The leadership development for family planning/reproductive health for political office holders, traditional and religious leaders project : end-of-project performance evaluation final report

This project was a behavioral change communications and advocacy activity. It was designed to develop messages about FP/RH that were more acceptable within the communities where the project operated (in the states of Niger, Sokoto and Zamfara), and then deliver those messages through traditional and religious leaders. It also developed a consensus among political leaders on the importance of FP/RH issues, and these trained leaders then built human capacity, renovated health facilities, and advocated for more adequate funding. The evaluation team undertook a qualitative assessment and designed a data collection and analysis approach to answer the following four evaluation questions: (1) to what extent has the project achieved its objective of improving the enabling environment for FP/RH in the three target states, (2) which advocacy activities were successful and had a positive impact and which ones had no or limited impact, and why, (3) what roles did traditional, religious and political leaders play in improving the enabling environment for FP/RH in the target states, and how has the development Research Projects Center (dRPC) contributed to this [and] how were these roles different for traditional/religious and political leaders in terms of effectiveness; and, (4) what effect did the project’s activities have on women and men from the community differently? The team found all the output indicators have been achieved except for two, i.e., public proclamations in support of RH/birth spacing by the political leaders (PLs) and traditional and religious leaders (TRLs), and mentoring. (Excerpt, modified)