Project: Participant Financial Analysis for Resilience Food Security Activities

USAID Learning, Evaluation, and Analysis (LEAP III) is supporting the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) in developing a methodology and simple guidelines for conducting Participant Financial Analysis (previously referred to in BHA as “economic analysis”). Participant Financial Analysis is a simple form of financial cost-benefit analysis designed to examine the profitability of livelihood interventions as part of Resilience Food Security Activities (RFSAs). Participant Financial Analysis is required for RFSA solicitations and can also be a useful tool during the refinement period. This work will be piloted with an active RFSA activity before the guidelines are finalized. The guidelines will include the basic methodology, as well as a “How-To” document if partners want to adapt the methodology to specific design challenges during their refinement year. Once the guidelines are final, Limestone will train the implementing community in this simplified approach and help promote this as a useful and approachable tool for activity design.

The Participant Financial Analysis is meant to help RFSA implementing partners to understand how they can use financial analysis and incremental analysis to design and prioritize promising interventions. By simplifying the analysis, BHA and  LEAP III hope that partners will be able to do this analysis themselves, without needing to commission specialized expertise.