Evaluation report
Mobilizing Communities for a Healthier Future : Impact Evaluation of Social Accountability Interventions in Uttar Pradesh, India
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Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This report describes an impact evaluation of social accountability interventions run by the government of Uttar Pradesh, India, as part of a World Bank-supported health systems project. The interventions involved community members in monitoring public health services. The evaluators say that giving communities information together with help to act on it works better than giving information alone. They recommend that the state keep investing in community facilitation and keep evaluating the larger roll-out in other districts. The abstract does not name the specific health or child outcomes that were measured in Uttar Pradesh.
Key points
- Earlier efforts in Uganda and Nepal found that community monitoring led to large improvements in child health outcomes.
- This is described as the first large-scale impact evaluation of social accountability and community-based monitoring designed and implemented by a government.
- Information and facilitation together had larger effects than information alone.
- The evaluators recommend continuing to invest in facilitating Village Health, Sanitation and Nutrition Committee (VHSNC) meetings.
- The program is being implemented in 10 more districts using a block-wise randomized design, which offers a chance to study impact at scale.
Limitations
The abstract gives no numbers, no named outcomes and no detail on the sample, so the size and nature of the effects on children cannot be judged. Child health results are mentioned only for earlier studies in Uganda and Nepal, not for Uttar Pradesh.
Abstract
Social Accountability has received much attention as a potentially promising method to engage community members in monitoring the delivery of public services. Recent efforts in Uganda and Nepal found that community monitoring mechanisms led to large improvements in child health outcomes. The government of Uttar Pradesh (UP), as part of the World Bank supported Uttar Pradesh Health Systems Strengthening Project (UPHSSP), implemented Social Accountability (SA) interventions on a large scale. In contrast to previous impact evaluation efforts led by researchers on a smaller scale, this novel effort represents the first large-scale impact evaluation of SA and community-based monitoring that is designed and implemented by the government. This evaluation’s findings strongly suggest that information and facilitation jointly have larger effects than provision if information alone, leading the IE team to strongly recommend that UPHSSP and SIRD continue its policy of investing in community facilitation mechanisms as part of larger SA efforts. The government-run program currently being implemented in the other 10 districts in UPHSSP could be improved by incorporating design features from this 2-district evaluation, especially in terms of information delivery and facilitation of VHSNC meetings. A key feature of the evaluated intervention was its government-led design and implementation, enabling replication at scale by government. Hence, the evaluation’s findings are also relevant for scale up across India, and other countries with a similar context within the South Asia Region, and beyond. The ongoing implementation of SA interventions by UPHSSP in 10 districts, which also follows a block-wise randomized design, is an incredible opportunity to study and document the impacts of SA, when implemented at large-scale. The IE team strongly recommends that the state government continue to improve and implement the SA interventions robustly and invest in efforts to monitor and evaluate the impacts of this large-scale implementation of SA. (India)
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Government-led social accountability: giving communities information about health services, with or without facilitation of Village Health, Sanitation and Nutrition Committee (VHSNC) meetings.
- Population
- Communities in two districts of Uttar Pradesh, India, under the Uttar Pradesh Health Systems Strengthening Project.
Key finding
Information and facilitation jointly have larger effects than provision of information alone.
World Bank documents and reports · 20 Sept 2018