Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting, Learning & Training of Global Fund Primary Recipients & Sub-Recipients for the TB Program in South Africa

We were commissioned by Isibani Development Partners to conduct a 5-day Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Learning (MERL) training of staff from South Africa’s Global Fund TB program unit (as the primary recipient)and Sub-recipients (SR) with the goal of strengthening the capacity of Global Fund grant implementers to manage and deliver TB/HIV programs effectively and be accountable for the performance of the grant. The workshop was held at the Birchwood Hotel and OR Tambo Conference Centre, Boksburg in Johannesburg from 10-14 October 2022.  Participants included program managers, M&E officers, M&E managers, program managers, Quality improvement advisors and GIS officers. The SR organizations included Isibani Development Partners, Institute for Health Programs and Systems, Aquity Innovations, TB HIV care and Aurum Institute.

The 5-Dday training used a mixture of lecture and activity-based learning with participants & interactively sharing evidence and context-based approaches to the MERL of TB care program in South Africa. Pre-post-training assessments of participants’ knowledge and skill were conducted and daily session evaluations of the presentations and practical exercises were performed to clarify concepts and improve training delivery.

Participants used web-based platform to complete the assessment and evaluation, enabling real-time output of findings. The training covered application of key MERL concepts to the TB care cascade for both drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB and TB/HIV co-infection. Overall, the training was successful with the pre-post evaluation showing statistically significant improvement in knowledge and capacity to apply MERL concepts to improve TB care program data quality and data use by PR and SR workshop participants.

The way forward from the PMU was that SRs should immediately adopt and apply the MERL

concepts. Including using the concepts to update their MERL and data quality management plans

and that the project (PR and SRs) would convene to develop a collaborative learning agenda.