The Skills for Prosperity programme is a global programme funded by UK FCDO. The programme operates across nine countries (Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines). The programme works to increase capacity for inclusive economic growth due to increases in labour productivity, which contributes to poverty reduction. The expected outcomes of the programme are improved skill levels, employment rates and productivity of beneficiaries (TVET students or youth between the ages of 16 and 25), particularly for the priority target groups of women, low-income youth and people with disabilities. The Skills for Prosperity Programme has a focus on working with disadvantaged and marginalised groups, often in geographies with widespread poverty.
LAMP Development provides technical support to the S4P Hub on value for money. The S4P Hub conducts technical advisory services and programme management services to the nine country Programme Managers, and sometimes also to the Delivery Partners. LAMP is developing the capacity of the country programmes on VFM and also conducts the VFM reviews.
Client: Montrose International
Dates: Multi-year, ongoing
Project Description: General Education Quality Improvement Program for Equity Project (GEQIP-E) aims to assist the Government of Ethiopia in improving internal efficiency, equitable access, and quality of general education in Ethiopia. Starting from March 2018, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is providing £110 million to GEQIP-E, comprising £90 million in financial aid and £20 million in technical assistance. This financial aid contributes to a multi-donor funded operation aimed at materialising the GEQIP-E through a Programme for Results approach managed by the World Bank.
The technical assistance element of GEQIP-E is abbreviated to TARGET. TARGET is implemented by a consortium composed of the Education Development Trust, Link Community Development International, and the Ethiopia Center for Disability and Development. TARGET works with the Government of Ethiopia at federal, regional, woreda and school levels to address the systemic challenges facing the education system, in order to improve its overall equity, quality, efficiency, and sustainability.
Our Role: The FCDO has engaged Montrose International to assess the performance of TARGET at various points throughout its implementation and to provide monitoring and evaluation support. LAMP Development is providing Value for Money (VfM) expertise and support to TARGET, including reviewing and strengthening its VfM framework and strategy and conducting VfM reviews as part of the mid-line and endline evaluations.
Team Members: Adesoji Ologun, Jennifer Armitage
The Lafiya programme is a seven-year UK Government supplier contract through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office which began in February 2020. The programme is delivered by a consortium of seven partners led by the Palladium Group and its objective is to contribute to improving health outcomes for the poorest and most vulnerable in Nigeria through: –
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- encouraging the Government of Nigeria to increase resources invested in health;
- improving effectiveness and efficiency of public and private basic health for services; and
- improved access to modern contraceptive methods.
LAMP is developing a VFM strategy and customized framework for the Lafiya programme, providing insights, analysis and technical assistance to identify opportunities to improve VfM from project inception and throughout implementation. LAMP will also train Lafiya staff to produce routine VfM reports against agreed indicators and the routine application of VfM principles in ensuring resources are well managed.
LAMP is currently working with Montrose International on the Saving Lives in Sierra Leone programme. Saving Lives in Sierra Leone Programme (SLiSL) is a 5-year £150 million programme funded by UK Aid. It aims to save women’s and children’s lives by improving the quality, availability, and accessibility of reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health services in one of the poorest countries in the world.
A consortium of partners, UN and NGO, are working together to implement the different components of the programme which include setting national priorities, district management and service delivery, ensuring drug availability, improving Human Resources for Health, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, and community engagement efforts. Montrose International is providing the monitoring, evaluation, learning and review (MELR) services for the programme. By March 2021, the programme aims to reduce preventable deaths among women, adolescents, girls and children in Sierra Leone.
LAMP has developed a VFM strategy and framework and from December 2018, LAMP is providing ongoing VFM support to the programme. This includes delivering VFM quarterly reports and conducting the annual assessment. Case studies and a CEA methodology will be developed to demonstrate the results achieved by the programme.
The Fleming Fund is a £265 million programme funded by the UK government (Department of Health) to invest in improving laboratory capacity for diagnosis and surveillance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in low-income countries where AMR has a disproportionate impact.
The programme started in 2017 and will last for 5 years. It has various objectives:
• Strengthen surveillance of drug resistance
• Build laboratory capacity for diagnosis
• Collect data on drug resistance
• Enable sharing of data
• Collating and analysing data on sale of antibiotics/antimicrobial medicine
• Advocacy – promoting rational use of antibiotics
• Design a sustainable system for AMR surveillance and data sharing
Working with Itad, LAMP has developed an approach for the VfM aspect of the evaluation of the Fleming Fund and will provide support to implement the VFM component of this four year evaluation.
Nigerian Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH2) is a five-year DFID funded programme delivering maternal, newborn and child health interventions. The programme aims to strengthen health system coordination through improved health sector planning and financing, in six states in Northern Nigeria. MNCH2 works with community, organizations, local and state government, health practitioners, and more to improve the lives of women, children and families.
Since inception of the programme, LAMP developed a VFM strategy which set out the metrics and evidence to measure and monitor VfM. It is based on the MNCH2 results framework and covers economy, efficiency, effectiveness, equity and sustainability throughout the programme cycle.
LAMP designed and implemented a Value for Money approach within MNCH2, including building up the capability of the programme team and developing a VfM plan to ensure objectives are met. Costs were benchmarked from data available from previous DFID Health projects such as PATHS 2 and PRINNN-MNCH. The capacity of the technical and operational staff across the states and HQs was built not only to understand the practical aspect of VFM but to embed VFM considerations in daily operations of MNCH2. LAMP developed data collection tools to help states to accurately capture information about cost savings, government contributions and unit costs of workhops and trainings.
Through quarterly and annual reviews, LAMP supports MNCH2 monitoring and reporting at state level, to measure efficiency of the programme and give recommendations to maximise use of resources and drive continuous improvement year on year. Early results are promising, with administration costs falling under 15% of total programme costs and the unit cost of supporting a health facility lower than benchmarks.
