Data Collection for the Transparency for Development Project in Tanzania

Transparency for Development (T4D) is a project led jointly by the Harvard Kennedy School and the Results for Development Institute- designed to assess whether well-designed Transparency and accountability (T/A) interventions improve maternal, neonatal, and child health (MNCH) outcomes and under what conditions. The overriding goal is to generate actionable evidence for practitioners, researchers, and other stakeholders working to improve health, accountability, and citizen participation. As part of the project, T4D required EDI to collect reliable, high-quality data from villages affected by the intervention and comparison villages selected by T4D as part of the research design.

Description of the Intervention
The T4D project involves 200 communities in two regions in Tanzania. Project regions were selected based on a number of criteria including (but not limited to): low coverage rates on key maternal, neonatal, and child health (MNCH) indicators (relative to other Tanzanian regions), limited confounding interventions, as well as convenience for ongoing monitoring and evaluation. The intervention involves the production of a community scorecard presenting data on the coverage and uptake of important maternal and newborn health services and interventions in the community, and regular, monthly facilitated discussions with community members about the scorecard results, barriers to improving key MNCH indicators, and the development of a social action plan to address identified barriers.

Research Strategy and Data Collection Options
The research strategy T4D employs to evaluate the impact of the intervention is a randomised controlled trial (RCT). The 200 communities will be randomised into two groups: the treatment group which will receive the intervention and the control group which will not receive the intervention during the period of this study. Impacts will be assessed by comparing health-related outcomes between the treatment and control communities.

View the full baseline report here