On impact.....(and MVP)

The other buzzword....
Impact.
As in 'impact investor'.

Same as with transparancy (see previous post); a lot of it is old wine in new bottles and quite a large part is very young wine that is sold successfully, but is it ready to drink....?

So we all want impact.
Who doesn't? What's new?
People ten years ago wanted impact although it was called result in those days.
(Don't try to give me a rhetorical excursion. Not interested....)

There was and is a whole lot of discussion on impact evaluation going on. Also with regards to the Millennium Villages / MVP.

I visited two Millennium Villages. Sauri in Kenya (2006) and Mwandama in Malawi (2009).

In the discussion on MV's and MVP we have discussions between Sachs and Easterly, Attaran and so on.
So what can a simple visitor say after two field visits without any research, no RCT's and no impact evaluation?

During the tour in Sauri (2006) I walked away from my two fellow travellers.
Wanted to sit down to have a smoke (sorry..).
I sat down on the grass under a brand new power line coming to Sauri.
I asked the old man next to me if they never tried to get electricity to Sauri before.

He said they did.
They never got it.
But since all these Americans were involved (Sachs, Joli et al) and all these people with money got involved, they got electricity and a health post and so on.

Three years later I dashed by Mwandama in Malawi.

After both visits it was clear to me.
Obviously there is a impact in the villages where MVP started.
If you come to whatever village, in whatever country and bring a truckload of money, knowledge, seeds and so on and you hire well educated people from that country you will have an impact as well.

But will it last?
Can it be scaled up?
Can it easily be replicated?

If I look at a place like Lagalomi in Ethiopia and someone (and I am inclined to state 'whomever'...) has the money and resources that MVP can call upon, I am sure 'whomever' and the local people will make an impact. A huge impact.
But is that the most efficient use of the money, will it last and will it create something we can easily replicate elsewhere?
Maybe.
I don't think so.

Not far from Sauri, close to the Ugandan border in a village called Mundika there are a few Kenyan sisters.
Catholic sisters from Grace & Compassion Convent.
They will receive the Golden Talent Award from Heifer Kenya (as I was informed today).
One of six of these awards given by Heifer in Africa this year.
With USD 20.000,-- used to upgrade their farm during 2007/2008/2009, with the guidance of Heifer, they managed without Monsanto seeds and chemical fertilizer to do a great job and become a center of knowledge for a lot of farmers in the area.

In that part of Kenya the One Acre Fund is very active.

Both the Heifer approach and the One Acre Fund approach striked me as in line with what people said they wanted and needed and not what people from elsewhere said they should want or need....

True; this view is not based on research of any serious nature, not on RCT's and is not based on impact evaluation(s).
I am simply with Deaton and his airplane example on this.
But don't get me wrong here I am not against research........
I was involved in getting the ICS* / Harvard (Kremer) research on deworming funded in the late nineties of the twentieth century. Research and results that even Easterly was positive on.......

On MVP / MV's > I was simply not impressed in the large scale money spending nature of MVP in the MV's I visited.



* ICS was in those days short for Internationaal Christelijk Steunfonds. It is now called International Child Support, a Dutch NGO.