Tunisia : Launching the first evaluation workshop in the Maghreb

Useful information Independent evaluation group at the World Bank (GEI) Impact evaluation in poverty reduction GEI reports

This workshop was facilitated by economists from different sectors of the World Bank including Christel Vermeersch, Damien de Walque, Luca Etter as well as Ndiame Diop, Senior Economist and representative of the World Bank in Tunisia. Participants from different backgrounds attended the event: politicians, academics, and others and working in various sectors: employment, social welfare, education, business and industry, finance, infrastructure, agriculture and communication.

Impact evaluation is currently the best statistical tool to determine the causal effects of programs or  policies.

• It measures the policy in question- for example, did a scholarship for sending young girls to school to a development program, a vaccination campaign, or an agricultural irrigation project achieve the expected outcome ?
  
  
• An impact evaluation assesses the changes in the well-being of individuals, households or communities that can be attributed to a particular project or policy. Additionally, policies that demonstrate a concrete "proven"  effect following an impact evaluation, are extremely credible and their success is regularly disseminated on a national scale.
  
  
• Impact evaluation, despite its costs, is also the most prudent method for data management- since it is an instrument that does not produce erroneous or exaggerated results. This establishes an excellent level of confidence in order to arrive at a consensus among different stake holders- since dialogue is difficult.

Tunisia has already begin to explore the potential of impact evaluation for example in the area of active labor market policies. This would concern the contribution to salaries « pc50 » and a project to hold a competition for business plans. As for higher education reform, the applied bachelors degree would be a good project for a prospective evaluation.

An impact evaluation is not always feasible or even recommended, its execution could be technically complex and it also requires significant resources for primary data collection, analysis and planning. However, for programs that target a country’s priorities and have the potential to be carried out to scale, impact evaluation is the relevant tool.