PERL supported the Government of Nigeria (at federal, state, and local levels) reform core governance processes and ensured that the improvements lead to an enhanced delivery of public goods and services. The programme worked at the federal/national level with Kaduna, Kano, and Jigawa as partner states. In the regional hubs in the southeast and southwest, it facilitated the sharing of good practices between states. In the northeast, it supported government and non-government partners in the states of Borno and Yobe with the coordination of recovery efforts. Reaching over 70% of local government areas in over 35 states, the programme resulted in an increase in the state’s health budget from 7.5% to 11.57%; a reduction in average turnaround time for processing and delivering drug orders; and a 20% increase in uptake of health services at night.
We conducted a mid-term and an annual review to provide an independent assessment of –
(a) How the programme had progressed against the original goals set out in the business case
(b) The achievements, results, and learnings from implementing the PDIA approach
(c) How PERL moved from lots of small bets to a smaller number of bigger bets
The assignment aimed at determining the areas requiring improvement, assessing opportunity for improving performance, and advising DFID Nigeria for future programming models which support programme complementarity across the entire fourth generation portfolio.