Comparing Costs: Methods for and Examples of Analyzing Activity Cost Data to Build Evidence

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Information about the cost of developing and implementing education interventions is essential for sustaining and scaling up successful interventions and for informing decision-making at USAID and its partners throughout the Program Cycle. Measuring, reporting on, and analyzing the cost of USAID interventions benefits implementing partners, Missions, and most importantly, our beneficiaries.
Cost data analysis plays a key role in contributing to a more equitable world. In particular, improved visibility into the cost details of different intervention components helps stakeholders plan, budget, and manage activities to identify the least costly activity models with the greatest impact on key outcomes. This is especially relevant when we work with marginalized populations. We know it is more expensive to improve outcomes for marginalized learners, but by how much? Cost data can help us appropriately fund interventions to reach and be effective for learners affected by crisis and conflict, learners with disabilities, out-of-school learners, and other disadvantaged populations
Additionally, knowing the details of and required resources for an activity implementation is critical to sustaining effective interventions. Having accurate data on the cost of specific activity components within a specific context helps local governments to effectively plan to take over and sustain activities from donors and implementers.
Over the past few years, USAID's Center for Education has invested in systematically collecting and analyzing cost data for common education interventions. This panel will present the approach to cost measurement developed by Center for Education, showcase the results of a new cross-country cost study of basic education programs commissioned by the Center for Education, and show results of a cross-country study of costs of coaching implemented in crisis and conflict-affected settings.
The first presentation will focus on the findings of a cross-country cost analysis study. The main objective of this study is to examine regional variations in the costs of common inputs for teacher training, coaching, production of teaching and learning materials, and other common education interventions. This study uses USAID’s Cost Analysis Guidance to conduct cost-economy, cost-efficiency, and cost-effectiveness analyses. This study contributes to the evidence base on education programming and specifically helps stakeholders to better understand how costs of activity components are affected by the context in which they are implemented.
The second presentation shares the findings of a cross-country study on teacher professional development in crisis settings. This cost-effectiveness analysis also employs USAID’s analysis guidance and demonstrates how cost analysis can inform the conversation about education activity best practices.
A particular focus of this panel will be to examine the impact of fragility on costs of delivering teacher training and coaching. The results of these studies will help inform new activity design and decision-making around adaptive management of education program.
The third presentation unpacks how these cross-country studies were possible; namely, through the use of standardized data collection and analysis methods. This presentation will unpack the methodological challenges of cross-country comparative analyses and the benefits of conducting these analyses in spite of the challenges.

Sub Unit

• Monitoring and Evaluation SIG

Chair

• Elena Walls, USAID

Individual Presentations

• Costs in Context: Analysis of Cost Data in Eight USAID-funded Education Activities - Emma Venetis, EnCompass LLC

• Cost Data as Key Evidence: Teacher Professional Development in Crisis Settings - Kayla Hoyer, IRC

• Building a Collective Approach: Standardized Cost Analysis Methods for Comparable Evidence - Christine Harris-Van Keuren, Salt Analytics