Capacity building for evidence-based policy making in the health sector The objective of the proposed IDF grant is to develop the Eritrean health system's capacity for evidence-based policy making through impact evaluation, rigorous testing of the results chain, improved use of information as feedback for decision making.  The IDF funded capacity development activities would respond to government requests that essentially reflect action 14 of the CDMAP: Adopting a results focus and strengthening country monitoring & evaluation and national statistical data management systems. The IDF grant will help develop the capacity of the MOH, especially the national Malaria and HIV/AIDS programs to design and implement rigorous impact evaluations, to analyze baseline data and to feed baseline results back into the design of the public health interventions with the aim of improving their targeting efficiency and facilitating the generation of evidence on program effectiveness. Moreover, the IDF grant will improve administrative data systems and capacity for data analysis in order to meet the requirements for evidence-based policy planning. By the end of the grant, both the National Malaria Control Program and the national HIV/AIDS program will have designed and will be implementing rigorous impact evaluations that assess the effectiveness of their prioritized policy options. At every step of the policy learning cycle, training will be provided by a support team at the Bank, an advisory group of international experts on impact evaluation, public health and epidemiology and on an ongoing basis by locally based consultants. The IDF grant will develop the institutional capacity for evidence-based policy making at the Ministry of Health of Eritrea, enabling the ministry to use rigorous evidence on program effectiveness in its strategic policy planning.  The strategy of the proposed IDF grant is to develop client capacity through learning by doing. The Ministry of Health is currently pursuing impact evaluations in three prioritized programs (HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Reproductive Health) with the aim of obtaining evidence on the effectiveness of policy alternatives.  The IDF funding is requested to ensure that carrying out these impact evaluations will result in lasting capacity improvements. The objective is to put the ministry in a position to pursue self-defined policy learning agendas at its own capacity in the future.  For that purpose, this grant will improve the management and availability of statistical data and statistical skills for evidence-based policy making (Component 1), and build capacity for the use of impact evaluation and beneficiary analyses in policy planning (Component 2). Both components are closely interrelated and are going to be implemented simultaneously.  The proposed activities will strengthen the Ministry of Health in two dimensions:  1. By learning: Institutional capacity will be strengthened as a result of improved knowledge and information about the effectiveness of operational alternatives. By acquiring rigorous evidence on the causal impact of public health interventions, the Ministry of Health will arrive at a more robust results chain and a more meaningful monitoring of program performance.  2. Through learning by doing: By implementing a full cycle of evidence-based policy improvement in several priority sectors, the Ministry of Health will undergo a learning-by-doing process at the end of which it will have developed the capacity to identify, acquire and use scientific evidence that is needed for the dynamic improvement of its programs.  The IDF funded activities will provide training and support at different stages of the evidence-based policy planning cycle. This cycle consists of (1) identifying policy learning needs, (2) testing operational alternatives and (3) feeding the results back into the policy planning process. Depending on the success of this grant, the capacity building activities will be continued beyond its duration. Additional funding will be sought through a subsequent IDF grant or another source.  The expected outcomes of the IDF grant are:  (1) Improved availability of information and statistical skills in the health sector  (2) The Ministry of Health is pursuing its policy learning needs through the use of impact evaluation and scientific analysis on the targeting of its programs.