Ranked in the bottom 10 countries within the Human Development Index (UNDP, 2015), Sahel countries not only face chronic poverty, but also compounded disasters. After three decades of implementing projects and programs through economic aid, few tangible changes have been achieved. Rarely, some improvements have been observed, but it has been difficult to correlate these changes to any one intervention.
Impact evaluation of economic aid through an appropriate approach is necessary in the context of the Sahel. First, impact evaluation is a democratic requirement that fosters the respect of citizens, beneficiaries, stakeholders, and donors. Second, it is necessary to improve the effectiveness and relevance of projects and program implementation through economic aid. Third, impact evaluation is necessary to reorient and ensure sustainability through the capitalization of knowledge and accountability of the actors.
The contemplated research will examine economic aid in the Sahel through an analysis of the seminal literature from economic development and poverty theory, governance theory, and social justice theory. It will attempt to supplement the existing knowledge on the performance of economic aid by developing a new conceptual model or framework of impact measurement more suitable and adapted to the Sahel context. This will be achieved through analysis of (a) the main causes of poor performance of economic aid and (b) an impact evaluation of methods most commonly used and adapted to different contexts through a triangulation research approach including a literature review, content analysis of existing data, and a 2-step interview process with primary stakeholders based on the phenomenological research approach.
Link To The Research On The Monarch Management Review
Mr. Abdourahamane dit Baffa Keita is a Candidate within the Doctor of Economics program. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the Ecole Nationale Polytechnique d?Alger as well as a Master in Management and a Master in Project Management from Centre African d?Etudes Superieures en Gestion in Senegal. At present, he holds the position of Program Officer-Monitoring & Evaluation for the Christain Aid Sahel in Mali, Burkina, Senegal and Niger.
