Measurement, Learning & Evaluation (MLE) Project – Knowledge Management

Overview

The Measurement, Learning & Evaluation (MLE) Project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, is the evaluation component of the Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (Urban RH Initiative).The Knowledge Management (KM) team of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs (JHU∙CCP) facilitates knowledge sharing; documents and disseminates best practices about successful urban family planning interventions; and ensures that data and information are available to inform reproductive health and family planning (RH/FP) programming at the local, country, regional and global levels for the MLE Project.

MLE is implemented in partnership with the University of North Carolina’s Carolina Population Center [6], the African Population and Health Research Center [6] and the International Center for Research on Women [6].

Accomplishments

An initial assessment of the information needs of the four country consortia (CC) teams in India, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal provided insight into the redesign of the MLE website (www.urbanreproductivehealth.org), first launched in February 2011 and upgraded in August 2012. JHU∙CCP made significant strides to advance the knowledge management efforts of MLE, including:

• Redesigning, launching, maintaining and upgrading the MLE website [6] with up-to-date and relevant urban reproductive health news, events, publications, tools and resources. Since the launch of the new MLE project website on 1 February 2011, the site had more than 48,000 visits, of which 36,267 were unique visitors, and over 102,800 page views loaded by a browser (as of July 2012).
• Promoting the MLE website and project activities through social media outlets, a monthly eNewsletter [6] and at relevant conferences and events, including the International Family Planning Conference in Dakar, Senegal. Follow us on Twitter @UrbanRH [7], Like us on Facebook at Urban Reproductive Health [7] and watch our latest videos on YouTube at MLE Project [6].
• Supporting a 1-day workshop on M&E in French after the International Family Planning Conference in Dakar, Senegal.
• Building the Urban RH Gateway [6] - a fast and user-friendly search engine that provides health professionals access to relevant and reliable information on urban reproductive health, as well as evaluation and assessment methodologies related to family planning. The Gateway currently searched 122 relevant websites.
• Syndicating content from other Urban RH Initiative partner websites.
• Coordinating and collaborating with MLE and country consortia teams in India, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal the India CC team to create fact sheets on key family planning findings from the baseline survey reports. MLE Project Publications can be found here [6].
• Synthesizing baseline household survey reports, DHS analyses, journal articles and research studies into research briefs. Our catalog of project publications [6] organizes the pieces by country and publication type.
• Designing and developing the eToolkit called Measuring Success Toolkit: Using Data for Health Program Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation [6].
• Producing a 7-minute multimedia advocacy video entitled Urban Family Planning: Lives Changed [6].
• Establishing nine online urban reproductive health communities of practice (CoPs) on the Implementing Best Practices/Knowledge Gateway (IBP/KG), including managing and participating in the online planning COP for the annual 2012 Urban RH Initiative meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.
• Collaborating with MLE, the Gates Institute other cooperating agencies and donors and subject matter experts to plan and execute a series of online discussion forums in English and French entitled On the Road to Dakar: Moving the Family Planning Agenda Forward.