Process evaluation improves delivery of a nutrition‐sensitive agriculture programme in Burkina Faso

Abstract

Evidence is emerging from rigorous evaluations about the effectiveness of nutrition-sensitive agriculture programmes in improving nutritional outcomes. Additional evidence can elucidate how different programme components and pathways contribute and can be optimized for impact. The International Food Policy Research Institute, with Helen Keller International, designed a comprehensive framework to evaluate the delivery, utilization, and impact of Helen Keller International's enhanced homestead food production programme in Burkina Faso. After 18 months of implementation, a process evaluation was conducted to examine programme impact pathways, using key informant and semistructured interviews with implementing agents and beneficiaries, and with residents of control communities. Data were analyzed by International Food Policy Research Institute and reviewed with project managers and partners through multiple workshops to identify opportunities to strengthen implementation. Findings illuminated gaps between intended and actual delivery schemes, including input constraints, knowledge gaps among community agents in agriculture and young child nutrition practices, and lower than expected activity by community volunteers. In response, staff developed measures to overcome water constraints and expand vegetable and poultry production, retrained volunteers in certain techniques of food production and counselling for nutrition behaviour change, added small incentives to motivate volunteers, and shaped both immediate and long-term changes to the programme model. Working closely with International Food Policy Research Institute on the evaluation activities also expanded the repertoire of research methods and skills of Helen Keller International staff. Process evaluation can strengthen programme delivery, utilization, and design. Collaboration between researchers and implementers can improve programme effectiveness, project staff capacity, and advance delivery science.

New evidence on nutrition-sensitive agricultural programs.

“…In addition to having improved program designs, the new studies have tended to pay more attention than before to implementation quality, and a few of them documented working with researchers to design a program impact pathway framework (Rawat et al, 2013) and to measure, through process evaluations, implementation fidelity, quality of service delivery, quality of supervision structures, use of the program by targeted beneficiaries and perceptions and appreciation of the program from implementers and users (Olney et al, 2015(Olney et al, , 2016aOsei et al, 2017;Nielsen et al, 2017). The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) evaluates nutrition-sensitive programs (including nutritionsensitive agricultural programs) using a rigorous impact evaluation design, in addition to process evaluations using mixed methods in order to produce evidence on whether or not the programs being evaluated achieve the expected impacts on targeted outcomes, and also to answer the questions of how and why impacts are achieved (for detailed descriptions of the approach, see Menon et al, 2013;Rawat et al, 2013;Olney et al, 2017;Leroy et al, 2016).…”

“…The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) evaluates nutrition-sensitive programs (including nutritionsensitive agricultural programs) using a rigorous impact evaluation design, in addition to process evaluations using mixed methods in order to produce evidence on whether or not the programs being evaluated achieve the expected impacts on targeted outcomes, and also to answer the questions of how and why impacts are achieved (for detailed descriptions of the approach, see Menon et al, 2013;Rawat et al, 2013;Olney et al, 2017;Leroy et al, 2016). The experience of the partnership between Helen Keller International (HKI) and IFPRI in working together over several years on evaluation and learning around a homestead food production system program implemented in Burkina Faso is described in Nielsen et al (2017).…”

Barriers and Facilitators to the Implementation of Large-Scale Nutrition Interventions in Africa: A Scoping Review

“…Reflecting and Evaluating (Process) Evaluation challenges were cited in six studies as an implementation barrier (Gillespie et al 2015;Nielsen et al 2018;Legesse et al 2014;Carroll et al 2019;Pomeroy-Stevens et al 2016;Hodge et al 2015). Specifically, the lack of established mon-itoring or evaluation systems and absence of accountability for program targets were often cited as key issues (Hodge et al 2015;Gillespie et al 2015).…”

Leveraging an Implementation– Research Partnership to Improve Effectiveness of Nutrition-Sensitive Programs at the World Food Programme

“…In recent years, the importance of implementation research has emerged, 30 and some efficacy and effectiveness evaluations are including this type of research in their evaluation portfolios. 9,31,32 WFP has also begun to use this approach and has an example from a recent pilot study in Ethiopia. 33 The evaluation of newly designed nutrition-sensitive WFP programs should include rigorous process evaluations to assess implementation, operational, or utilization challenges that could jeopardize their impact.…”

“…The authors describe how barriers to optimal program implementation and uptake were identified through the process evaluation, shared with program implementers, and used to improve ongoing program implementation. 32 These plans should include presentations and publications of key results in appropriate fora and journals as well as translation of the research into action programmatically and potentially at the policy level.…”