Innovative data collection methods (remote sensing and geospatial analysis) to capture agriculture-related outcomes should supplement household surveys to provide more credible and precise estimates of changes in land use and agricultural production. The interim evaluation relied on primary data from farmers, which could have been biased. It would be valuable to incorporate newer technologies to help validate primary source data and to track agriculture-related outcomes in real-time. MCC is addressing this lesson by convening a panel of experts to assess MCC’s recent evaluation results and propose new methods, potentially such as using remote imagery, to enhance MCC’s ability to reliably estimate the economic effects of irrigation and other agricultural investments on income growth and poverty alleviation. One possible approach could be to measure a three-year average production before intervention and compare with a similar average after. MCC is increasingly requesting evaluation teams include geospatial experts as key personnel so that geospatial analysis and remote sensing are considered early on in the evaluation and can make use of best practice in measuring land use changes.
Lesson Learned