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Evidence library

Case studies and evaluations

Eight programme evaluations written in peer-review structure: design, sample, findings with confidence intervals, cost-effectiveness, implementing partners and a citable reference for each.

8 of 8 studies shown.

Peer-reviewedWASH & water healthKenya2021–2024

Solar-powered water systems and diarrhoeal disease in arid districts

Installation of solar-powered boreholes with community maintenance enterprises across four arid sub-counties, evaluated against staggered rollout controls.

SDG 3SDG 6SDG 13

−55.1%

Diarrhoea incidence

−107 min/day

Collection time

USD 62

Cost per person reached

Design

Stepped-wedge cluster design with difference-in-differences estimation

Sample

48 clusters · 96,400 residents · 24-month follow-up

Principal findings

  • Acute watery diarrhoea incidence in children under five fell 55.1% (95% CI ±6.2).
  • Household water collection time fell from 148 to 41 minutes per day.
  • Community maintenance entities reached operational cost recovery at month 18.

Implementing partners

Ministry of HealthCounty water departmentsNational statistics office

Citation

AAHRED Evaluation Series ES-11 (2024). Reference CS-01. DOI 10.5281/aahred.es.11.

Registered trialEconomic empowermentKenya, Uganda2020–2024

Youth enterprise incubation and 24-month firm survival

Incubation, mentorship and soft-loan linkage for graduates and school leavers, benchmarked against waitlisted applicants.

SDG 1SDG 8SDG 10

+27 pts

Survival at 24m

+42%

Median revenue

5.8:1

Benefit–cost ratio

Design

Randomised encouragement design with administrative tax-registry linkage

Sample

5,240 participants · 1,880 enterprises tracked

Principal findings

  • 68% of incubated enterprises still trading at 24 months versus 41% in the comparison arm.
  • Average 3.1 additional jobs created per surviving enterprise.
  • Loan portfolio repayment rate of 91% across four cohorts.
Peer-reviewedSurveillance & dataMulti-country2020–2025

Event-based surveillance and detection-to-notification intervals

Deployment of interoperable registries and event-based alerting with ministry-owned data pipelines and weekly completeness auditing.

SDG 3SDG 17

−5.7 days

Notification interval

+47 pts

Completeness

7.4:1

Benefit–cost ratio

Design

Interrupted time-series across 318 reporting facilities

Sample

318 facilities · 61 districts · 6 countries

Principal findings

  • Median detection-to-notification interval fell from 9.1 to 3.4 days.
  • Weekly reporting completeness rose from 41% to 88%.
  • Cost per person under surveillance of USD 0.42 per year.
External evaluationGender & inclusionTanzania2021–2024

Women's financial access and household nutrition expenditure

Micro-credit linkage, business advisory and leadership pathways for women-led enterprises and informal savings groups.

SDG 1SDG 2SDG 5SDG 8

+27%

Nutrition spend

+22 pts

Leadership share

6.2:1

Benefit–cost ratio

Design

Propensity-score matched cohort with savings-group administrative data

Sample

3,900 women · 260 savings groups

Principal findings

  • Nutrition and hygiene expenditure rose 27% in participating households.
  • Women held 44% of enterprise leadership positions by endline.
  • Group savings mobilisation multiple of 4.6x initial capitalisation.
External evaluationNutrition & child healthEthiopia, Somalia2022–2025

Integrated nutrition screening in drought-affected pastoralist districts

Non-invasive field screening, referral pathways and climate-shock livelihood support integrated in a single delivery platform.

SDG 2SDG 3SDG 13

−26.2%

Stunting

+41 pts

Referral completion

3.6m

DALYs averted

Design

Quasi-experimental with anthropometric panel surveys

Sample

41,700 children screened · 18 districts

Principal findings

  • Stunting prevalence in programme districts fell 26.2% (95% CI ±2.7).
  • Referral completion within seven days improved from 38% to 79%.
  • Screening cost of USD 1.90 per child per round.
Working paperPolicy & governanceEast African Community2023–2025

Regulatory audit of sanitation mandates and enforcement outcomes

Systematic audit of sanitation mandates, penalty frameworks and enforcement capacity across member-state authorities.

SDG 6SDG 16

19

Policies informed

9.1:1

Benefit–cost ratio

21

Jurisdictions

Design

Comparative statutory audit with enforcement-pipeline tracing

Sample

37 statutory instruments · 21 authorities

Principal findings

  • 19 national or sub-national policies amended or informed by audit findings.
  • Enforcement action rates rose in 12 of 21 audited jurisdictions.
  • Audit cost of USD 0.19 per capita in the audited jurisdiction.
Peer-reviewedDigital healthRwanda, Zambia2022–2025

Health information exchange interoperability in ministry systems

Standards-based registry harmonisation and role-based access governance implemented inside ministry infrastructure.

SDG 3SDG 9SDG 17

−9.6 pts

Duplicate records

14

Registries linked

4.1m

Records harmonised

Design

Implementation study with data-quality auditing

Sample

14 registries · 4.1m records harmonised

Principal findings

  • Duplicate record rate reduced from 11.4% to 1.8% after deterministic matching.
  • Median query response time for district dashboards under 900 ms.
  • All exchanges operate under ministry data ownership and audit-trail retention.
External evaluationClimate & resilienceSomalia, South Sudan2021–2024

Climate-resilient livelihoods after consecutive failed rain seasons

Market-driven livelihood recovery paired with emergency WASH in displacement-affected and pastoralist communities.

SDG 1SDG 8SDG 13

−11 months

Recovery time

−34%

Coping index

22,300

Households

Design

Panel study with composite vulnerability index stratification

Sample

22,300 households · 9 districts

Principal findings

  • Household income recovery to pre-shock levels achieved 11 months earlier than comparison districts.
  • Negative coping strategy index reduced by 34%.
  • Water-point functionality sustained above 92% through the dry season.

Research integrity

How these studies are produced and reviewed

Every study is registered with a protocol and pre-analysis plan before data collection, reviewed by the Scientific & Ethics Review Board, and published with its limitations stated.

  • Protocols and pre-analysis plans are registered before enrolment or data extraction begins.
  • Independent evaluators are contracted for external evaluations and report to the Programme Quality Committee.
  • Effect sizes are published with confidence intervals; null and negative results are published alongside positive ones.
  • De-identified analysis datasets are available to accredited researchers under a data-sharing agreement.
Field technician conducting water quality testing in a laboratory

Co-delivery

Institutions we produce evidence with

Sovereign & regional bodies

  • Ministries of Health
  • National Public Health Institutes
  • Regional economic communities
  • National statistics offices
  • County & sub-national governments

Multilateral & development finance

  • UN technical agencies
  • Development finance institutions
  • Global health financing mechanisms
  • Regional development banks
  • Humanitarian pooled funds

Academic & research

  • African universities & schools of public health
  • International research consortia
  • Health economics institutes
  • Data science and geospatial labs
  • Clinical trial networks

Philanthropy & private sector

  • Family foundations & endowments
  • Corporate social investment funds
  • Impact investors & blended finance vehicles
  • Technology and connectivity partners
  • Diaspora giving circles

Tripartite operating model

Think tank, implementation partner and governance/MEL advisory in one institution

Evidence generation translates into execution and delivery, which is in turn evaluated and governed — closing the loop between research, policy design, operations and accountability. Each arm is independently staffed and independently reported, so evaluation is never marked by the team that delivered the work.

Pillar 1

Think Tank & Applied Research Arm

Evidence generation, policy analytics and horizon scanning

  • Translational policy research turning epidemiological, macroeconomic and spatial data into legislative roadmaps and ministerial briefs.
  • Econometric and micro-simulation modelling: cost-benefit analysis, UHC fiscal space assessment and predictive shock modelling.
  • Policy harmonisation with AU Agenda 2063, the Abuja Declaration, the Maputo Plan of Action and Africa CDC frameworks.
  • Ethics, bioethics and data sovereignty protocols safeguarding indigenous health data, genomic assets and vulnerable population registries.
Core outputs
Ministerial briefs, costed policy options, national investment cases, peer-reviewed papers and open data dictionaries.
Methods & instruments
Micro-simulation, spatial econometrics, cost-benefit and fiscal-space modelling, horizon scanning and political-economy analysis.
Delivery capacity
42 researchers, economists and modellers across epidemiology, health financing, GIS and bioethics.
Pillar 2

Implementation & Programme Delivery Arm

Technical assistance, direct execution and capacity building

  • Direct programme rollout and pilot scalability across maternal-child health, cross-border surveillance, nutrition hubs and safety nets.
  • Embedded technical assistance seconding senior advisors, health economists and data architects into line ministries and RECs.
  • SOP development codifying clinical pathways, MISP emergency response and multi-agency coordination manuals.
  • Institutional capacity building for decentralised civil servants, local councils and community health networks.
Core outputs
Programme designs, SOP libraries, service-delivery pilots, supply and referral pathways, trained frontline cadres.
Methods & instruments
Embedded technical assistance, results-based grant execution, MISP emergency response, sub-award management and procurement support.
Delivery capacity
Field teams across 14 countries with surge deployment inside 72 hours for outbreak and displacement events.
Pillar 3

MEL & Governance Advisory

Accountability, systems strengthening and oversight

  • Third-party monitoring and independent verification of multilateral programmes in high-risk and cross-border corridors.
  • Impact evaluation using RCTs, difference-in-differences and mixed-method process evaluation to measure attribution and ROI.
  • Digital MEL infrastructure: mobile-first pipelines, geospatial dashboards and automated anomaly detection against data falsification.
  • Public financial management and governance audits covering procurement integrity and expenditure tracking.
Core outputs
Independent verification reports, impact evaluations, governance and PFM audits, live MEL dashboards.
Methods & instruments
RCTs, difference-in-differences, mixed-method process evaluation, third-party monitoring and anomaly detection analytics.
Delivery capacity
Evaluation unit operating to OECD-DAC criteria with a firewalled reporting line to the Board Audit Committee.

Programmatic lifecycle

01

Diagnose

Burden, equity and fiscal-space diagnostics using national datasets, geospatial layers and community consultation.

02

Design

Costed intervention design with theory of change, indicator framework and explicit assumptions on attribution.

03

Pilot

Controlled implementation with embedded measurement to test feasibility, unit economics and delivery risk.

04

Scale

Government-owned scale-up with SOPs, workforce training, procurement pathways and digital reporting rails.

05

Evaluate

Independent evaluation, public financial audit and open publication of results — including null findings.

Engagement matrix

Multi-level institutional engagement

Who AAHRED works with at each level of governance, what it delivers there, the legal instruments used and the cadence of reporting back to partners.

Governance levelCore institutional clientsKey service offeringsEngagement instrumentsReporting cadence
Continental & MultilateralAfrican Union, Africa CDC, UNECA, WHO AFRO, World Bank, Global FundStrategic framework development, regional public goods governance, cross-border treaty alignment and macro-level grant evaluation.Framework agreements, technical secretariats, joint working groupsMulti-year (3–5 yrs)
Regional Economic CommunitiesEAC, IGAD, ECOWAS, SADCSurveillance harmonisation, cross-border migration protocols and trade-related biosecurity standards.Protocol harmonisation compacts, corridor surveillance MOUsAnnual review cycles
National GovernmentsMinistries of Health, Finance, Gender/Social Protection and AgriculturePolicy formulation, UHC benefit package design, fiscal space analysis and embedded ministerial technical assistance.Embedded advisory placements, costed national plans, MoUsBudget-cycle aligned
Sub-National & Local GovernanceCounty and district health directorates, municipalities, local councilsDecentralised planning, budget execution tracking, frontline worker training and community engagement architecture.County work plans, community compacts, frontline training grantsQuarterly

Closing the policy-to-execution gap

Unlike academic think tanks producing non-operational papers, or NGOs executing without rigorous evaluation, AAHRED unifies theoretical rigour with frontline delivery.

End-to-end programmatic lifecycle

Empirical research → policy drafting → pilot implementation → nationwide scale-up → independent impact evaluation.

South-led contextualisation

Endogenous African data models accounting for informal economies, pastoralist mobility and customary governance systems overlooked by external consultancies.

Evaluation standards

OECD-DAC criteria

Financial reporting

IFRS + 2 CFR 200

Data protection

GDPR / national DPAs

Safeguarding

PSEAH policy, independent channel