The impact evaluation sought to answer three key questions: (1) What was the impact of the program on
school enrollment? (2) What was the impact of the program on test scores? (3) Were the impacts different for
girls than for boys? While two other reports have documented that the program was implemented as
intended, by and large,
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this evaluation focuses on assessing its impacts.
An impact evaluation estimates program impacts by seeking to compare what happened to the
beneficiaries of the program relative to what would have happened to them in the absence of the program. In
this particular case, to estimate the program’s impacts, we assessed how children in BRIGHT villages fared
relative to how they would have fared had BRIGHT not been implemented. This assessment is important
because even in the absence of BRIGHT, it is likely that enrollment would have increased in the 132 villages
in which it was implemented. School construction and enrollment both were increasing in the period prior to
the implementation of BRIGHT, and the government of Burkina Faso launched a program, Plan Decennal
de Developpement de l’Education de Base (PDDEB) for the period 2002-2011 PDDEB’s goals include
increased access to schooling and the promotion of girls’ education. Moreover, during 2007–2008, the total
number of children enrolled in school rose in the 10 provinces in which BRIGHT was implemented—in the
132 BRIGHT villages and the remaining villages as well.
Hence, our ability to assess the program’s success turns on the issue of whether, and the extent to which,
we can ascertain what part of the improvement in educational outcomes in the 132 BRIGHT villages was due
to the program itself and what part would have happened even if the program had not been implemented.