Abstract
At the time of this evaluation the Advance Social Marketing for Health in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had just ended its third year of implementation. Using qualitative evaluation methodologies, including conducting over 30 focus groups in four provinces, in-depth interviews and data review, the evaluation team found that the contractor PSI/ASF has run a successful project. It will achieve all but three of the goals set in 2009. Among the conclusions that the evaltors came to are the following: (1) PSI/ASF successfully integrates its development Theory of Change into the implementation of its project and this allows it to better track impact from their interventions; (2) PSI/ASF is doing a good job and will meet all but three of the project objectives but they could be doing a more dynamic marketing job given their comparative advantage of market knowledge and experience; (3) because they have been a market leader for so long, PSI/ASF has stagnated a little in their creativity and approach to marketing and has not exploited trends in technology for information sharing; and (4) PSI/ASF is distributing a good gamut of products that respond to identified health needs, if they add PPIUD and emergency contraceptive, they will have a very comprehensive product range. The recommendations outlined in the evaluation, given that the evaluation slipped by a year, that PSI/ASF will have only nine months of program implementation post-evaluation and that they have had their funding cut by USAID, will be difficult for PSI/ASF to achieve an extensive "mid-course correction" but there are still some improvement that can be made during this remaining time of the contract. (Excerpt, modified)