Measurement and Evaluation

Half of the world’s population now lives in urban areas, and almost all global population growth will occur in towns and cities in developing countries in the coming decades. As the world's urban poor population increases, the need for reproductive health services also is accelerating. The Urban Health Initiative (UHI) addresses family planning and reproductive health needs of the urban poor in India, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal.

ICRW, through the Measurement, Learning and Evaluation (MLE) project, will conduct rigorous evaluations of the UHI in Uttar Pradesh, India. The goal is to measure the project’s impact on the prevalence of contraceptives, identify which interventions are most cost-effective and which ones are most likely to increase the use of contraceptives among the urban poor. The UHI project will explore a variety of approaches to improve the availability of contraceptives, such as integrating family planning into existing maternal and child health services and improving demand through vouchers. Ultimately, the MLE project aims to assist the Uttar Pradesh government in revitalizing the state’s family planning program in urban areas.

The MLE website features selected research and publications on urban reproductive health, presentations, feature stories and updates on activities. Visit MLE's website to access ICRW's report on the findings from an analysis of the baseline survey results from urban samples in six cities in Uttar Pradesh, India.

ICRW is evaluating the implementation of India’s Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005 (PWDVA), which is designed to protect the rights of women who experience domestic violence and facilitate their access to justice. In collaboration with the Lawyers Collective Women’s Rights Initiative (LCWRI), we are monitoring efforts to improve the ability of key agencies to implement the law.

ICRW is working to document how various interventions conducted by LCWRI strengthen India’s overall response to violence. Interventions include capacity development workshops for law enforcers (police, protection officers and magistrates), legal aid to women facing violence at home, and awareness-building campaigns about the law among women and the public. ICRW is using surveys, interviews and group discussions in three major states to assess various stakeholders’ attitudes toward the law. ICRW is also designing a monitoring system to track the effectiveness of the PWDVA on a yearly basis.

ICRW is a partner on AIDSTAR-One, which provides rapid technical assistance to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and U.S. government country teams to build effective, well-managed, and sustainable HIV and AIDS programs and to promote new leadership in the global campaign against HIV. AIDSTAR-One leverages the expertise of its diverse partner organizations to provide targeted assistance in knowledge management, program implementation support, technical leadership, program sustainability and strategic planning.

Through this partnership, ICRW draws from its expertise on gender and women's vulnerability to HIV to develop gender-responsive HIV programming. ICRW also provides technical leadership in the area of preventing alcohol-related HIV risk.

ICRW is working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and its partners to strengthen their attention to gender in various agricultural projects in Africa and South Asia. ICRW reviews project designs and advises the foundation on how to address the distinct issues that affect the work of women and men farmers. ICRW also guides implementing organizations on ways to improve outreach to women farmers.

For example, ICRW provided recommendations to TechnoServe in Kenya and Tanzania in an effort to increase the incomes of small-scale farmers by improving the quality of their coffee in order to sell it in global markets. ICRW’s recommendations included approaches to guarantee that women benefit from the program along with men - such as having full membership in farmers’ cooperatives - increasing their leadership opportunities, and receiving payment for their labor on the coffee crop.