Final evaluation of the Pakistan social marketing of contraceptives project, no. 391-0484

The present organizational structure of the project, however, has inherent management difficulties and excess programmatic and financial oversight by the TA contractor, USAID, and the government of Pakistan. This has led to severe tensions and an overall lack of cooperation among the participants. As a result, effective marketing, and planning for the future are no longer happening. The program's distributor is exerting minimal effort, and shortages of Sathi condoms have now begun to occur at the local distributor and retailer levels. The contracts for this project end in 9/93. Given that no other low-priced condom exists in the marketplace in Pakistan, this program needs to continue. USAID/Islamabad's intent is to incorporate the SMC program under the Private Sector Family Planning (PRIFAM) Project set to begin in late 1993. Given current management problems, a less complex project structure can be designed, with the distributor having the sole responsibility for the management and marketing of the program. Now that Sathi is an established product, TA is no longer needed to achieve sales objectives. Lessons learned include the following. (1) The goal of selling a donated product to lower-end socioeconomic groups is incompatible with the goal of arriving at sustainability, certainly full sustainability. Before designing a project, USAID should give careful consideration to basic policy decisions as to how long and to what extent it is willing to subsidize the program. (2) Overly complex social marketing programs have a greater chance of encountering programmatic problems and less chance of becoming sustainable. The design of a social marketing project and its contractual deliverables should be kept as simple as possible (relative to local conditions) and closely in line with local commercial norms. (3) When designing a social marketing project, it is best to contract only with a major, well-established distributor which already has its own sales force and is not dependent on the social marketing contract for the major portion of its business. USAID should not have to pay a distributor the salaries to hire additional sales people or staff. (4) The distributor/marketing firm hired to implement a social marketing program is chosen because of its local commercial experience and expertise and therefore should have control and authority over its own distribution/marketing activities. The services of an outside TA contractor, if required at the beginning of a program, are intended to provide assistance (both to the distributor and USAID) and to transfer technology; TA should not be used to provide "oversight." The oversight of one firm by another actually blurs responsibilities and can create antagonism and distrust. (5) The approval of a program's marketing plan by all interested parties can lead to long delays and can even cause the plan to become a political document. Because of this possibility, a marketing plan should not be a contract deliverable; rather, a simple workplan not more than five pages long should be the deliverable. The marketing plan should be the distributor's internal working document to assist in strategic marketing and in achieving the program's goals. (6) A social marketing program's research is best used to determine how to market the product more effectively. The amount of research conducted should be largely dictated by the marketing requirements of the product and initiated by the distributor. The expertise of local research firms should be appropriately utilized to design the research to assist in solving the marketing problems. Although monitoring and evaluation are legitimate needs of USAID, a disproportionate amount of research, time, and expense should not be utilized for this purpose. (Author abstract)