PROJECTS
Customer Experience Center of Excellence
Stacy Surla led the project team and designed the approach to stand up the pilot Customer Experience Center of Excellence at USDA for GSA and the White House Office of American Innovation. Her six-person team worked with GSA project owners, USDA stakeholders, field staff, and American farmers and ranchers. Together they established and demonstrated that people-centered research, planning, and implementation make it possible for high-stakes digital products to succeed. Leave-behinds included Journey Mapping and CX Playbooks, Personas, and a roadmap of features for the citizen-facing Farmers.gov.
Afghanistan Ministry of Finance Performance Monitoring and Reporting
In partnership with Chemonics International, MetaMetrics has been providing technical assistance and training since 2012 to the Afghan Ministry of Finance. This work has focused on improving organizational capacity to conduct effective program evaluation. In 2017, technical assistance to the Budget Performance Monitoring Unit included review of current evaluation and reporting practices, recommendations for improvements, and capacity-building through training workshops. Outcomes included training of more than 100 participants representing 32 Ministries and Government Agencies, and specific recommendations concerning how the Budget Performance Monitoring Unit can better support business units in reporting, analysis, and ongoing training.
Feed the Future
Feed the Future, a USAID strategic initiative, addresses hunger and promotes food security by supporting inclusive economic growth and investment in agriculture. The program works with host country national organizations, the United Nations, and USDA to strengthen government and private sector capacity, improve trade and market access to agriculture value chains, foster sustainable agriculture practices, and improve market information systems. MetaMetrics developed the Monitoring and Evaluation plan and Scope of Work for USAID’s Central America initiative. Beginning with a workshop with Mission staff to establish a common understanding of M&E concepts and to kick off co-design of the evaluation plan products, we strengthened USAID staff capacity to plan and manage evaluations and baseline research and follow best practices when designing studies for a complex portfolio.
Economic Growth for Women in Afghanistan
Unleashing a nation’s full economic potential depends upon investing in women and enabling women to take advantage of economic opportunities. Rule of law programming, such as the Afghanistan Economic Growth and Governance Initiative, helps translate legal recognition of human rights into real improvements in the lives of Afghan women by ensuring rights are promoted and protected by Afghan economic growth systems. MetaMetrics developed a Program Management Plan to guide Afghanistan’s economic development. Recommendations and outcomes that supported increasing women’s participation in and advancement of economic growth included re-establishing the Afghan Women Judges Association, developing an Afghan women lawyers network, and disaggregating PMP data by gender for increased accountability.
Participatory Evaluation in the Kyrgyz Republic
Despite many positive democratic developments since the 2010 revolution, the rule of law sector in the Kyrgyz Republic continues to face problems. Using a participatory approach, MetaMetrics evaluated progress towards strengthening and improved citizen satisfaction with the Kyrgyz judicial system. Via workshops and technical assistance, MetaMetrics made recommendations to support the achievement of the Judicial Strengthening Program’s ambitious goals.