{"title":"Evaluating the sustainability of health programmes: A literature review","authors":"F. Ishola, Jindra Čekan","doi":"10.4102/AEJ.V7I1.369","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Background: Evidence shows that fewer than 1% of all international development projects worldwide, including those in Nigeria, were evaluated at least 2 years after completion to learn what genuinely changed. With over 787 million US Dollars in official development assistance to Nigeria’s health sector in 2017, this seeming disinterest in assessing sustainability – particularly in light of the international commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals – is concerning. Objectives: We aim to assess the overall body of knowledge on the evaluation of sustainability of health programmes in Nigeria. Methods: We conducted a broad literature search, which included grey literature such as development project reports to identify all relevant studies reporting on our study objective. Articles were selected for inclusion using predefined criteria and data were extracted onto a purposely designed data extraction form. Results: Four articles met our search criteria. The review identified financial, technical, social and environmental barriers to sustainability. Recommendations encompassed all stages of the project cycle: funding, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Conclusion: This review explored the overall body of knowledge on the evaluation of sustainability for health programmes in Nigeria. A clear understanding of operational indicators for sustainability, embedding sustainability early in the project cycle, community ownership, capacity building, effective collaboration, leadership and quality post evaluation are key for sustainable development in Nigeria. A limitation of this review is the small number of studies included and the assessment of sustainability at a single point in time. Much more empirical and rigorous research is needed to explore sustainability of health programmes in Nigeria. Research should also seek to understand the views of key stakeholders such as donors, implementing partners and the government.","PeriodicalId":37531,"journal":{"name":"African Evaluation Journal","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2019-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"8","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"African Evaluation Journal","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.4102/AEJ.V7I1.369","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 8
Abstract
Background: Evidence shows that fewer than 1% of all international development projects worldwide, including those in Nigeria, were evaluated at least 2 years after completion to learn what genuinely changed. With over 787 million US Dollars in official development assistance to Nigeria’s health sector in 2017, this seeming disinterest in assessing sustainability – particularly in light of the international commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals – is concerning. Objectives: We aim to assess the overall body of knowledge on the evaluation of sustainability of health programmes in Nigeria. Methods: We conducted a broad literature search, which included grey literature such as development project reports to identify all relevant studies reporting on our study objective. Articles were selected for inclusion using predefined criteria and data were extracted onto a purposely designed data extraction form. Results: Four articles met our search criteria. The review identified financial, technical, social and environmental barriers to sustainability. Recommendations encompassed all stages of the project cycle: funding, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Conclusion: This review explored the overall body of knowledge on the evaluation of sustainability for health programmes in Nigeria. A clear understanding of operational indicators for sustainability, embedding sustainability early in the project cycle, community ownership, capacity building, effective collaboration, leadership and quality post evaluation are key for sustainable development in Nigeria. A limitation of this review is the small number of studies included and the assessment of sustainability at a single point in time. Much more empirical and rigorous research is needed to explore sustainability of health programmes in Nigeria. Research should also seek to understand the views of key stakeholders such as donors, implementing partners and the government.
期刊介绍：
The journal publishes high quality peer-reviewed articles merit on any subject related to evaluation, and provide targeted information of professional interest to members of AfrEA and its national associations. Aims of the African Evaluation Journal (AEJ): -AEJ aims to be a high-quality, peer-reviewed journal that builds evaluation-related knowledge and practice in support of effective developmental policies on the African continent. -AEJ aims to provide a communication platform for scholars and practitioners of evaluation to share and debate ideas about evaluation theory and practice in Africa. -AEJ aims to promote cross-fertilisation of ideas and methodologies between countries and between evaluation scholars and practitioners in the developed and developing world. -AEJ aims to promote evaluation scholarship and authorship, and a culture of peer-review in the African evaluation community.
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