PSD Impact Assessment Initiative Resources |
The Private Sector Development (PSD) Impact Assessment Initiative
www.microlinks.org/psdimpact
The PSD Impact Assessment Initiative is funded by USAID under the Accelerated Microenterprise Advancement Project. The objective of the Initiative is to create learning about and improve the effectiveness of new generation economic growth programs through impact assessments, and to identify specific impacts that private sector development (PSD) interventions have on the private sector and pro-poor growth. To learn more about the initiative, read the PSD Impact Assessment Initiative Overview.
This Initiative’s vision is that private sector development can and must contribute to economic growth and wealth creation in poor communities. This is accomplished through facilitation of medium-and-small enterprise (MSE) linkages to more lucrative and rapidly growing markets and through provision of an array of supporting services, including business development services (BDS), financial services, input supply, value chain development, and policy advocacy to improve the business climate. The contribution of supporting services in this context is to improve MSEs’ capacity to respond to market conditions and to create and take advantage of market opportunities.
The PSD Impact Assessment Initiative is accomplishing its objectives through a four-pronged strategy:
- Build a conceptual model that improves understanding of the impacts of PSD programs.
- Develop and test rigorous methodologies for measuring the impact of PSD programs.
- Produce insights about the most effective types of PSD interventions and how they work through implementation of high quality impact assessments and desk research.
- Provide USAID Bureaus and Missions with realistic options for assessing the impact of PSD programs and supply methodological and other guidance on how to conduct credible impact assessments.
The PSD Impact Assessment team seeks opportunities to engage with the USAID community and to serve as a base of information and capacity development in impact assessment for economic growth programs via its publications, discussions with USAID and Mission staff, advice, workshops, and training.
FAQs
What is impact assessment?
What are the benefits of impact assessment?
What are minimally acceptable methodological standards?
The purpose of impact assessment is to identify program outcomes, determine whether they can be attributed to (or caused by) the program, and provide an in-depth understanding of the various causal relationships and the mechanisms through which they operate. Determining attribution in turn requires defining a counterfactual–a picture of what would have happened if the program had not been implemented. The plausibility of an impact assessment is determined by the success achieved in establishing a counterfactual.
In contrast to impact assessment, performance monitoring can determine whether a program has achieved its objectives, but it cannot determine if, why, or how the program was the cause.
What Are the Benefits of Impact Assessment?
Impact assessments help policymakers, donors, and practitioners to fulfill their responsibilities to, in the words of Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and USAID Administrator Randall Tobias, “focus on performance, results [and] accountability.…” In particular, impact assessments help by generating information critical to:
• design more effective programs,
• make modifications to ongoing programs,
• produce statistically credible demonstrations of results,
• avoid mistakes of the past, and
• improve the allocation effectiveness of development funding.
High-quality impact assessments typically utilize a mixed-methodology approach including a representative, time-series survey and qualitative assessments (e.g., in-depth individual interviews, focus group discussions, case studies) of program participants and non-participants.
Impact assessment can be carried out at various levels of sophistication with varying price tags. A good impact assessment using a mixed-methodology approach can be expensive (e.g., up to or exceeding $100,000), although typically accounting for only a small percentage of total program funding. Because of its cost, impact assessment should be used strategically to answer important programming and policy-related questions or in conjunction with innovative, expensive, controversial, or other programs with significant potential for generalized learning. The benefits of impact assessment can be large relative to its cost to the extent it informs policymaking, improves program design and outcomes, and improves program funding decisions.
Minimally Acceptable Methodological Standards
A credible impact assessment will satisfy the following minimally acceptable methodological standards:
- It will include observations on a group of program participants (treatment group) and a matched group of non-participants (control group).
- It will assess the status of both treatment and control group members at a time before impacts can have occurred (baseline) and at a time after impacts can reasonably be assumed to have occurred (follow-up).
- It will be based on a causal (logical) model with clearly stated hypotheses linking program activities to expected impacts.
- It will be rigorous in that all methodologies are well documented and their weaknesses identified.
- It will use data collection methods that follow accepted good practice.
- It will use analytical methods that are appropriate in that they match the type of data collected.
Generally, well-done experimental and quasi-experimental impact assessments satisfy all of the minimally acceptable methodologcial standards. Well-done cross-sectional impact assessments generally satisfy criteria 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6, but do less well on criterion 2. Satisfaction of criterion 2 is theoretically possible using retrospective perceptions, but these would need to be carefully constructed and cross-checked using qualitative methodologies. Generally, cross-sectional assessments are recommended only when longitudinal assessments are not possible, and researchers need to be both cognizant and up-front about their limitations.
Although not required to satisfy the above criteria, it is further recommended that impact assessments use a mixed methodology approach. Relative to solely quantitative or solely qualitative methods, mixed methods impact assessments provide a broader and more in-depth understanding of program impact and its underlying causal relationships, in addition to a richer understanding of the mechanisms through which these causal relationships operate.
Impact from Enterprise Impact Assessment for EGAT 02 05.pptapplication/powerpoint
Time to Learn: An Evaluation Strategy for Revitalized Foreign Assistance
TIME TO LEARN.pdf Publication Date 04/10
(microREPORT) Impacts of the KBDS and KHDP Projects in the Tree Fruit Value Chain in Kenya
mR 129 Impacts of KBDS and KHDP Projects in the Kenyan Tree Fruit VC.pdf Publication Date 09/2008
Interviews Regarding Impact Assessment of Private Sector Development Projects: A Synthesis
Interviews Regarding Impact Assessment of PSD Projects.pdf Publication Date 07/2008
(microREPORT) Impact Assessment of the Growth-Oriented Microenterprise Development Program: Baseline Research Report
mR 104 GMED Baseline Research Report.pdf Publication Date 04/2008
Assessing the Impact of PROFIT Zambia in the Cotton, Beef Cattle, and Retail Input Services Value Chains
Profit Zambia Baseline Report.pdf Publication Date 05/2007
GMED India Impact Assessment: Terms of Reference for Local Research Partners
India_GMED_RFP.pdf Publication Date 10/2006
PSD Impact Assessment Initiative Overview
PSD_IAI_Overview.pdf
Evaluability Assessment of the USAID/Brazil Micro and Small Enterprise Trade-Led Growth Program
Brazil--Evaluability Assessment of the USAID-Brazil.pdf Publication Date 09/2006
PROFIT Zambia Impact Assessment: Baseline Research Design
Profit Zambia Research Plan.pdf Publication Date 07/2006
(microREPORT) USAID/Brazil Micro and Small Enterprise Trade-Led Growth Program Impact Assessment: Baseline Research Report
mR 61 Brazil Baseline Research.pdf Publication Date 06/2006
PROFIT Zambia Impact Assessment: Terms of Reference for Local Research Partner
PROFIT Zambia TOR.pdf Publication Date 06/2006
(microREPORT) The New Generation of Private-Sector Development Programming: The Emerging Path to Economic Growth with Poverty Reduction
mR 44 The New Generation of Private Sector Development.pdf Publication Date 03/2006
(microREPORT) La nouvelle génération des programmes de développement du secteur privé : comment concilier croissance économique et réduction de la pauvreté?
Programmes de developpement du secteur prive (2).pdf Publication Date 03/2006
(microREPORT) Assessing the Impact of Kenya BDS and Horticulture Development Center Projects in the Tree Fruit Value Chain in Kenya: Baseline Research Report
mR 33 Assessing the Impact of Kenya BDS and HDC Projects.doc Publication Date 07/2005
(microREPORT) Inventory and Analysis of Donor-Sponsored MSE Development Programs
mR 15 Inventory and Analysis of Donor Sponsored MSE Programs 03 05.pdf Publication Date 3/2005
(microREPORT) Assessing the Impact of the Kenya BDS and the Horticulture Development Center Projects in the Treefruit Subsector of Kenya: Baseline Research Design
mR 9 Assessing the Impact of the Kenya BDS 9 04.pdf Publication Date 9/2004
An Evaluation of USAID's Evaluation Function: Recommendations for Reinvigorating the Evaluation Culture within the Agency
An Evaluation of USAID's Evaluation Function 09 04.pdf Publication Date 9/2004
(microREPORT) Review of Evaluations of Selected Enterprise Development Projects
mR 3 Review of Evaluations of ED Projects 02 05.pdf Publication Date 7/2004
Research Plan Component D: Impact and Other Post-Intervention Assessments (DRAFT)
Resplan D Jan 22.doc Publication Date 01/2004