Toward Guidelines for Lower-Cost Impact Assessment Methodologies for Microenterprise Programs
Debates issues involved in improving impact assessment methodologies. Focuses on lower-cost IA approaches that generate credible and useful results for both donors and practitioners. Argues that current standards of academic rigor are neither practical nor affordable, and advocates use of lower- cost, "middle-range" approaches to assessment. A middle-range assessment is defined as an inquiry to estimate the amount, pattern or direction of change that can be plausibly associated with the intervention. Critical elements of an impact assessments are credibility and reliability.
Several key issues surrounding the design and implementation of a credible, middle-range impact assessment are discussed in the paper:
- Establishing clearly defined objectives and a target audience;
- Selecting a conceptual framework;
- Keeping to a small set of key hypotheses;
- Including variables with demonstrated validity;
- Determining reliable measures.
A credible impact assessment can generate data which links client-level impact and microenterprise program performance. Paper suggests seven ways that impact information can be useful for improving institutional performance.
Conclusions share lessons learned from recent assessments and propose guidelines for conducting middle-range impact assessment.
[Adapted from author's abstract]
