Five Steps Implementing Partners Can Take to Advance Program Sustainability
By: Beatrice Rogers, Jennifer Coates, Nina Yang, Holta Trandafili, and Bridget Lavin — PAST-Forward Team at Tufts University
How do we preserve development gains when funding ends?
This is one of the most confounding, yet important, questions for development funders and implementers. It’s a question we’ve been asking for decades and will likely be asking for years to come.
For more than 20 years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) and its predecessor, Food for Peace, have invested in promoting post-program sustainability among resilience food security activities (RFSAs). RFSAs are multisectoral programs that combine food aid with development interventions to strengthen food security and nutrition among vulnerable populations living in shock-prone environments.
The Assessment of BHA Sustainability Guidance for Food Security Activities 2015–2021, conducted by Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition with funding from BHA through IDEAL, has provided additional insight.
First, what factors are critical for promoting the sustainability of development programs?
This question was the subject of a seminal ex-post study (Rogers and Coates, 2015) that examined the factors that promoted post-program sustainability among activities supported by USAID Food for Peace implementers in Kenya, Honduras, Bolivia, and India. Ex-post studies occur after a program withdraws its original inputs (funding, materials, training, etc.) and measure whether the program’s activities and associated benefits continue for an extended period.
The 2015 study developed a recommended sustainability framework, among other program sustainability guidance, finding that three factors — resources, capacity, and motivation — must all be in place before activity closure for any services or behaviors to be sustained after the project ends. A fourth element, linkages to other stakeholders, needs to be considered in every case, and the motivation, capacity, and resources of these linkage partners must be assessed. In addition, the study found that a gradual transition from implementing partner-led to locally implemented activities is critical to achieving sustainability.
Following the 2015 study, BHA began requiring implementing partners to include explicit sustainability and exit plans in their RFSA applications and referred implementing partners to the study’s sustainability framework.
What have we learned in the years since BHA began implementing these requirements?
To answer this question, IDEAL began working with a team of researchers at Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition on the Assessment of BHA Sustainability Guidance for Food Security Activities 2015–2021. The goal of this study was to learn from the years of experience implementing USAID/BHA sustainability guidance to improve the effectiveness and usefulness of sustainability requirements and expectations by asking questions such as: To what extent have awardee sustainability and exit plans met the criteria for assuring sustainability? What has been the experience of RFSAs (also known as development food security activities (DFSAs)) as they seek to implement their sustainability and exit plans? How can the USAID/BHA guidance on sustainability and exit planning be improved for increased clarity and feasibility?
Among many other findings, we found that despite efforts to strengthen capacity and cohesion around sustainability and exit planning, awardee and BHA capacity gaps remain. While most application sustainability plans aligned well with request for application (RFA) guidance, the plans fell short of fully meeting the criteria necessary to assure long-term sustainability. Key informant interviews demonstrated that awardees desire concrete examples of promising or problematic sustainability and transition models and approaches, sustainability indicators that could be monitored during the life of the activity, and tips and tools for incorporating sustainability and exit planning into the activity theory of change.
We also offered recommendations for follow-up actions that BHA, implementing partners, and the wider humanitarian and development community can take to improve sustainability planning during RFSA application and implementation processes.
The full Assessment of BHA Sustainability Guidance report, including the study’s methodology and findings focused on sustainability guidance can be found on the FSN Network. The executive summary has also been translated into French, with the French version of the full report forthcoming.
What can implementing partners do to advance sustainability?
The Assessment of BHA Sustainability Guidance report is not just a resource but a call to action for organizations committed to sustainable impacts. While the study recommends actions that BHA could take, it also brought to light several steps for implementing partners to further the program sustainability agenda within their organizations, as well as collectively, such as:
1. Pursue Rigorous Research: We know that there is a particular evidence gap for studies that can identify the specific contextual factors affecting successful sustainability plans and the various sustainability approaches appropriate for different activities and technical sectors. Currently, there are relatively few rigorous ex-post studies in peer-reviewed and grey literature. To conduct rigorous ex-posts, implementing partners must make long-term commitments to plan research approaches and mobilize resources at the start of the program, years before the actual study will occur. Funding for ex-post evaluations can be difficult to secure. It may require substantial advocacy to prioritize and set aside existing funding within an implementing partner organization or to encourage external funders to commit financial support for ex-post research. Be prepared to explain the potential benefits and return on investment from ex-post research, and to identify why a particular program may be a good candidate for such research. In anticipation, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of ongoing programs should routinely include indicators for measuring progress to sustainability (e.g., local partner transition readiness, the strength of linkages between stakeholders, and volunteer capacity). Further, all implementing partners should conclude their projects in a way that retains all essential records (e.g., M&E data and sampling descriptions, activity location details, participant lists) for future ex-post analysis, thus preparing for any potential ex-post opportunity and funding that may arise.
2. Pursue Peer-Reviewed Publication: A limited number of ex-post studies have been conducted, but their results do not consistently appear in peer-reviewed literature. Inclusion in peer-reviewed journals improves permanent accessibility to a wide audience of interested stakeholders and the ability of future researchers and implementers to synthesize learning across studies and draw more generalizable conclusions that can inform policy and practice. We encourage implementing partners to aim for publication of their research when possible. Consider working with university partners, who are incentivized to co-author and publish and have considerable experience managing the process. But don’t be afraid to go it alone! Many journals welcome applied research submissions, including those that are sector-specific (e.g., health, education, food security) and others that address broader issues of global development. For example, when seeking to publish our own work, we look at existing articles that cover similar topics or with similar methods as our own and consider submitting our work to the journals where these articles are published. You also could consider using an online “journal recommender” tool. Many of the journal publishing houses and journal citation indices have online tools to help authors identify potential journals for publishing (e.g., Sage journal recommender, Wiley journal finder, Elsevier journal finder, and Web of Science master journal list and manuscript match tool).
3. Collaborate with Peers: Implementing partners have much to learn from each other. Promoting intentional cooperation and coordination among RFSAs in their operational regions can improve the effectiveness of sustainability planning across programs through sharing successful approaches and context-specific lessons learned. Implementing partners working in common geographic or technical areas might collaboratively plan sustainability-related activities or conduct joint training of M&E staff tasked with monitoring progress toward sustainability. Implementing partners could co-develop and test sustainability monitoring tools and processes, which would produce clearer and more comparable results. More broadly, implementing partners could organize or join sustainability communities of practice to share ideas and learning, identify opportunities for cooperation, and mutually enhance practice.
4. Strengthen Internal Capacity: In our study, we heard from many informants that the understanding of sustainability frameworks and factors was inconsistent within organizations, and knowledge of these factors continues to evolve. As evidence gaps are filled and learning is shared within and among organizations, implementing partners should deliver intentional capacity-strengthening activities to their staff that both increase knowledge and result in learning transfer within RFSA design and implementation teams. Different approaches are needed to assure continued motivation, capacity, resources, and (often) linkages for specific activities within technical sectors; program implementers and evaluators should be able to identify, based on current evidence, what is appropriate for a specific activity in a given context. While informal capacity-strengthening events like brown bags and lunch & learns serve as valuable entry points to identify potential champions and stimulate interest, they should not be the primary method for enhancing “need-to-know” staff skills due to non-mandatory attendance and the lack of rigorous knowledge assessment and follow-up. Such events, if used as the main strategy, can lead to uneven skill development across the team and are insufficient for delivering essential training that staff need to perform effectively. We advocate for a more institutionalized approach to learning about the sustainability framework and sustainability and exit planning. Capacity strengthening may include routine technical training, required reading for new staff, or the delivery of targeted training as new sustainability evidence becomes available. Periodic workshops may be an effective means of sharing information with and among implementing partners. Implementing partners should also work to weave sustainability learning into their formal management systems and processes for promoting learning uptake not only in individual programs but in their organizations at large.
5. Joint planning/localization: Local stakeholders should also be involved in the planning and implementation process throughout the life of a RFSA. Involving local partners early in the design stage assures that local context is considered and incorporated, including the risk of shocks, and supports the further identification of potential partners and of local systems and priorities, all of which are important to the foundation of an activity. Additionally, early involvement of local partners improves the sense of community ownership that can contribute to motivation (one of the key sustainability factors) and improve the likelihood that activities (and therefore impacts) will continue post-exit. One of the RFSAs in our study underscored that its intensive community visioning process during the refinement period identified what local communities wanted to sustain and felt capable of sustaining.
As we move forward, let us remember that the goal of development programs is not just to create immediate impact but to foster enduring, positive change that lives beyond the lifespan of any single program or funding cycle and that planning for sustainability is central to achieving that goal.
Advancing the program sustainability agenda is an ongoing and collaborative effort. It’s an inquiry that digs deep into the core of development practice and lacks simple answers. It demands continuous learning, adaptation, and the willingness to share knowledge and experiences.
Do you have an example of how your organization has committed to this crucial aspect of development work? We’d love to hear about it! Please share your stories and insights to programsustainability@tufts.edu.
