The National Rural Infrastructure Project in Senegal

The project

This World Bank and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) project installs infrastructure in rural areas using participatory methods. The project components include: 1) support for decentralized rural development to strengthen the capacity of local governments in rural areas. 2) a fund to finance basic infrastructure.

The impact evaluation results

• The project had a statistically insignificant effect on household expenditure.
• The project had a statistically insignificant effect on weight-for-age.
• The project was associated with an increase in height-for-age of 0.406 standard deviations.
• The project increases the likelihood that villages have access to water within the village by 22.3 percentage points (pp).
• The program increased the likelihood that villagers have access to basic health services by 24pp.
• The program had no statistically significant impact on access to a paved road.

The impact evaluation method

The evaluation uses an instrumental variables methodology to identify the impact of the project.