Aiming high and falling low: The SADA-Northern Ghana Millennium Village Project

Abstract

This article assesses the impact of the Northern Ghana Millennium Village Project. We estimate project effects on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) indicators using a difference-in-difference approach applied to matched villages and households using a sub-classification of the propensity score. The project improved some MDG indicators but, with few exceptions, impacts were small and core welfare indicators, such as monetary poverty, undernutrition and child mortality, remained unaffected. We found no spillover effects of the project to neighbouring areas and no displacements of development expenditure by local government and NGOs. We assessed the cost-effectiveness of the intervention and concluded that MVP did not produce the expected cost-saving synergies. We attribute the lack of impact to poor project design, redundancy of the interventions, and excessively high expectations.

Sensitivity matters. Comparing the use of multiple indicators and of a multidimensional poverty index in the evaluation of a poverty eradication program

“…A more detailed description of the test for the presence of parallel trends and of the placebo test can be found in(Masset et al, 2020).…”

“…A full evaluation of the SADA-Nothern Ghana MVP including an analysis of spill-over effects, impacts on interventions in neighbouring areas, cost-effectiveness analysis, and robustness checks can be found inMasset et al (2020) 5 The MDG indicators that cannot be calculated at household level are: 3.3 Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament, 7.1 Proportion of land area covered by forest, 7.2 CO2 emissions, total, per capita and per $1 GDP (PPP), 7.3 Consumption of ozone-depleting substances, 7.4 Proportion of fish stocks within safe biological limits, 7.5 Proportion of total water resources used , 7.6 Proportion of terrestrial and marine areas protected, 7.7 Proportion of species threatened with extinction, and 7.10 Proportion of urban population living in slums. Similarly, 12 other outcomes (8.1 through 8.12) relate to official development assistance, market access, and debt sustainability and can only be calculated at national or international level.6 The household-level indicators that could not be measured with the available data are: 5.1 Maternal mortality rate, 5.6 Unmet need for family planning, 6.1 HIV prevalence among population aged 15-24 years, 6.2 Condom use at last high-risk sex, 6.4 Ratio of school attendance of orphans to school attendance of non-orphans aged 10-14 years, 6.5 Proportion of population with advanced HIV infection with access to antiretroviral drugs, 6.9 Incidence, prevalence and death rates associated with tuberculosis, 6.10 Proportion of tuberculosis cases detected and cured under directly observed treatment short course, 8.13 Proportion of population with access to affordable essential drugs on a sustainable basis, and 8.16 Internet users per 100 inhabitants.…”