Promoting Gender Equity in National Priority Programs (Promote): USAID Needs to Assess This $216 Million Program’s Achievements and the Afghan Government’s Ability to Sustain Them

SIGAR 18-69 AUDIT REPORT
WHAT SIGAR FOUND

SIGAR found that, after 3 years and $89.7 million spent, USAID/Afghanistan has not fully assessed the extent to which Promote is meeting its overarching goal of improving the status of more than 75,000 young women in Afghanistan's public, private, and civil society sectors. Three key factors limit the agency’s ability to determine whether it is meeting its goal.

First, since the start of the program, USAID/Afghanistan made extensive changes to the four components’ performance indicators designed to measure progress, thus limiting the agency’s ability to assess the components’ performance over time. From the 78 original performance indicators, USAID/Afghanistan modified 32, deleted 23, and added 13 new indicators. Of the indicators USAID/Afghanistan modified, it changed the definitions for 12, changed the targets for 11, and changed both for 9. Specifically, USAID/Afghanistan lowered the targets for 12 indicators. For example, the agency reduced WLD’s target for the number of participants obtaining new or better employment from 12,500 to 1,824 participants, an 85 percent reduction

Second, USAID/Afghanistan did not perform a baseline study until more than 2 years into the program. Because it did not complete a baseline study early in Promote’s implementation, the agency lacks a starting point from which to monitor and evaluate the program’s progress over its first 2 years, and to measure its overall impact in Afghanistan.

 Third, despite warnings from its contractor, USAID/Afghanistan deviated from the original intent of the program when it modified the WIE contract to increase the number of participants by 7,500 from 2,000 to 9,500 while also shortening the period of performance by 1 year. SIGAR found that USAID/Afghanistan’s justification for the changes to WIE did not meet USAID Automated Directives System (ADS) requirements and was misleading because USAID/Afghanistan did not base the programming changes on program results, and instead proposed changes to support an Afghan government initiative. Additionally, it did not include feedback from the contractor on the potential negative impacts of the proposed programming changes, some of which actually occurred. These changes slowed the component’s progress toward meeting its performance indicator targets.

Instead of assessing the overall program, USAID/Afghanistan measures the performance of the four individual components. SIGAR found that the components had mixed performance in meeting their goals. WLD’s goal is for 25,000 women to apply advanced management and leadership skills in the public, private, and civil society sectors. WIE’s goal is to help at least 40,000 women increase their participation in the private sector through employment and increased business growth. WIG’s goal is to place at least 3,000 university graduates into full-time jobs, with advancement potential, in the Afghan government. Musharikat’s goal is to build a coalition of more than 5,000 national, provincial, and local activists and civil society organizations to advocate for women’s equality and empowerment in Afghanistan. As of September 30, 2017, only one component—Musharikat—was meeting its performance indicator targets. The other three components did not meet key indicator targets. For example, WLD missed its target for the number of women who entered leadership positions within the Afghan civil service, and WIE and WIG both missed the target for the number of women who received new or better employment.

Although the midterm evaluations for WLD and WIE showed mixed results, the Gender Office, which oversees the Promote program for USAID/Afghanistan, said there was not anything in the WLD and WIE evaluations that the agency did not already know. USAID/Afghanistan postponed the midterm evaluations for WIG and Musharikat until they were further along in their implementation. In its comments on a draft of this report, USAID said the WIG midterm evaluation is in process and the Musharikat midterm evaluation will begin in October 2018. USAID expects to complete both evaluations by December 2018. There is no USAID requirement for when an overall assessment needs to be performed, but ADS guidance states that assessments should be timed so they can inform decisions, such as course corrections. However, in January 2018, USAID/Afghanistan said it did not plan to conduct an overall assessment of Promote until the program ends in 2020 or 2021. -  More 

USAID's Promoting Gender Equity in National Priority Programs

Promoting Gender Equity in National Priority Programs (Promote) - usaid

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