Results for Development Institute

R4D's 2015 Achievements

Global Health

Primary Health Care Performance Initiative: Results for Development and partners launched the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative to improve primary health care in low- and middle-income countries through better measurement and knowledge-sharing. The Primary Health Care Performance Initiative will help countries track key performance indicators for their primary health care systems, identifying which parts of the system are working well and which ones aren’t, to enhance accountability and provide decision-makers with essential information to drive improvements. To make data actionable, the initiative is also providing a platform for countries to share lessons and best practices. The Primary Healthcare Initiative was founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank Group and the World Health Organization, in partnership with Ariadne Labs and Results for Development.

Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage: Results for Development helped to expand the Joint Learning Network’s membership from 9 to 24 countries and partnered with member countries to facilitate the co-production of new global knowledge products. The Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage is a community of practitioners and policymakers who are implementing health systems reforms in their countries to achieve universal health coverage. As a network coordinator, Results for Development works with members to ensure that they have the necessary knowledge, tools, and skills to build resilient health systems that provide quality healthcare for all and can quickly respond to emerging threats. Results for Development is the lead facilitator for three technical initiatives that enable member countries to focus on specific challenges and creative solutions related to achieving universal health coverage: Population Coverage, Primary Health Care and Provider Payment Mechanisms. Results for Development is also a contributor to two technical initiatives that are facilitated by other organizations: Information Technology and Quality.

Center for Health Market Innovations: Results for Development is helping to strengthen mixed (public and private) health systems through the Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI)—a network and digital platform managed by Results for Development that promotes the innovative programs, policies and practices to increase access to quality care, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable. In 2015, CHMI underwent an independent evaluation that determined it is an essential and relevant resource for the field that delivers tangible results, informing policy and practice. In addition, CHMI launched a series of activities to foster improvement and adaptation of health innovations, including the release of the Primary Care Innovator’s Handbook and several other activities and exchanges designed to promote the transfer and uptake of promising ideas and practices among programs. At the country level, CHMI worked with six regional partners operating in Kenya, India, South Africa, Nigeria, and Pakistan to foster innovation through competitions and “hackathons,” with the ultimate goal of extending quality care to more people, catalyzing the development of public-private partnerships and increasing engagement with policy makers at the state and national levels.

Research and Learning in Monitoring and Evaluation: Results for Development launched an initiative to develop innovative tools and improve existing processes for monitoring, evaluation and learning in international development projects. Results for Development and partners Mathematica, Abt Associates and the Notre Dame Initiative for Global Development will work with USAID Operating Units on up to 15 pilots projects over the next 3 years, with a total budget ceiling of $17 million. Pilots will focus on rapid experimentation on specific aspects of programs and the use of evidence to adapt activities. This approach will help program managers and policymakers know what’s working and what’s not as a project is being implemented instead of waiting until the project ends to collect learnings in order to maximize impact and improve prospects for long-term success.

Nutrition

Global Nutrition Spending: Results for Development completed the first-ever analysis of global nutrition spending. The analysis has shown that an additional $50B will be needed to achieve the World Health Assembly target aimed at reducing stunting (low height for age) by 40% globally by 2025. R4D has suggested pathways whereby high burden governments, donors, and new innovative funding mechanisms for nutrition can work together to mobilize these resources. If these resources are indeed mobilized, there will be 63 million fewer children stunted in 2025, meaning they will avoid detrimental lifelong impacts on their physical and mental development and future productivity caused by stunting. This is the first global analysis that shows how much is needed in order to improve stunting, what it will buy, and where the additional funding might come from. This analysis was presented for the first time at a high level event at the Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in July 2015. Cost and financing analysis for four other WHA targets (wasting, anemia, and the promotion of exclusive breastfeeding) is ongoing. This work will support advocacy efforts leading up to the Nutrition for Growth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in August 2016, which is expected to be the next major global funding pledging moment for nutrition.

Malnutrition in India: Results for Development is working in Rajasthan, India—where malnutrition rates are some of the highest in the world—to analyze nutrition costs and financing. In 2015, Results for Development conducted an analysis of government spending on nutrition to assess whether nutrition financing is adequate, whether it goes to the right programs and interventions, and whether it is spent effectively. The findings are being used by the government of Rajasthan and nutrition advocates to shape budgets and policy as well as positively impact nutritional outcomes.

Malnutrition in Nigeria: Results for Development is working with the government of Nigeria to address severe and acute malnutrition, which affects 500,000-1,000,000 children annually in the country. In 2015, Results for Development completed a study to estimate the cost-effectiveness of routine community management of acute malnutrition (CMAM)—an approach that trains community volunteers to identify and initiate treatment for children with acute malnutrition before they become seriously ill—in four states in northern Nigeria where malnutrition rates are the highest. The study found that CMAM is highly cost-effective in this setting and confirmed to a donor the value of continuing to fund and scale up the effort in collaboration with the Nigerian government.

Global Education

Center for Education Innovations: In 2015, one of Results for Development’s flagship initiatives—the Center for Education Innovations—collaborated with UNICEF to identify promising and innovative education models that are ripe for support. After reviewing over 160 nominations, the Center for Education Innovations and UNICEF named 5 finalists who will receive funding from UNICEF and monitoring and evaluation and communications support from the Center for Education Innovations. Over a one-year period, the 5 finalists are attempting to scale up their approaches while collecting evidence on effectiveness. Results for Development is documenting this process in order to share lessons about how education innovations can be scaled up and adapted. Case studies for each of the five innovations will be developed and shared with innovators, government actors, and funders.

Literacy: Results for Development is leading an evaluation and learning exercise around a pilot program in India called Mobile Reading to Children that seeks to promote literacy by encouraging and empowering parents and caregivers to read to and with their young children by giving them access to a digital library of high quality, locally relevant children’s books via an app on their mobile phones. The evaluation and learning activities were initiated in October 2015 with a 5-month formative research phase consisting of interviews and focus groups with potential users to understand the barriers to reading with children (For example, access to content, time for reading, literacy levels, beliefs about the value of reading to young children, etc.). Informed by the research phase, on-the-ground activities to drive uptake of the app and to build awareness about the importance of reading with children are being designed. Ongoing monitoring of short-term outcomes will allow implementation teams to identify the most promising activities and make small adjustments to them to quickly revise and refine implementation design.

Early Childhood: Results for Development is providing monitoring, evaluation and learning support to Mobile Creches, an early childhood development program that offers quality childcare services for children from birth to age 12 in urban slums and construction sites across Delhi, India. In September 2015, Results for Development initiated evaluation and learning activities to test different approaches to community engagement within construction sites where Mobile Creches runs childcare centers—in particular, how to improve nutrition practices at home for parents of creche attendants. Results for Development is working with Mobile Creches staff to understand the key challenges and barriers to good nutrition through formative research.

Governance and Social Accountability

Governance Data Alliance: Results for Development launched the Governance Data Alliance, a collaboration that brings together 20+ organizations to improve the availability and quality of governance data—ranging from corruption perceptions to fiscal transparency to business regulation and freedom of the press—in order to shape policy reforms that ultimately improve economic, human and democratic development.

Accountability and Maternal and Child Health: Results for Development and its partners are leading a rigorous mixed-method evaluation using quantitative and qualitative approaches to determine whether citizen empowerment and engagement can also lead to improved health outcomes, and if so, under what set of circumstances. The initiative, called Transparency for Development, is working with local partners in Tanzania and Indonesia to design a citizen empowerment intervention that attempts to address issues related to maternal and newborn health. In 2015, facilitator training was completed in both countries and interventions were launched in 150 of 200 communities. In order to evaluate impact, Results for Development and partners have designed an evaluation methodology, including surveys and observation/interview protocols and have finalized baseline data collection.

Innovation

International Development Innovation Alliance: Results for Development serves as the Secretariat for The International Development Innovation Alliance (IDIA), a platform that brings together the innovation teams of some of the world’s leading development agencies, governments, multilateral institutions and foundations in order to advance innovation as a means to help achieve sustainable development. Results for Development facilitates working groups on the topics of data platforms, measuring impact, scaling innovation, and building capacity for innovation. In July 2015, the members of IDIA published “A Call for Innovation in International Development,” outlining the need for innovation to address pressing development challenges and laying out six core principles to facilitate development innovation. In 2015, IDIA also supported the growth of USAID’s Global Innovation Exchange, including data harmonization, interoperability, governance recommendations and financing options. This open platform helps innovators and funders connect within a more efficient, data-rich knowledge ecosystem around innovation.

Regions & Countries

The Results for Development Institute has projects operating on the global, regional, and country level. R4D projects currently operate in over 50 countries globally throughout Africa and South and South-East Asia, with a limited presence in Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Board of Directors

Current members of the board include Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Former Minister of Finance and Economy of Nigeria), Roberto Danino (Former Prime Minister of Peru), K.Y. Amoako (President and founder of the African Center for Economic Transformation), Ozgur Karaosmanoglu (SVP of Raymond James & Associates), Dzingai Mutumbuka (Chair of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa), and Mark W. Hinkley (Former Executive Vice President of OdysseyRe), who chairs the board.

Principals

The team at R4D have extensive and diverse backgrounds in social and economic development, with decades of experience in senior positions in international institutions, think tanks, non-profit organizations and the private sector, including President Gina Lagomarsino, Nicholas Burnett, Marty Makinen, Nathaniel Heller and Kanika Bahl.