Don’t force investments to fit into one stated objective and associated project/theory of change when they logically do not – separate into a different project. The evaluation showed the N1 Highway Activity was very successful at reducing transportation costs. However, because the investment was proposed late and the compact planners wanted it to fit into the existing theory of change, the stated objective of the Transportation Project of which is was a part (“to reduce transportation costs for agricultural commerce”) did not make logical sense for the N1 Highway and it is not likely that it was achieved by the N1 Highway.
There was an attempt to synchronize the logic of the full compact (agriculture + roads), but that did not materialize. It increases risk when the success of one investment relies on another, and this situation should be avoided. In the case of Ghana, the success of the roads investments was predicated on increased traffic resulting from the compact’s agriculture investments. The results of the agriculture investments were limited: the farmer training activities were not well targeted, and the irrigation investments induced limited shift to growing high-valued crops, and so it is not surprising that the evaluation found neither the Trunk Roads Activity nor the Feeder Roads Activity to be cost effective. Furthermore, some of the agriculture investments were spatially detached from the roads investments, making this theory of change even more unrealistic.