Christian ruminates on the role of open collaboration in development, although for some reasons he’s picked examples from relief work. Why have collaborative projects set up to respond to disasters proven so popular in recent years? It’s mainly because when there’s a disaster, people want to help – and they don’t want to give money, they want to feel like they’re doing something concrete. [[Personally I have a problem with that, but that's what we have to work with.]] Richard asks the right question:
Where is the independent evidence that one more life was saved, one more livelihood was created, one more beach was cleaned than would have happened anyway?
The short answer is that the evidence is pretty damn scarce. There are various reasons for that, but the main one is that impact assessment in development is incredibly difficult, and impact assessment in relief nearly impossible. I don’t expect relatively new projects to crack this problem, but unless we make some effort any claims we make about our work fit firmly into the category of anecdote.
The best way to measure the impact of technology initiatives is by proxy – whether those projects are being used, hopefully by beneficiaries but more likely by aid organisations, and whether they’re being used effectively. The answer to the first question is generally “yes”, the answer to the second generally “no” – and there are serious questions to be asked about whether the second answer will ever be “yes”.
To end on a positive note: I think the sort of mapping we’ve seen in Haiti will definitely have a long term impact, but I’m well aware that this is an act of faith on my part.
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Dear Paul, thanks for the post.
I think nonetheless that in certain domains measuring impact is possible, and almost easy. For the sector I know, health care, there are now some excellent tools to estimate or measure interventions outcome. For instance cost-effectiveness analysis as sponsored by the WHO-CHOICE initiative. May be some actors are not really committed in using those tools. Which is another problem.
Vincent Guerard, general director @ Urban Care
http://www.urbancare.org