Initiatives to Improve Evaluation of USAID DG Assistance Programs: Strategic and Operational Research Agenda (SORA)
USAID has spent well over $9 billion over the past two decades to promote democratic governance in more than 100 countries. For the past few years, the annual investment in USAID democracy assistance programs has grown to about $1 billion dollars, and the median budget for such countries is now approximately $5 million. Given the growth of this relatively new field of development and the high foreign policy priority placed on democracy promotion, efforts are underway to establish a better analytical base on which to evaluate impact and make decisions regarding the type, mix, and sequencing of democracy and governance programs. The Strategic and Operational Research Agenda (SORA) is a comprehensive long-term effort being undertaken by the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, Office of Democracy and Governance (DCHA/DG) to measure the impact and effectiveness of USAID democracy and governance assistance programs. SORA will provide the information needed by policy makers and practitioners to make the best possible investments in supporting democratic development and good governance. SORA combines a number of approaches and investigative methods developed with the help of some of the leading experts in this field.
Under the SORA initiative, DCHA/DG supported two major research efforts:
Deepening Our Understanding of the Effects of US Foreign Assistance on Democracy Building
A prestigious U.S. academic team examined democratic patterns in 165 countries throughout the world from 1990 to 2004, finding that USAID democracy and governance (DG) assistance had a significant positive impact on democratic development. Specifically, the research concludes that, in any given year, $10 million of USAID DG funding produces about a five-fold increase in the amount of democratic change over what the average country would otherwise be expected to achieve.
Now Available:
 Quantitative study, conducted by researchers from Vanderbilt University and the University of Pittsburgh (PDF, 720MB)
More information, including the database and an earlier study, can be found at: http://www.pitt.edu/~politics/democracy/democracy.html.
 View a short summary of the research findings (PDF, 720KB)
Improving Democracy Assistance: Building Knowledge Through Evaluations and Research
The other major SORA initiative is a contract awarded to the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences to convene an expert commission which has produced a report with recommendations for improving USAID evaluations of DG programs. The report includes a range of specific practical and policy recommendations that can be implemented by USAID.
The report can be accessed at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12164.
View National Academies Report in Brief: Improving Democracy Assistance (PDF, 71KB)
Next Steps:
DCHA/DG will use the findings from the quantitative study and the recommendations in the NAS report as the basis for new initiatives to improve DG evaluation. The quantitative studies have already identified hypotheses to be tested and confirmed in country case studies and new program designs. The NAS report outlines new techniques for vastly improving the monitoring and evaluation of new DG projects, better methodologies for retrospective case studies, and other means of collecting and analyzing data that will allow USAID to more reliably gauge impact and improve strategic planning and programming decisions.
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