EnCompass supports the MacArthur Foundation’s Big Bet On Nigeria as the Evaluation and Learning Partner, facilitating theory of change development, in collaboration with the foundation, and measuring progress toward intended outcomes and impacts. On Nigeria aims to assist Nigerian-led efforts to reduce corruption by strengthening accountability, transparency, and participation. The strategy is multilayered, with work addressing corruption in the electricity and education sectors, as well as systems-level work focused on criminal justice, media and journalism, elections, and behavior change initiatives with the entertainment sector and faith-based communities.
Because corruption is a complex and ever-evolving phenomenon, EnCompass draws on systems-thinking approaches to collect and synthesize data from a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative sources, as well as secondary sources such as media monitoring. In support of the MacArthur Foundation’s design/build strategy, EnCompass demonstrates a utilization-focused approach by facilitating iterative learning around results. As part of this process, the team co-creates recommendations with the MacArthur Foundation and stakeholders, and regularly adjusts the theory of change and its underlying assumptions based on evaluation results.
On Nigeria includes 112 grants, supporting anticorruption activities in a complex operating environment. The size and complexity of On Nigeria require strong adaptive management to align evaluation and learning activities with the anticipated outcomes in each area and at the national level. In May 2019, EnCompass’ Evaluation and Learning team published an initial evaluation report, synthesizing data on baselines, early progress, and the changing landscape.
Under a separate contract, EnCompass provides grant-level technical assistance for monitoring and evaluation to On Nigeria’s grantees.