“Impact” refers to a state of change over a baseline value or resulting from the project outputs and other external events. Impact assessment assesses the net social and economic benefits of the programme on the target beneficiaries. This means that the programmes outputs would produce the desired affects that in turn would lead to the accomplishment of objectives of the programme. Example Irrigation development programme provides inputs or irrigation facilities that provide irrigation water to idle lands (this is output). With the availability of water, farm productivity is expected to increase which could help achieve the objectives of
Increasing income of the farmers
Improving agricultural production
“Impact assessment” therefore assesses both the intentional and unintentional effects of the programme and studies the relationship of inputs, outputs, purpose and objectives of the programme. Basically it seeks to establish whether the programme objectives were attained and if these accomplishments were due to the programme. Unlike performance monitoring and process evaluation, impact assessment is done only after termination of the programme.
Participants