1000 Days Fund, Indonesia-based NGO, develops Indicator Technical Guide to support M&E of their stunting reduction programs
Monitoring and evaluating performance of 1000 Days Fund programming provides actionable feedback to strengthen program implementation and support advocacy efforts
What was the problem that was being solved?
The 1000 Days Fund is an Indonesia-based NGO, created as a bold approach to invent and test innovative, cost-effective solutions to help end stunting, a condition that affects one in three children in Indonesia. The fund is committed to improving maternal and newborn health outcomes for the poorest and most marginalized, and partners with governments to build capacity, work closely with communities to deliver tools, train Community Health Workers (CHWs), and advocate for national and grassroots policy change to address the root causes of stunting.
The team at 1000 Days Fund reached out to Exemplars with a request for technical guidance to support their efforts to develop an Indicator Technical Guide that would assist their program monitoring and evaluation. The key areas of focus included capacity building on stunting education for health workers and informal community health workers, distribution of “Smart Charts” (i.e., growth charts) as a tool for health workers to educate caregivers about stunting, and project visits to provide technical support to health workers. The team at 1000 Days Fund established key performance indicators and were testing several approaches for tracking these metrics. The key performance indicators would provide quality and actionable feedback on the trainings they delivered, the tools they deployed, and the overall behavior change as a result of program implementation. To support their efforts, the team at 1000 Days Fund sought Exemplars support with reviewing its list of key performance indicators and with guidance on how to package tracked data for the fund’s own insights, as well as to share with donors and government counterparts.
How did Exemplars support?
Exemplars in Global Health conducted an in-depth review of the 1000 Days Fund Indicator Table and Center of Excellence Tracking Tool ahead of the fund’s scale-up of the model. Key high-level recommendations included ensuring indicators accounted for the progression of guidance included in the smart chart training across three key stages: knowledge, awareness/attitude, and behavior. The team also provided detailed feedback on each indicator, emphasizing the importance of how, at what cadence, and over what time period data would be collected, as well as each metric’s relative importance, in case not all data could be collected. Finally, the Exemplars in Global Health team shared technical documents from Peru’s “Control de Crecimiento y Desarollo” (CRED), as both point of reference and example of a successful growth monitoring program.
HOW DO WE SEE THIS DRIVING TO IMPACT?
In response to this feedback, the 1000 Days Fund streamlined their indicator list, identifying efficiencies that allowed for more time to engage in the communities they serve. They also revised their key performance indicator dashboard to improve ongoing monitoring and evaluation.
In parallel, the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN) approved budget to produce eight million smart charts for distribution in 2022-2023 (in addition to the two million the 1000 Days Fund is already producing and distributing). Each smart chart has a unique QR code, which allows the monitoring and evaluation team from the 1000 Days Fund to track and trace smart charts across islands and districts. "We know where every smart chart is," said Sisi Arawinda, Deputy Director of the 1000 Days Fund. "When we first started working on rural and remote islands, we were installing the growth charts directly in the homes, going door-to-door and providing in-home counseling. We quickly learned that the community health workers could install five times as many growth charts as we could. They had the drive and passion, they just needed a tool to convey messages." As of February 2023, the 1000 Days Fund, in partnership with the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN) and the Ministry of Health has trained over 50,000 CHWs using cost-effective, timely, and engaging learning approaches, incorporating digital and face-to-face components. Additionally, the 1000 Days Fund smart charts have been distributed to 400,000 households in 30 provinces, primarily in the poorest and most vulnerable regions of Indonesia. |
We’ve worked hard to track indicators as a team and are continually grateful to you for taking the time to help set the tone for KPIs. You took us to the next level.
- Zack Petersen, Lead Strategist, 1000 Days Fund
I wanted to let you know how much your time with the team has bolstered and improved our KPIs and confidence. We are forever grateful. The guidance you have provided us allows us to deliver to donors on a consistent basis and with that we have continued to expand programs so we can train more community health workers. Our real fight now is to convince more donors, and the public at large, to fund stunting prevention programs, instead of throwing food at the problem... taking a curative approach.
- Zack Petersen, Lead Strategist, 1000 Days Fund