Evaluation of technical support for child survival programs

Evaluation covers the period 1985-1989. Johns Hopkins University (JHU), in close collaboration with the Bureau for Private and Voluntary Collaboration (PVC) has provided PVO's with high-quality technical support in child survival at costs that have been eminently reasonable, totalling about 3.5% of the total Child Survival Support Program budget. The PVC/JHU partnership has been close and productive and has provided a high level of technical expertise and support far beyond what PVC could acquire or maintain in-house. Deserving of special mention is the project's success in drawing expertise from a research-oriented university and interpreting this to PVO's in acceptable and practically meaningful ways. Indeed, it was somewhat surprising to find that the more onerous professional and technical requirements of the mandatory procedures such as proposals, detailed implementation plans, health information systems, and evaluations are more strongly endorsed by PVO's than the discretionary procedures such as the largely PVO-initiated technical consultants, the orientation visits, and the like. From 1985 to the present, overall PVO technical capacity has been strengthened to the extent that the PVO's are now clearly in a position to exercise an increasingly significant influence on the reduction of infant mortality in less developed countries and therefore more effectively to meet the ultimate purpose of the whole PVO Child Survival Program. Not only have PVO capacities to develop, implement, and manage Child Survival projects specifically been strengthened, but the technical support provided by the project has improved PVOs' overall sustainability and competitiveness in ways relevant to all their health-related programs. Of particular significance for the future of the PVO Child Survival Program, this technical support has contributed to a steady movement by PVO's in the direction of readiness to assume increasing responsibility for determining their own technical support needs and for taking the initiative in securing such support from a variety of resources. (Author abstract, modified)