Abstract
BACKGROUND
The Integrated Social Marketing (ISM) Program is a five-year Cooperative Agreement (Number AID-687-A-13-00001) for $36,823,053, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Madagascar from January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2017. The project is implemented by Population Services International (PSI), as prime partner, with IntraHealth, Banyan Global, Human Network International (HNI) as international partners, and SAF and SALFA as partners local to Madagascar. The ISM Program operates in 20 of 22 regions of Madagascar. The main objective is to use an integrated social marketing approach to increase the use of lifesaving health products and services, particularly in the areas of family planning (FP)/reproductive health (RH), maternal and child health (MCH), and malaria. Three primary intermediate results (IRs) are expected as outcomes of the ISM Program: IR 1: Increased adoption and maintenance of health behaviors, particularly in the areas of FP, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) practices, diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria prevention and treatment, nutrition, RH, and others. IR 2: Improved quality of selected health services in the private sector, focuses on working with a network of 250+ private franchised Top Réseau clinics to deliver integrated health services, specifically FP, integrated management of childhood illnesses, youth services, and malaria. IR 3: Increased availability of lifesaving health products and services such as contraceptives, condoms, diarrhea treatment kits (DTK), and long lasting insecticide treated nets (LLINs).
EVALUATION PURPOSE
This final performance evaluation served two purposes: 1) to learn to what extent the project’s objectives and goals – at all result levels – have been achieved; and 2) to inform the design of follow-up projects. This evaluation will assist the Mission in reaching decisions related to: 1) the effectiveness of current approaches to improve health behavior, improve quality of private sector health services, and increase availability of health products and services; 2) the type of mechanisms the Mission should use in any future assistance to the health sector for social marketing and related interventions, and 3) the nature and scope of possible future interventions in the sector, based on lessons learned from the current project.
