Along with pre-existing data collection efforts by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the national Bureau of Statistics surveys, the wealth of data in Lesotho to support policy and decision making is becoming very large with increased donor activities. Yet there are data gaps and challenges that arise due to the different survey objectives, data usage, data collection protocols, standards, quality, data access and confidentiality.

Driven by the need to conduct a rigorous impact evaluation to the rehabilitation of the health centers and Outpatient Departments in Lesotho under the Millennium Challenge cooperation efforts towards reducing poverty in the country, the research team has looked into the different data sources to assess gaps from an impact evaluation perspective. This paper presents an overview of pre-existing data sources (e.g. Demographics and Health Survey) and new proposed surveys (e.g. Patient Exit Surveys, Staff Satisfaction Survey and Impact Evaluation Multipurpose Survey). We present the purpose of each survey while highlighting some of the exploratory baseline analysis along with data quality issues and requirements in support of impact evaluation analysis models.

Methodological, ethical, and logistical challenges are highlighted to extract lessons learned and precautions while using and analyzing the data to inform decision makers.

Keywords: Impact Evaluation; Health; Lesotho; Randomization

Biography: Safaa Amer is a multi-lingual Senior Statistician and Project Director at NORC. Dr. Amer held several academic positions with the most recent being on the faculty list for the Survey Design & Data Analysis Graduate Certificate program at George Washington University. She has offered statistics and survey research lectures in Arabic, French, and English languages. Dr. Amer has an Economic and Political Sciences background with a special interest in international work, impact evaluation, human rights, and geographic information systems.