Second Quarterly Report, Option Year 3: Services Under Program and Project Office for Results Tracking Phase II (SUPPORT-II)

under the terms of USAID Contract No. AID-306-C-12-00012. SUPPORT-II provides a host of services through USAID/Afghanistan's Office of Program and Project Development (OPPD) to improve the efficiency of activities, programs, and projects implemented by the Mission's Technical Offices. This second Quarterly Activity Report (QAR) under Option Year 3 (OY-3) covers the period October 1 – December 31, 2015. SUPPORT-II successfully accomplished the following activities for USAID Afghanistan's monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and monitoring and verification (M&V) goals and objectives: monitored 35 Afghanistan Civic Education Program (ACEP) events for the Office of Democratic Governance (ODG), verified 21 beneficiaries and activities of the Afghanistan Workforce Development Program for the Office of Economic Governance Initiatives (OEGI), visited eight warehouses storing textbooks for the Ministry of Education (MoE), verified 36 events and beneficiaries of the Regional Agriculture Development Program-West for the Office of Agriculture (OAG), and continued working on the meta-evaluation of 35 final evaluations of previous USAID projects implemented in Afghanistan for OPPD. The project also completed the data quality assessment (DQA) of seven indicators for OAG's Change Management and Capacity Building Program II, completed the Mission-level DQA, which this year consisted of 141 indicators, for OPPD, completed an assessment for OAG on the sustainability of agribusinesses supported by USAID/Afghanistan, began the DQA of the Education Management Information System (EMIS) for OSSD's Office of Education, and began an assessment of the technical capacity of the MoE to design, print, and distribute a large procurement of textbooks for grades 1-12. SUPPORT-II also hosted 12 short-term technical advisors (STTAs) for the abovementioned evaluations and assessments, provided space and logistical support to train 88 enumerators for the EMIS assessment, provided logistical support for Ministry of Economy (MoEc) provincial staff to conduct 26 site visits to on-budget projects, translated 18 documents amounting to 186 pages between the English, Dari, and Pashto languages for STTAs and office use, developed 22 maps for STTAs and office use, and filmed 50 beneficiary profiles for the Development Outreach and Communications (DOC) office. Despite these accomplishments, SUPPORT-II continues to face challenges recruiting expat consultants willing to work in Afghanistan and in conducting field monitoring and verification activities due to multiple security incidents in Kabul and country-wide. The project also anticipates continued recruitment and operational challenges as various insurgent offensives are reported in the media. Additionally, compliance with the Afghan government's request that the salaries of USAID implementing partners' Afghan staff be at parity with government wages is anticipated to create numerous contractual issues and result in a possible loss of qualified local staff. The project's activity implementation is summarized in a table, which will be revised once directions are received from the Contracting Officer Representative (COR) on specific tasks and deliverables. The project has made progress on various tasks, including the Performance Management Plan (PMP) and related activities, tracking results and collecting data quarterly, analyzing Mission's procedures for generating information for periodic reports, and conducting field-based assessments. SUPPORT-II has also provided logistical support for conferences, communication and outreach support, translation and interpretation services, mapping and information needs, and other activities as requested by the COR. The project's key activities accomplished during the reporting period include monitoring and verification activities, evaluations and assessments, logistical support, and translation and interpretation services.