SARRAH impact evaluation: Phase 1 (2012): strengthen systems to effectively monitor and evaluate national strategic plans for HIV & AIDS and health

The hypothesis for this workstream is that the establishment of a giant data warehouse (NHIRD) integrating up-to-date information on all aspects of health and health systems in South Africa will considerably strengthen HIV and Health monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems, performance management and strategic planning at national and provincial levels, by ensuring data can be accessed by any stakeholder from anywhere in South Africa. The main assumption guiding the evaluation activities of this work stream is that NHIRD implementation was scheduled for completion around April 2012 and that it needs to be operational before full evaluation is possible. Therefore, only an implementation and output evaluation could be conducted in the first year. Outcomes were explored where possible but will be examined in more detail during 2014/15.