Data Quality Audit Report for Latkings Outreach Programme, Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Information Dissemination Service, and Pride Community Health Organisation Quarter 4, December 2013

In order to roll out the campaign effectively, CSH engaged five civil society organisations (CSOs) at the beginning of 2012 to implement campaign activities at the community level. These five CSOs were awarded 6-month contracts each to implement Safe Love outreach activities in different communities across the country. In 2013, CSH re-engaged the five CSOs to strengthen the health communication amongst community members who are in the target population for the Safe Love campaign. CSH is required to conduct quarterly data quality assessments (DQAs), an exercise in which all programme performance data presented to USAID are routinely assessed for completeness, timeliness, availability, and accuracy. This report provides results of the DQAs conducted with three CSOs: Latkings Outreach Programme, Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAfAIDS), and Pride Community Health Group, which are supporting the second-phase rollout of the Safe Love campaign. The DQA exercise had two main objectives: to assess the quality of the data reported to CSH in terms of its accuracy, completeness, timeliness, and availability, and to assess the data recording and reporting systems and processes. The DQA was conducted with three CSOs: SAfAIDS, Latkings, and Pride. SAfAIDS has central offices in Lusaka, although it implements activities in Central province. Latkings has offices in Lusaka and operates in Lusaka district, while Pride is located in Lusaka province and operates in Kafue district. The DQA involved reviewing the overall scope of work for the CSO contracts, performing a preliminary review of the data submitted to CSH over the 3-month implementation period, and conducting a data verification exercise to assess the completeness, timeliness, availability, and accuracy of the data reported to CSH. The DQA process mainly focused on the months of October, November, and December 2013. The seven indicators selected for the audit provide CSH with data to assess the performance of the CSOs in line with agreed contract deliverables and offer data for reporting on Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief indicators. These indicators include the number of community clubs formed, the number of community outreach facilitators trained, the number of target population members reached with individual and/or small group-level preventive interventions, and the number of active club members. The findings of the DQA showed that Latkings has a well-established data recording and reporting system, with facilitators collecting data on all activities using forms provided by CSH and submitting them to the coordinators at the central level on the 25th day of every month. However, the data verification process was found to be incomplete, with some data not being verified or checked for errors.