Impact Evaluation Methods
This type of study uses random assignment to determine impact.
What is a randomized controlled trial (RCT)?
To support the agricultural sector, governments in sub-Saharan Africa spend billions of dollars annually on this.
What are input subsidies?
In northern Nigeria, this intervention raised learning by 35% percent, making this intervention one of the most cost-effective for learning gains.
What is EdTech / Smartphones preloaded with literacy app?
This type of science informs personalized nudge messages to boost compliance at low costs.
What is behavioral science?
This share of the population in Western and Central Africa still lacks energy.
What is (nearly) half?
This West African country has the largest population on the African continent, with over 200 million people.
What is Nigeria?
The principle that ensures groups are statistically similar at the start of a trial.
What is randomization?
In Mozambique, this digital method provided flexible, partially subsidized input packages at agrodealers, and increased take-up, yields, and cost-effectiveness.
What are eVouchers?
In northern Nigeria, only 3 % percent of kids can _____.
What is read?
In West Africa, most countries collect less than 15% of GDP in ____ .
What are taxes?
Smart substations improved grid reliability and increased electricity usage in this country.
What is Senegal?
Flowing over 4,100 miles from East Africa through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea, this river is generally considered the world's longest and has been crucial to civilizations for millennia.
What is the Nile River?
This method estimates the causal effect of a treatment by comparing the changes in outcomes over time between a treatment group and a control group.
What is the difference-in-differences method?
To foster climate resilience for vulnerable farmers, short-term disaster response through rapid interventions needs to be combined with ____ .
What are long-term adaptations?
This is the next generation of tools driving learning in low-resource contexts.
What are AI-powered tools?
Reducing tax exemptions and broadening the tax base can raise _________ in an efficient, equitable manner.
What is revenue?
_____ certification can increase willingness to pay in context where variation in service quality can undermine trust.
What is third party certification?
This regional bloc of 15 West African countries aims to promote economic integration and political stability.
What is ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States)?
This research design exploits a threshold in an assignment variable to identify causal effects, assuming units just above and below the cutoff are comparable.
What is a Regression Discontinuity Design?
This type of roads in Rwanda reduced transportation costs, increased competition and strengthened value chains.
What are rural feeder roads?
This type of apprenticeship combines on-the-job training with classroom-based vocational training, showing improvement in youth productivity, increased earnings, and firm benefits.
What are dual apprenticeships?
These systems can raise government revenues without raising tax rates.
What are digital systems?
Desludging services were improved by this type of auction in Dakar.
What are text-based digital auctions?
In October 2025, three African countries will hold presidential elections: an East African nation home to Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar, a West African cocoa-producing powerhouse, and a Central African country where a 92-year-old leader is seeking his 8th term after 43 years in power.
What are Tanzania, Côte d'Ivoire, and Cameroon?
This research design can be used when budget or capacity constraints mean that an intervention cannot be implemented everywhere at once.
What is a Randomized Phase-in Design?
Evidence from this non-African country shows that tailoring extension services to the type of technology being promoted can double the rate of adoption of productive and climate-smart technologies.
What is Bangladesh?
Resource constraints that prevent girls from attending school can be reduced by transfers such as scholarships and cash transfers, and by eliminating ____ .
What are school fees?
Well-designed, sustainable procurement policies can boost GDP by this percentage.
What is 3%?
Performance-linked digital loans for electric vehicle transit drivers reduced carbon emissions by this percentage.
What is 70%?
This World Bank initiative's acronym stands for a three-step development approach: use trial-and-adopt methods to gather evidence, then adjust your implementation based on results, and expand proven solutions across regions and systems.
What is LEADS (or Learn.Adapt.Scale)?