1. Equity focused m&e
Ngonidzaishe Marimo

2. Equality Focused M&E What is equity?
Equity focused monitoring and evaluation?
Managing, implementing and using equity focused evaluations?

3. What is Equity?
Reduces poverty
Economic growth
Why is it important
Peace and stability
Equity refers to disparities that are avoidable, unfair and unjust
Equity is embedded in the principle of social justice and fairness
Comes from the idea of moral equality, that people should be treated as equals

4. What is Equity
The proportion of teenagers who have begun childbearing decreases as wealth increases: five times more teenagers in the lowest wealth quintile (34 percent) have begun childbearing compared with teenagers in the highest wealth quintile (6 percent) (ZDHS, 2015)
Older people above 60 years of age are more likely to have heart diseases

5. What is Equity
Trends in childhood mortality for the 5-year period preceding the survey,
Zimbabwe

6. What is Equity?

7. What is equity
Of the children who were of the official primary school entry age, 73.3 percent were in the first grade of primary school, see Table ED.3. Minimal sex differentials were noted with 74.8 percent of girls in first grade compared to 71.8 percent for boys. Variations were noted by province and urban- rural areas. In Bulawayo Province, for instance, the value of the indicator reached 88.5 percent while it was 66.4 percent in Mashonaland West Province. (MICS, 2014)

8. What are the determinants of Equity
Issues
Location
Remote areas are usually left out. Rural versus urban divide
Gender
Due to gender roles, gender power relations – women often excluded and therefore poorer than men
Income
Poorer households have limited access to services, opportunities and
Disability
Socially excluded, limited access to services,

9. Equity in M&E
Equity focused M&E systems support delivery of equity focused programmes and policies
M&E systems that interrogate equity enhance achievement of results on equity
Be clear about the challenge of equity
Political
Cultural
Power dynamics
The M&E system needs to be able to capture and many of the underlying causes for inequity
Equity is about disaggregated indicators
Understand the drivers of equity: Location, gender, income, disability?
Equity focused M&E system is inclusive and bottom up

10. Equity in M&E
Equity focused M&E systems require data collection methods that provide information on status of indicator and reasons for such status
Equity focused M&E systems require adequate financing as approach is more expensive than conventional national aggregated approaches
Equity focused M&E Systems have a feedback loop to the bottom

11. Steps in Designing an Equity Focused M&E system
Step 1: Establish an appropriate M&E system development structure that is inclusive
Core team
Reference Group
Step 2: Understand the drivers of inequity
Step 3: Selector indicators based on sectoral and national development plans disaggregated by the drivers of inequity
Step 4: Select qualitative indicators for assessing the quality of context, power relations, social norms and cultural principles and values that undermine equity
Step 5: Develop M&E framework (institutional arrangements, data flow, feedback, outputs, users and information they require, risk management matrix etc.)
Step 6: Cost the M&E system and ensure provision in sector budgets
Step 7: Develop tools, guidelines, reporting templates and baselines

12. Equity Focused Evaluations
Preparation for the EFE
Preparing TOR for the EFE
Designing the EFE
Collecting and analysing evidence
Findings Conclusion
Utilising the Evaluation
Step 6
Step 5
Step 4
Step 3
Step 2
Step 1

13. Step 1: Preparation for the EFE
Determining evaluability of the intervention’s equity dimension
Clear Theory of Change
Clear baselines
Disaggregated indicators
Clear Means of verification
Identify evaluation stakeholders including worst off
Steering committee/reference group (relevant to worse groups) - helps culturally sensitive, access to communities
Ensuring an appropriate budget – more expensive
Hard to reach areas
Disaggregated data more expensive than national/province averages

14. Step 1: Preparation for the EFE
Identify intended use by intended users
Identify potential challenges in promoting and implementing equity focused evaluation
Political
Methodological
Social challenges
Develop strategy for dealing with challenges

15. Step 2: Preparing the TOR for an EFE
Define the purpose and scope of the evaluation
Selecting technically strong and culturally sensitive evaluation team
Framing evaluation questions focusing on equity

16. Step 3: Designing EFE Select appropriate evaluation framework
Select evaluation design
Select methods
Outcomes are difficult to define
Conventional evaluation designs do not work
Need for innovative designs
Understanding the complex context in which EFE are implemented – scope for realist evaluation?
Studying sensitive issues
Vulnerability
Political power relations
Culture

17. Step 3: Design of an EFE- What is Credible Evidence
Experimental designs
Issue: - Can numbers capture complexity of equity focused interventions?
In-depth analysis of lived experience
Can narrative help explain the many factors
Is it possible to generalise from qualitative studies?
Roles of mixed methods?

18. Step 3: Designing an EFE – the challenge of attribution and assessing causality
Causality and the definition of the counterfactual
The difficulty of finding a comparison group
The danger of positive bias
Reaching beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries
The human desire to find causality
The danger of retrospective construction of causality
Alternatives to the conventional counterfactual
E.g Comparison with other countries with closely similar context etc

19. Step 3: Designing and EFE – importance of mixed methods
Combining depth plus depth
Combines narrative reporting of lived experience and cultural context, with the ability to generalise
Integrated approaches draw on tools and techniques from a broad range
Broadening the range of credible evidence
Triangulation

20. Step 3: Designing and EFE – Evaluations framework
Experimental or qualitative
Theory based evaluation
Use of the theory of change - challenge no alternative reason for change or rival hypothesis – potential for improving theory of change
Systems based approach
New complex thinking in development evaluation
Try to understand actors and agencies, boundaries and historical conditions
Understand development as a complex system embedded in a diverse context
Expenditure and cost effectiveness
Cost effectiveness
Benefit incidence analysis -
% of budget reaching bottom quintiles
Public expenditure tracking
Tracking % of resources reaching the frontline

21. Step 3: Designing and EFE – Evaluations framework
Bottleneck analysis
Factors that affect delivery of services (supply side) and utilisation of services (demand side)
Supply side factors:
Coverage, budget, cultural sensitive approaches (including staff)
Demand side factors:
Knowledge and attitudes
Time poverty
Out of pocket expenses for transport or paying for services
Community ownership (ability to complain for example)
Contextual factors (political, economic, legal and administrative)
Design of the evaluation framework depends on the type of programme/policy being evaluated:
Complex equity focused policies or programmes
Simple localised programmes

22. Step 3: Designing an EFE – Complex equity focused policy/programme
Systems analysis
Unpack complex policies into components that can be more easily be evaluated
Speaks to complexity and size of team
Pipeline design
Using other countries as comparison e.g changes in HIV rates
Policy gap analysis
which groups fall through the cracks

23. Step 3: Designing an EFE – Simple programmes
Experimental/quasi experimental
Creative design to define comparison group
Naturalistic experiments
Theory based approaches
Non-experimental design
Simple case studies
Qualitative/narrative methods
Longitudinal design
Panel surveys
Interrupted time series
Case study design using mixed method sample selection
Holistic analysis

24. Step 4: Collecting and analysis data
Multiple methods
Structured questionnaires
Observations
Key informant interviews
Focus Group Discussions
Transact walks etc.
Be clear to link method and the desired information
Be clear of the link between your quantitative and qualitative data before analysis.

25. Step 5: Findings and Conclusions
Findings should demonstrate
Equity of results
Qualitative analysis of the status
Conclusions
Policy or programme effect on equity
Factors underpinning success or failure

26. Step 6: Utilisation of findings
Parliament
Advocate for improved delivery on equity
Advocate for policy revisions
Disseminate evaluation findings to the public
Government
Improve or change programmes
Undertake policy reform
Development partners

27. Step 6: Utilisation of findings
Under utilisation of results
Not addressing client concerns
Poor timing
Not using stakeholder’s preferred communication style
Only selected stakeholder receive reports
Important to have a utilisation focused and participatory evaluation
Alternative forms of reporting
Agreeing on Action Plan
Disseminating the evaluation and preparation of a management response

28. Exercise Review the following
PICES executive summary and answer the following:
Does the summary provide adequate information for equity focused programming?
As an MP or government official what recommendations can you come up with improve equity of programmes based on the PICES survey?
What recommendations can you come up with to improve equity in the presentation of results – what would you have wanted to see that is not presented?