Office of Democracy & Governance: Performance Monitoring and Evaluation
USAID has supported democratic development for twenty-five years, providing assistance to over 100 countries with a level of investment of more than $10 billion. We currently spend over $1 billion a year in a broad range of programs covering justice, human rights, peace and security; the development of democratic institutions in civil society, local governments, political parties, elections and legislatures; and good governance initiatives to fight corruption and improve government effectiveness and accountability. Other donors, both multilateral and bilateral, have also entered intensively into some of these fields, often in coordination with USAID. Many lessons have been learned and yet there is little evidence-based guidance on the best methods and sequencing of programs to most effectively encourage sustainable democracies and democratic practices. Given the importance of this development sector as a pillar of US foreign policy, DCHA/DG has taken the lead in pressing for better democracy evaluations and measures of effectiveness.
Evlaluating Democracy and Governance Effectiveness (EDGE) is a comprehensive, long-term program to measure the impact and effectiveness of various approaches to democratic development and incorporate the findings into USAID policies and programs through outreach, training, and field support. In 2010, EDGE will be focused on the following initiatives:
1. Democracy and Governance project impact evaluations. DCHA/DG will collaborate with participating USAID missions from project design through program completion, employing state-of-the-art evaluation methodologies. This effort will provide strong evidence and significant findings on “what works, what doesn’t, and under what circumstances” in specific programming areas (e.g., independent media, legislative development) enabling the development of better DG policies and programs. The initiative has piloted impact evaluations in Cambodia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Ukraine and several Latin American countries in cooperation with the Merida Initiative.
2. Contributing to Improvement of USAID evaluations. EDGE will promote and support the institutional change needed to enable USAID to support better evaluations and learning. At the Agency level, EDGE will work with USAID’s Evaluation Unit to improve its guidance and procedures, as well as make changes in program design and procurement processes that currently impede the implementation of best practices in evaluation. The DG Office is investing in qualified methodologists and democracy experts, providing evaluation support to missions, and improving the training of DG officers in essential evaluation-related subjects.
3. Democracy surveys. Public opinion surveys have become a mainstay of program design and evaluation in USAID missions, but survey quality is uneven and survey data is often underutilized. EDGE will build on previous USAID investments in democracy surveys and collaborate with DG officers in the field to improve survey quality and utilization. More frequent use of DG surveys in project impact evaluations is expected, as well as more systematic extraction and dissemination of survey findings relevant to USAID, host-country governments and citizens, and the wider development community.
4. Improving mid-level indicators of democratic change. DCHA/DG has begun an in-depth analysis and refinement of indicators of democratic change useful for field program managers and policymakers. The effort will emphasize causal analysis, as well as questions of sequencing and analysis of intervention “inputs.” The program will draw on academic experts and involve the wider donor community to develop internationally accepted indicators of democratic change.
EDGE builds on a decade of DCHA/DG comparative studies, evaluations, international workshops, and consultation with methodological experts. Significant reports include:
- National Academy of Sciences (NAS) (2008): “Improving Democracy Assistance: Building Knowledge Through Evaluations and Research.” The NAS examined USAID’s DG evaluation efforts and recommended specific improvements in USAID institutional practices, the introduction of impact and mixed-method evaluations, and use of better quality surveys and other DG-related indicator data. This report has served as the foundation document for the new EDGE initiative and a touchstone for institutional reforms.
See: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12164
- Cross-national quantitative studies on DG effectiveness: In two highly-regarded studies in 2006 and 2007, researchers examined democratic patterns in 165 countries from 1990 to 2005, and found that USAID DG assistance has a significant, positive impact on democratic development. The studies concluded that in any given year an investment of $10 million of USAID DG funding produces a five-fold (500%) increase in the amount of democratic change over what the average country would otherwise be expected to achieve. The cross-national studies, conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt University, also identified hypotheses to test and provided valuable information on indicators of democratic change.
See: http://www.pitt.edu/~politics/democracy/democracy.html (This link takes you off of the USAID web site)
- USAID DG Office (1998): “Handbook of Democracy and Governance Indicators.” This remains a classic compendium of indicators of democratic change used in the field. Its findings will now be more systemically tested and improved through the EDGE initiative. DCHA/DG is committed to the development of good indicators that integrate USAID’s extensive field experience in measuring for results with advances in the democratic development academic literature.
See: http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNACC390.pdf
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