Data Quality Review for Georgia Compact II

About the Project 

On 26 July 2013, the Government of Georgia (GOG) and the United States of America, acting through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), signed a Compact Agreement for a US$140 million grant to alleviate poverty and boost economic growth, employing the MCC’s assistance to strengthen good governance, economic freedom, and investments in Georgia. The five-year Compact entered into force on 1 July 2014. The objective of the Georgia II Compact is to support strategic investments in the Program, which consists of three Projects: (1) Improving General Education Quality (IGEQ); (2) Industry-led Skills and Workforce Development (ISWD); and (3) Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). These projects respond to constraints affecting economic growth and aim to improve the poor quality of human capital in Georgia.

The Monitoring and Evaluation Unit (M&E Unit), established within the MCA-Georgia, is implementing a Monitoring and Evaluation Plan (M&E Plan) developed by the MCA-Georgia in collaboration with the MCC to conduct program performance monitoring and evaluations. Accordingly, the MCA-Georgia regularly updates the M&E Plan in which data quality reviews represent a critical component.

Our Role 

The ACT team verified the consistency and quality of data among the Program’s implementing agencies and other reporting institutions. The data reviewed included administrative data collected and reported by government entities and consulting firms contracted by the MCA-Georgia.

The specific objectives of the data quality reviews were to:

• Verify baseline and historical data for monitoring indicators;
• Identify where external data sources have been used and confirm their accuracy on the ground and/or between data sources or reports (if their accuracy could not be confirmed, the objective was instead to identify alternative local sources of data);
• Identify where new data are required, and suggest an appropriate method of data collection as well as appropriate sources of data; and
• Identify capacity needs for data collection and make recommendations regarding the most appropriate data collection, storing and management tools and systems for the MCA-Georgia and IE/consultants, as well as outlining any training needs.

Project Outcome(s)

ACT conducted a quality review of the data generated by the MCA-Georgia, the GoG, and the MCA-Georgia’s consultants against data quality standards and criteria set out in the M&E Plan. The review covered two main aspects: indicators and baseline data used to develop program logic which are included in the MCA-Georgia’s indicator-tracking tables (monitoring indicators only); and verification of the data on school conditions and cost assessment.