In recent years, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has increasingly strengthened its focus on achieving and measuring results. In 2011-2012, resources were invested in the IFAD9 Impact Assessment Initiative (IFAD9 IAI) in order to: (i) explore methodologies to assess impact; (ii) measure – to the degree possible – the results and impacts of IFAD-financed activities; and (iii) summarize lessons learned and advise on rigorous and cost-effective approaches to attributing impact to IFAD interventions. The initiative reflects a recognition of IFAD’s responsibility to generate evidence of the success of IFAD-supported projects so as to learn lessons for the benefit of future projects. This paper describes the IFAD9 IAI and the range of methods that have been identified to broaden the evidence base for the estimation of IFAD impacts, and presents the results from the aggregation and projection methodology used to compute the Fund’s aggregate impact on key outcomes, while also highlighting what has been learned. The results show that there are many areas in which IFAD‑supported project beneficiaries have had, on average, better outcomes in percentage terms as compared to comparison farmers who were not project beneficiaries. Specifically, IFAD-supported projects are effectively poverty-reducing: when choosing durable asset indexes as the preferred poverty proxies on the grounds that they better approximate long-run wealth, findings point to statistically significant gains. Overall, the analyses strongly imply that IFAD is effectively improving the well-being of rural people in terms of asset accumulation, and higher revenue and income. The IFAD9 IAI represents a pioneering research effort, which has tried to overcome the clear challenges of designing data collection and conducting ex post impact assessments in a context where data were scarce, with a view to measuring progress towards a global accountability goal over a very short period of time. Therefore, an important recommendation is that future impact assessments should be selected and designed ex ante, and structured to facilitate and maximize learning, rather than used solely as an instrument to prove accountability.

108 pp.

9789290727033