The main objectives of the impact evaluation are as follows:
- To assess whether the program had an impact on the beneficiaries or not, why and whether this effect can be attributed to the concerned intervention. To this end, all effects – positive or negative, direct or indirect, intended or unintended – and intervention spillovers, will be evaluated;
- To assess any innovative features of the program’s design in order to establish whether or not they were successfully achieved;
- To generate recommendations to inform the design of future operations in Georgia and/or elsewhere programs in future;
- To provide useful evidence for and used as a critical input towards the Georgia country strategy and programme evaluation planned by IOE in 2017.
CRRC-Georgia is carrying out a mixed methods evaluation of the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD) Agricultural Support Project (ASP). To measure impact, the organization used a matched sample of beneficiary communities. Data analysis will make use of multivariate matching with genetic weights and difference and difference estimates of impact. To supplement quantitative data analysis and triangulate impact, the organization has carried out focus groups and in depth interviewers with project beneficiaries and key informant interviews with ASP project team members.
Contribution to the rural poverty impact and other selected sections in the final report of the project, which is available here.