- Social Protection
In 2014, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) introduced a set of outcome indicators for programs serving orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), referred to as the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting (MER) Essential Survey Indicators. PEPFAR requires these indicators to be collected every two years by a research organization external to the OVC program. These outcome indicators reflect internationally accepted developmental milestones; together, they measure the holistic well-being of children over time.
A standard survey method and tools have been developed to collect these data in countries where PEPFAR is supporting OVC programs. PEPFAR/Namibia asked MEASURE Evaluation—funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and PEPFAR—to conduct a survey to collect these indicators for Project HOPE Namibia (PHN).
This report presents panel data on outcomes of a program implemented by Project Health Opportunities to People Everywhere (HOPE) Namibia (PHN) and its partners to improve the well-being of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and beneficiary households in Namibia. These findings will support an evidence-informed strategy, programming, and resource allocation by Namibian stakeholders: The United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)/Namibia, the Namibian government (Ministry of Health and Social Services [MOHSS] and Ministry of Gender and Child Welfare [MGECW]), implementing partners, and others. They will also contribute to PEPFAR’s global evidence base on the effectiveness of PEPFAR’s OVC programming.
MEASURE Evaluation conducted the first round of the MER OVC ESI in November 2016 and the second round in September 2018 for PHN.
The survey is designed to answer the overall question: What is the well-being of child participants in the Project HOPE PEPFAR-funded OVC project in the six health districts of Namibia, and have there have been any improvements over time? The survey assessed the well-being of child beneficiaries enrolled in PHN in November 2016 (round 1) and the same households were followed up again in September 2018 (round 2). OVC well-being is measured by eight dimensions through the nine MER essential indicators. PEPFAR requires that data for the MER essential indicator survey be collected at two points in time over a two-year period so that progress can be tracked over time. This report covers panel data collected at two points in time and includes only households that were successfully interviewed during both rounds of the survey for these MER OVC ESI in Namibia.