Swapnil Shekhar Designation: Director Evaluations and Chief Operating Officer, Sambodhi Research & Communications Pvt. Ltd. Education Degree Course Attended Institution Year of Passing Post Graduate Diploma in Forest IIFM, Bhopal. 2000 Management Graduation in Zoology Magadh University, Patna 1997 Employment Record Period Organization Designation May 2006 onwards Sambodhi Research and Communications Director Evaluations and Chief Operating Officer Feb 2001 to May 2006 ORG Centre for Social Research Manager, Client Service May 2000 to Feb 2001 Rajiv Gandhi Mission for Watershed Task Manager Management, MP Consultancy & Research Experience as Principal Investigator/Key Team Member Bihar Evaluation of Social Franchising and Telemedicine (BEST) The BEST Project is an evaluation of the Gates Foundation-funded Private Provider Project in Bihar. The Private Provider Project, which will be implemented by World Health Partners (WHP), is an innovative project that employs a social franchising model of delivery of care combined with a telemedicine platform. This evaluation, a RCT, is being implemented by a collaboration of researchers from Sambodhi Research & Communications, Duke, Stanford, University College London and the World Bank. This collaboration is formed in response to the urgent need for rigorous impact evaluation studies in the health sector that can provide timely empirical evidence to guide policy makers in various states in India enables a flexible collaboration that is capable of drawing upon additional high quality expertise globally from researchers and implementation institutions in response to specific needs of the evaluation. BEST has several parts household surveys, provider surveys, cost effectiveness analysis and network analysis. Evaluating Impact of supply and demand side strategies for improving maternal and child heath in India (3ie) The states Gujarat and Karnataka are developing and implementing new voucher programs to make private sector OB/GYN providers accessible to the rural poor - focusing on increasing deliveries in medical facilities in particular. The purpose of this assignment is to evaluate the effectiveness of existing voucher programs in reproductive health and to learn about the effectiveness of additional rewards for high quality care. There are two types of evaluations that the proposed study is undertaking using a retrospective evaluation using regression discontinuity design and experimental evaluation design. End Line Evaluation of Enterprise Center Component of CAIRN- IFC Linkage Programme, Barmer (Rajasthan), INDIA
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, promotes sustainable private sector investments in developing countries as a way to reduce poverty and improve people's lives. At the start of Cirn-IFC Linkage Programme objectives were set for the Enterprise Centre. The endline evaluation assessed the performance of the Enterprise Centre (EC) against its targets, including detailed analysis of the activities carried out by International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Career Development (ICECD), their impact on local community, and lessons learnt. Quasi Experimental design with propensity score matching was used as the methodology for this assessment. Logframe Baseline survey for the DFID-supported poorest areas civil society programme (IFIRST) DFID India started Phase 2 of PACS as a follow up to the first phase of the Poorest Areas Civil Society programme, which ended in April 2008. PACS Phase 2 (2009-2014) is being implemented in 120 districts across 7 states namely Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal. The specific objectives of the assignment entailed fine-tuning of the logframe indicators and developing estimates for the finalized logframe indicators. This was a cross-sectional design using mixed methods. Along with quantitative household survey, Vignettes was extensively used to assess tacit issues like discrimination. Impact Assessment of Western Orissa Rural Livelihoods Project Western Orissa Rural Livelihoods Project (WORLP) is a ten-year project implemented by the Orissa Watershed Development Mission (OWDM) of Government of Orissa (GoO) and funded by the UK s Department for International Development with the purpose of ensuring Sustainable Livelihoods, particularly for the poorest, promoted in 4 districts in replicable ways by 2010. In the ninth year of its implementation, an comprehensive impact assessment was conducted to assess determine direct and indirect impacts and assess the effectiveness of the complete range of WORLP s interventions and institutions on the resources, lives and livelihoods of its target communities, especially the poorest. The study commented on on-going priorities for remaining project life, and make suggestions for any change to these using a quasi-experimental difference in difference method along with propensity score matching. Impact Assessment of Programme Activities under Orissa Tribal Empowerment and Livelihood programme (OTELP) The Orissa Tribal Empowerment and Livelihood Programme (OTELP) is operational in the seven predominantly tribal districts of Orissa since 2004. The objective of the programme is to ensure that the livelihoods and food security of the poor tribal households are sustainably improved through promoting a more efficient, equitable, self-managed and sustainable exploitation of natural resources available though off farm and non-farm enterprise development. The programme is supported by DFID, IFAD and WFP as external supporters and Government of Orissa as counterpart funder. With the micro-watershed as the basic development unit, in its first phase, the programme targeted 396 villages across 136 microwatersheds in the four target districts. We were assigned to conduct assessment of programme efficiency and efficacy; and the emanating outcomes and impacts of the first phase so as to ascertain achievement, delineate factors contributing to the change, delivery efficiency and crystallize learning's using a quasi-experimental difference in difference method. Gap Study in Tea Gardens in Assam The Tea Gardens have evolved as geographically and socially exclusive entities with very little interactions with the surrounding world. The tea community is also de-linked from economic from the economic opportunities and the market outside the tea gardens and Government welfare schemes. With this more than 50% workers have gradually gone out of the purview of the garden support welfare
measures; there is an urgent need to fathom an authentic estimate of health, nutrition, education or WATSAN status so as to comment on the well being of tea growers. This study attempts to A comparison between actual facilities available in the ground vis-à-vis facilities expected to be available inside the Tea Gardens as per the provisions of the Plantation Labour Act. Develop a document on the norms of flagships customized to be implemented inside Tea Gardens keeping in view the existing infrastructure and objectives of the Garden Management inside the Tea Gardens Identify the gaps in infrastructure, standards of service delivery (with reference to the flagships) and the capacity of the Human Resources inside the Tea Gardens involved in service delivery Develop a budget estimate for the additional inputs to (meet the gaps in infrastructure, standards and capacity) implement flagships inside the Gardens Integrated Baseline Study of UNDP-IKEA Project in Jaunpur, Mirzapur and Sant Ravidas Nagar of Uttar Pradesh for promoting Women s Economic Empowerment UNDP has recently launched a women s empowerment project with support from IKEA Social Initiative, Strengthening Women s Social, Economic and Political Empowerment in Jaunpur, Mirzapur and Sant Ravidas Nagar of Uttar Pradesh. The current project adopts an integrated approach in the 500 project villages to simultaneously strengthen the key dimensions of women s empowerment social, economic and political. The baseline study has the following objectives: o To identify robust output, outcome and impact indicators of the project that can be tracked over the project duration (mid-term and end-of-project) o To identify appropriate methodologies for collection of quantitative and qualitative data against these indicators o To select an appropriate sample of project and control villages, which will be revisited during the course of the project to assess outcomes and impact by double comparison (project and control villages, before and after the project interventions) o To collect baseline data against the indicators and analyse it to present the baseline status of economic, social and political empowerment of SHGs and the wider community in the project villages Baseline and Endline Assessment of Sunhara Project The baseline study establish benchmarks for Sunhara Project by measuring the current status of indicators that will be used to measure the impact of value chain, market access and development and SME interventions of SUNHARA. The baseline study will collect information that will supplement the data collection from the value chain analyses to ensure that ASI captures both increases in productivity and competitiveness. The second component of the study entails conducting an in depth gender analysis. Outcomes of the gender analysis shall feed into developing the gender strategy of ASI that identifies specific activities for gender integration at each phase of the program and for each component.the study identifies the following as the key objectives: o To serve as the first measure of all main outcome project indicators as per the PMP, thus establishing the foundation for the SUNHARA M&E system. o To establish, modify, add, or validate the indicators identified. To gather data that will inform program managers to make implementation decisions that are appropriate to the actual situation on the ground. The study uses a quasi-experimental difference in difference method. Poverty Impact Assessment of Critical Support for Poverty Reduction in West Bengal
The study is designed to independently assess the progress and poverty impact of the Government of West Bengal s Critical Support for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) programme at the level of the Gram Panchayat from 2008-2011. The poverty impact assessment will be longitudinal in nature and will be undertaken on an annual basis. This assessment will serve to (a) inform the scope and management of the CSPR on an annual basis and (b) build a story line on how it is supporting poor and vulnerable households and communities to secure their live and access improved basis services. Long term agreement for Most Significant Change (MSC) Institutional Support The Most Significant Change (MSC) technique is being used by UNICEF as a qualitative, participative method for monitoring and evaluating its Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) programme. It is being used to complement existing quantitative methods of monitoring and evaluation, including the Ideation method that enables attribution with BCC inputs by analyzing the cognitive, emotive and social determinants of behaviour change. The overall aim of the study is to capture the most significant changes among the beneficiaries, provide content analysis support to states and build capacity for implementing MSC including content and meta analysis, and write and present a report on the outcomes of using MSC as a qualitative, participative method for monitoring and evaluation in the BCC programme. Impact Assessment of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) in Madhya Pradesh The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), a countrywide programme of the Government of India, offers a fundamental intervention for addressing the nutrition and health problems and promoting early childhood education among the disadvantaged population of the country. This programme is implemented by WCD Department in Madhya Pradesh are rural and urban 367 projects and 69,248 Anganwadi Centers and 2215 Sub centers (known as Poriyabadis). The main objective of the State government is to reduce the Maternal Mortality, Infant Mortality and Malnutrition. Formative Research for developing communication strategy for National Rural Health Mission in Uttaranchal A key purpose of the assignment is to understand key attitudes, and behaviors including access to and image of services that impact health indicators with special reference to RCH and Family Planning. Development of District Health Action Plans for National Rural Health Mission in Uttaranchal The key objective of the assignment was to develop health action plans for the four districts of the State of Uttaranchal through multistakeholder consultations based on the framework provided by MoHFW. The process of preparation of DHAPs included stakeholder consultations at various levels through a participatory process in order to build bridges and make consensus between stakeholders. Language Proficiency Language Read Write Speak English Strong Strong Strong Hindi Strong Strong Strong Date of Birth 31 May, 1976 Nationality Indian