Project documentation of selection process and start and stop dates for key activities is needed to support the evaluation. Without documentation, significant work was needed by the evaluators to get a clear picture of the implementation status, project decisions, and timelines. Project descriptions and documentation, especially around selection of beneficiaries and variances in implementation, is often missing. The World Bank faced difficulties in obtaining the sampling frame and mapping villages to survey enumeration areas, as well as understanding when project activities actually began in each areas to match with expected exposure periods. Lack of detailed data on lotteries and variations in program implementation, required the World Bank to conduct a thorough review of project documentation and discussion with stakeholders to identify all the villages that submitted a village level land use plan proposal and understand what each beneficiary group received. There was also limited data on when each of the activities occurred in each location, which made it difficult to understand early/late treatment and exposure periods for all the villages as at times implementation was over a year apart from one area to another. During project design and implementation, MCC should carefully track (in coordination with MCAs) the details of interventions start and stop dates at the activity level for each area. MCC has had to retroactively provide this data across countries, which has led to significant effort and quality issues.
Lesson Learned