Integrate implementers and evaluators early and align incentives. The independent evaluator was brought in well after key program design actions had been taken and contracts terms and deliverables negotiated and signed with the implementer. In fact, the implementer’s contract made no reference to impact evaluation and the decision to use a lottery to allocate grants was imposed well after the contract was signed, budgets were agreed, and the implementer was mobilized and had developed a process for soliciting and selecting grant recipients. The management of the intervention and its evaluation were both made much more challenging by not integrating design, implementation, and evaluation planning decisions from the beginning.
Lesson Learned