Impact evaluations dependent on household surveys benefit from triangulation with complimentary administrative data and qualitative data. This is especially true when trying to capture big picture objectives around land use administration, land transaction time, land use, land markets and land conflicts. A key data source to understand changes in access to agricultural land is land administrative data on volume of land transaction requests and approvals around agricultural land and whether the land offices were sustained and continued functioning post compact. This data was not reviewed for the Land Tenure Facilitation evaluation beyond to verify tenure status of parcels against perceived tenure status by the households. Qualitative data would have also been able to answer the questions of why we saw some unexpected data trends. For example, focus groups or key informant interviews could have answered why women were more likely than men to go off-farm as the expectation was women would increase farm labor once land tenure more secure. MCC’s impact evaluations now use multiple data sources, including not only household and parcel surveys but also administrative data, qualitative data, and geospatial data.
Lesson Learned