OVERVIEW

The USAID Promote Rolling Baseline and Endline is a longitudinal study to determine results of the Promoting Gender Equity in the National Priority Programs (Promote) using a unique fingerprint-based monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) system. The rolling baseline and endline survey collects detailed information on Promote direct beneficiaries. The information gathered enables USAID/Afghanistan to measure changes in the beneficiary population’s knowledge, attitudes, and practices relating to the status of women in Afghanistan.

The MEL system allows USAID to precisely track program participants over time and with multiple implementing partners through use of fingerprint sign-in and sign-out on an Android tablet. It ensures valid data and the ability to link participant outcomes to specific activities. Because the majority of Promote participants are women, the Promote survey team is majority female. All office managers and more than 85 percent of staff are women.

ACTIVITIES

The USAID Promote Rolling Baseline undertakes the following activities:

• Fingerprint registration of all Promote participants
• Development of an integrated Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) system that tracks individual participation in activities and develops surveys with a fingerprint tracking mechanism to precisely track participation and eliminate ghost participants and double counting
• Baseline and endline survey
• Field monitoring
• Women in Government (WIG) Mid-term Evaluation.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• A full-time help desk set up and responded to more than 700 calls over two years
• The baseline and endline survey carried out wherever Promote participants could be found
• Over 55,900 people registered and participating in activities and surveys using the fingerprint-based system
• More than 240 field monitoring visits conducted to review quality of Promote activities
• The dashboard shows program managers and USAID who is signed into an activity at any given time and allows USAID to observe how many people are attending as well as total hours attended, with GPS pinpoints on a dynamic map.
• Strong security protocols implemented: Two-factor authentication, encrypted databases, networked devices, and restricted user accesses are some of the controls used to keep the system safe. Tablets do not store information once it’s entered and sent to the server. The system complies with U.S. Government protocols and processes for data safety, and penetration testing is conducted regularly. Personal identifying information (PII) training also is conducted for all system users.

EXPECTED ACHIEVEMENTS

• More than 300 monitoring visits to project activity sites
• 90 percent of Promote participants from four task orders verified using fingerprint tracking system and took part in baseline survey
• 70 percent of baselined individuals took part in endline
• Outcomes related to Promote analyzed and presented to USAID and other stakeholders.