“PEPFAR deserves to be commended for its efforts to define key measurable outcomes for its orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) portfolio,” Sarah Rose, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Global Development (CGD), writes in the center’s “Global Health Policy” blog. “To date, PEPFAR has mainly relied on an output measure to track its OVC programs,” she states, adding that output measures “are useful for monitoring project implementation on an ongoing basis … [b]ut there are limits to what it can tell us.” Rose continues, “As a necessary first step, [PEPFAR] should clearly define the outcomes that its OVC programming is trying to achieve,” adding, “Indeed, a more intentional shift from defining and measuring services toward defining and measuring outcomes could allow greater flexibility for implementing partners to experiment with different approaches to achieve results.” She states, “[T]he onus is now on USAID to redouble its efforts to make sure the right studies — focusing on these core outcomes — are done” (10/16).