Performance monitoring and accountability: The Agile Project’s protocol, record and experience

The Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA2020) project implemented a multi-country sub-project called PMA Agile, a system of continuous data collection for a probability sample of urban public and private health facilities and their clients that began November 2017 and concluded December 2019. The objective was to monitor the supply, quality and consumption of family planning services. In total, across 14 urban settings, nearly 2300 health facilities were surveyed three to six times in two years and a total sample of 48,610 female and male clients of childbearing age were interviewed in Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Kenya, Niger and Nigeria. Consenting female clients with access to a cellphone were re-interviewed by telephone after four months; two rounds of the client exit, and follow-up interviews were conducted in nearly all settings. This paper reports on the PMA Agile data system protocols, coverage and early experiences. An online dashboard is publicly accessible, analyses of measured trends are underway, and the data are publicly available.