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e-Agriculture

Anja Kiefer

Organization GTZ
Organization type Government/Bilateral Organization
Country Germany

This member participated in the following Forums

Forum Forum: "ICT for Rural Economic Development" November, 2010

3. How can we establish processes to make information about benefits and results of impact analysis systematically available?

Submitted by Anja Kiefer on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 16:33

It's not just information about ongoing ICT4D projects that we need to share.

 

More specifically, it's information about successful (or failed) impact assessments, such as:

- what method was used?

- what data sets are useful in which context?

- when does impact assessment actually improve project management?

- which analyses weren't successful in the long run and why?

- and so on

that should be shared, as well.

 

Everybody who's been working in development projects has had some experience with impact analyses. So, if someone has already created a well-developed questionnaire that really gets answers to important questions, and we are working in a similar project context, it would help tremendously to know about it. Or if certain methods of measuring impact always fail in certain contexts, knowing about it we don't need to repeat the mistake.

 

I don't think this is specific to ICT contexts, but still, there probably are some aspects that are only relevant for projects using some form of ICT.

 

Any thoughts on that?

2. How to analyze the socio-economic impact in rural areas?

Submitted by Anja Kiefer on Fri, 11/26/2010 - 16:05
The method of assessing impact should be related to the objective of the analysis. If we want to know whether farmers experience a benefit, we should ask the farmers. If we want to know whether young people enjoy the communication possibilities of mobile phones, we should conduct a survey among youth. But problems start when we wish to show rigid scientific proof of the impact of ICT on certain factors, e.g. income generation. I don't think that it is enough to ask farmers if their income has increased. Even if that were the case, many other factors influence changing incomes - world market prices, changes in supply and demand, weather conditions... If we need to prove that ICT have had a direct impact, these factors need to be taken into account. Probably, methods other than surveys or questionnaires have to be used as well to get scientificly valid results.

1. What is the value of analyzing the socio-economic impact of ICT in rural areas?

Submitted by Anja Kiefer on Thu, 11/25/2010 - 12:02
some benefits of impact assessments have already been listed here in this discussion. Such assessments can show whether an ICT4D project really has an impact (economic, socio-economic, or other) on the lives of people. Sometimes, though, it seems that impact analyses are primarily conducted for the benefit of the donor, to proof that the investment in the project was money well spent and to be able to list positive figures in donor reports. Quite some time and effort go into generating these reports to satisfy donors. But are these results then really used to improve project design, to focus on aspects that have a clear impact, and to abort projects that don't work? Or would it be better for beneficiaries if resources spent on impact assessments were used for the project directly? So, in short: Are impact assessments of value for the donor or for beneficiaries?

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