Abstract
The Comprehensive Partnership between the United States and Indonesia identifies the creation of education partnerships as a top priority. In furtherance of this objective, USAID/Indonesia launched the University Partnerships (UP) program in December 2009 to help improve the quality and relevance of higher education in Indonesia. This evaluation of the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth partnership awards was the third of four sets of evaluations of the partnerships. The topics of the four partnerships evaluated were: (1) UP#5 -- adaptation to climate risk in Indonesia; (2) UP#6 -- strengthening health systems in Indonesia: (3) UP#7 -- Indonesian marine biotechnology; and (4) UP#8 -- supporting Indonesian geothermal education capacity building. The purposes of the evaluation were to: (1) assess the extent of the knowledge and skills transfer that has occurred between the lead U.S. university and the Indonesian partners as subawardees; (2) determine the extent or level of the capacity building that has taken place within the partnerships; (3) assess the effectiveness of the project interventions between the partners to improve teaching and research services; (4) assess whether the projects are sustainable and have achieved project objectives; (5) obtain lessons learned from the partnerships that can be applied to the future direction of the UP program; and 6) demonstrate how institutions have achieved measurable improvements in the quality and relevance of their teaching and research. The evaluation team was asked to address the following five questions: (1) what are the specific knowledge and skills and the institutional capacity building that have occurred as a result of the partnership; (2) what were the project interventions that were effective between the participating universities; (3) what unintended results have occurred; (4) what are the lessons learned from the partnership that may be replicated in future programs; and (5) what are the strengths and weaknesses of the partnerships? Specific evaluation findings, conclusions and recommendations are provided with detailed analysis for each evaluation question. (Excerpt, modified)