External Verification for Zambia SFH Reconcilion Payment

2017
2018
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Zambia

In 2014, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded PSI/SFH a grant titled “Efficient, effective, and innovative male circumcision service delivery in Zambia” to scale up male circumcision coverage in Zambia, from January 2015 to March 2017. The grant was an output-based investing scheme which remunerated SFH for each male circumcision performed, in addition to a bonus for male circumcision clients aged 15-29 years. The quality of programmatic data reported by PSI/SFH was a critical component of the Foundation’s performance-based funding model. After a no-cost extension, the grant ended in July 2017. Building on initial verification conducted by EHG for January to September 2015, the Foundation again commissioned EHG to verify October 2015 to July 2017 programmatic data. The specific objectives of the programmatic data verification are to:

• Verify reported male circumcisions and adverse events

• Document the M&E systems and data flow as well as internal auditing systems

• Provide recommendations for improving SFH M&E systems, internal auditing systems, and internal verification practices

As in the first verification carried out by EHG (Q1-Q3/2015), this second verification included two key activities:

1. A data quality audit (DQA) that entailed recounting the quantity of MC services provided by all MC sites and comparing the recounted figures to reports submitted to the Foundation by SFH.

2. A client follow-up survey (CFS) to determine whether contacted clients could provide enough information to make it plausible that the procedure took place at a specific MC site and time.