Project Goals, Objectives and Activities

Goal:

• To create a culture of research and evaluation at AMREF-Kenya -- in collaboration with partnering NGOs in the region, AMREF-Canada, and McMaster University affiliated faculty operating through the Father Sean O'Sullivan Research Centre and Salama SHIELD Foundation -- which is capable of catalyzing program planning processes in response to priority health and development concerns.

In order to create a such a culture, a process needs to be established to:

• permit interactive, regular, and ongoing communication between the partner institutions;
• institutionalize opportunities for stakeholders in each of these institutions -- and between institutions and cross-cutting sectors -- to conduct relevant research and evaluation in health and development; and
• accomplish these aims and objectives in a manner that is theoretically informed, methodologically appropriate to specific health and development concerns, unencumbered by bureaucractic resistance, and predicated on the best available experience and evidence.
  

Objectives:

Based on the priority health and development concerns addressed by AMREF-Kenya, the project objectives are:

• examine what are the appropriate research and evaluation theories and methods that will strengthen the program planning process; in short, adopt innovative and improved methodologies and theoretical perspectives in research and evaluation for advancing health and development programming;
• develop criteria for intervention design, dissemination, and evaluation that incorporates not only quantitative, but qualitative and participatory research evidence;
• design, disseminate, and evaluate two specific intervention projects related to two priority health and development concerns for AMREF-Kenya: adolescent sexual and reproductive health and, trauma and injury prevention.

In the context of these two proposed intervention cases, a specific objectives is:

• develop measures, instruments, and criteria for the evaluation of the intervention impacts.
  

Activities:

In the process of establishing a culture for research and evaluation at AMREF-Kenya – a culture that seeks to catalyze umbrella NGOs in the region – specific activities include:

• Two, 5-day research, evaluation, and impact assessment workshops at AMREF-Kenya that will involve the participation of representatives from at least 6 umbrella NGOs. There will be approximately 25 participants in each workshop; with one workshop per year, there will be at least 50 persons trained over a two year period;
• Two, 5-day, training of trainers (TOT) workshops on problem-based learning methods in research and evaluation. There will be approximately 30 persons in each of the two workshops, with a total of 60 persons trained as trainers;
• Creation of a user-friendly, computerized research and evaluation project management system for at least six umbrella NGOs in the region (2 in Kenya, 2 in Uganda, and 2 in Tanzania).

Finally, in the spirit of facilitating an iterative, interactive learning process for research and evaluation between AMREF-Canada, AMREF-Kenya, and McMaster University-based scholars, a fourth activity is to:

• Undertake two, two-way exchange visits between AMREF-Kenya personnel and McMaster University (i.e., in year 1, two selected AMREF-Kenya persons would go to McMaster University for purposes of independent research and writing; in year 2, two McMaster University-affiliated faculty would go to AMREF-Kenya to participate in research and evaluation studies on the two intervention case studies)