Evaluations of infrastructure investments, particularly small infrastructure, should require a plan for an inspection of the infrastructure prior to launching household or business data collection. This evaluation originally included an impact evaluation component focused on mini-grids installed by one of the project grantees. However, upon launching the household survey, the enumeration team discovered that the mini-grids were non-operational and the evaluation had to pivot and redesign the endline study. Operations and maintenance of infrastructure is a frequent challenge, and it is therefore worth building a step into evaluation fieldwork that ensures that the infrastructure is operating as expected before embarking on data collection related to the effects of the infrastructure.
Lesson Learned