For several years, our evaluation team at Tetra Tech International Development has been working side by side with the SPRING programme to create sustainable business opportunities for adolescent girls around the world. Now that the programme has come to a close, we are continuing our journey, sharing what the SPRING experience has taught us about transforming the lives of adolescent girls.

What was the SPRING programme?

Girls not only have a right to equal opportunities – they are also crucial to creating a more vibrant and sustainable economy. SPRING – running from June 2014 to September 2019 –worked with businesses to support the development of products and services that would help girls to stay safe, learn, earn and save, so that they have the freedom and are empowered to make their own decisions.

What is the SPRING Evaluation?

Our evaluation team at Tetra Tech International Development (formerly Coffey International) has been supporting SPRING since 2015. Until 2022, we will be carrying out independent monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) for the programme. The evaluation team – led by Heidi Ober and Gordon Freer – worked closely with the SPRING programme during its implementation to respond to its needs: we provided a comprehensive set of activities designed to inform and maximise the potential of the programme, including evaluating programme design, recommending adjustments, pivots and programme adaptations, and providing ongoing support with a focus on lesson learning.

Our evaluation experts do more than just to evaluate a programme after it has finished: learning throughout a programme’s implementation is an essential part of our work, and we then use these findings to help improve its performance – and to find new ways to make other programmes more effective as well.

Our evaluation has three components:

• Programme Performance Evaluation (PPE) to examine the effectiveness of the programme.
• Business Performance Evaluation (BPE) to explore the performance of SPRING businesses, and the extent to which SPRING influenced them.
• Impact Evaluation (IE) to assess how and to what extent adolescent girls have benefited from the products and services offered by the SPRING businesses.

Knowledge is our strength – and this is where we share it

As we move into the final phase of our evaluation, we are delighted to be publishing our findings online in the hope that they will be useful for anyone that is interested in the topic or working in the international development sector. We have restyled the SPRING website to make it easier for us to share our learning reports and media content with you online. We will continue filling the page with infographics, blogs, insights from the impact evaluation as well as COVID-19 updates from the SPRING businesses.

Over the upcoming months, we will also share targeted lessons that will help you:

• Better influence future programme design, including the use of Human Centred Design, mentoring businesses, and reaching and impacting vulnerable girls.
• Understand the impact of COVID-19 on small and medium sized businesses in developing countries.
• Understand how to develop resilient strategies and innovation at the business level to respond to development challenges.

Watch this space!