Audit of USAID/Egypt - financed population activities

Audit covers a period ending 3/95. USAID/E has made satisfactory progress towards achieving its strategic objective for population. All annual strategic objective targets and related program outcome targets have been met or exceeded. Crude birth rate (which is the proxy indicator for the strategic objective of reduced fertility) fell from 28.8 live births per 1,000 population in 1992 to 28.2 in 1993 (vs. a 1993 target of 28.7). To measure progress toward the program outcome of increased level and effective use of contraceptives, the Mission relies on two proxy indicators: (1) synthetic contraceptive prevalence rate (which increased from 21% to 25%, meeting the target for 1994); and (2) percentage of couple years of protection attributable to more effective methods of contraception (which increased from 89% to 92%, exceeding the 1994 target of 90%). USAID/E has also made satisfactory progress toward achieving the output targets of the Population/Family Planning III project, with the most important outputs being met or exceeded. The project is ahead of schedule in providing couple-years of protection, and in the number of new television productions and local community meetings. Training activities are behind schedule, but corrective action has already been taken in this regard. The information used by the Mission to monitor progress was accurate, although in the case of the project the Mission needs to document the rationale for the conversion factors it used to calculate couple-years of protection (CYPs). Also, reported information on CYPs was not fully supported by client and inventory records at the clinic level, reliable information on the number of local community meetings was not available, and information on Ministry of Health training activities was incorrectly reflected in one Mission implementation report.