Evaluation of Family Planning Program Performance: A Critical Review

Family Planning Program Evaluation is not a well-developed art, much less an exact science. The evaluation of the performance of such programs has received a good deal of attention but the methodologies are still controversial and the results inconclusive. This is due to a wide variety of constraints, not all of which are technical, and most of which are not unique to family planning. The prospects for improvement of FPPE depend, to a great extent, on overcoming these constraints.

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Population reports. Series J: Family planning programs

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Current attention to increasing access to family planning has increased focus on ensuring that policy, programming and practice are “evidence-based.” Given the rich history of research in the family planning field, this paper set out to answer when, what types and how evidence is used in decision-making related to family planning. Views of what constitutes evidence need to be more aligned, with researchers understanding that “evidence-based” does not only mean “research evidence-based” to decision-makers and with decisionmakers understanding the value of robust research evidence among other evidence they consider when making decisions. Decision-makers appreciate research but it is only one factor they take into consideration - and may not be the most influential factor in their decision-making. Research findings tend to be filtered through decision-makers’ values and beliefs in addition to political, economic and social considerations. Examples from family planning reinforce the persistence of other factors affecting decision-making. A number of promising interventions exist to increase how research evidence, vis a vis other factors, can inform decision-making. Expecting policy or program change from single studies is mostly unrealistic, but examples from decades of family planning programming shown in this paper illustrate the incremental influence of evidence from research on family planning policies and programs.

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Cooperative Agreement HRN-A-00-97-00018-00. The opinions expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID. The working papers in this series are produced by the MEASURE Evaluation Project in order to speed the dissemination of information from research studies. Most working papers currently are under review or are awaiting journal publication at a later date. Reprints of published papers are substituted for preliminary versions as they become available. The working papers are distributed as received from the authors. Adjustments are made to a standard format with no further editing. A listing and copies of working papers published to date may be obtained from the MEASURE

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