveraging existing, standardized tools and integrating minor modifications of procedures or additions of a few brief indicators, these creative evaluations have provided valuable evidence to support data-driven programmatic adaptation. These approaches have been implemented to understand the effectiveness of program adaptations, community perceptions and feedback relevant to the program, and to guide targeted interventions in specific communities. During this Ignite, a variety of examples will be shared to encourage evaluators to be creative and flexible in ways they can address questions that develop during implementation. In Uganda, electronic data collection for monitoring was leveraged to investigate how prioritized local interventions impacted treatment coverage. Multiple countries have incorporated one or two simple questions about participation in previous treatment campaigns into routine surveys or other M&E tools to understand populations that are not being reached. Other approaches have explored knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions around treatment campaigns to inform future research studies and community advocacy. While requiring limited additional resources and effort from staff, these small-scale investigations of key questions can provide important learnings to understand what is or is not working and inform future program adaptations.