Impact indicators : general issues and concerns

This paper examines some basic issues affecting impact indicators for agricultural and rural development projects. The paper lists technical and practical criteria for selecting impact indicators and argues the indispensability of these indicators in determining whether and to what extent development changes have occurred, although the use of supplementary qualitative studies is urged to develop a reasonable certainty that the changes are causally link to a given project. Three impact areas - household income, food availability and consumption, and the natural resource base - are identified as central for providing a systematic assessment of the Agency"s progress towards its agricultural and rural development goals; simple criteria for selecting sample projects on which to gather data in these three areas are presented. A final section suggests concrete ways of reducing the costs of establishing a system for collecting and analyzing impact data.