DDI_SLV_2009_MCC-NTH_v01_M Millennium Challenge Corporation 2014-12-17 NADA Version 1.0 (December 2014) Version 1.1 (January 2015) : Description of main outcomes, other. Version 2.0 (April 2015). Edited version based on Version 01 (ddi-mcc-slv-socialimpact-connectivity-2014-v1) that was done by Millennium Challenge Corporation. Northern Transnational Highway 2009-2014 MCC-NTH 2009-14 Carretera Longitudinal del Norte SLV_2009_MCC-NTH_v01_M Social Impact Inc. NADA Millennium Challenge Corporation Monitoring & Evaluation Division Independent Impact Evaluation Raw data for internal use only Roads Transport Impact evaluation Continous treatment Regression discontinuity El Salvador Roads Impact evaluation Continous treatment Regression Discontinuity The benefits of the connectivity project will be measured using a rigorous impact evaluation methodology. An impact evaluation is a study that measures changes in outcomes affecting wellbeing that can be attributed to a specific intervention. Impact evaluations require a credible and rigorously defined counterfactual that estimates what would have happened to the beneficiaries in the absence of the project. Estimated impacts, when contrasted with total related costs, provide an assessment of the intervention’s cost effectiveness. It is expected that this project will reduce transportation costs and enable households to extend their labor activities and diversify their income sources. The first questions are related to the project outputs (direct products of the program, such as segments of the NTH constructed, etc.) as opposed to outcomes or impacts (changes access to markets, changes in income). Some questions that will be addressed in the impact evaluation: • Was the NTH implemented according to plan? • Did the NTH reach the originally intended beneficiaries? Did it reach unintended population or sectors of the economy? • Does access to the improved NTH improve market participation by increasing the likelihood of going to the market and/or the volume sold in the market? • Does access to the improved NTH increase income from agricultural sources? • Does access to the improved NTH increase the availability of non-farm employment and promote the creation of non-farm enterprises? • Does access to the improved NTH increase the use of public services? Specifically, health and education services? El Salvador The connectivity project initially consisted of a network of connecting roads (NCR) and the Northern Transnational Highway but because of the significant increase in construction costs and the existence of other interventions in connecting roads the project only focused on the Northern Transnational Highway. As a result of these changes the current impact evaluation design focuses only on the evaluation of the Northern Transnational Highway. Households The population being analyzed consists of the people living within a 30 minute radius of the NTH. This region (the Northern Zone) contains one-half of El Salvador’s poorest municipalities and suffered more damage from the country’s internal conflict during the 1980s than any other region. Economic and social indicators in the Northern Zone are currently worse than the national averages. Sample survey data [ssd] Social Impact Dirección General de Estadísticas y Censos - El Salvador National Statistics The household survey for the connectivity impact evaluation interviewed 3,450 households at baseline. There was high attrition in the first two follow-up surveys (2010 and 2011), with few of the households lost in the follow-up being regained in 2011. In the 2012 round, the evaluator implemented a farther-reaching tracking of the baseline households and were able to recuperate more households, bringing the effective sample size in the 2012 survey to 3,065 households. For the endline survey in 2014, the evaluator will continue to track down the baseline households that are still missing and, to the extent possible, use methods that are robust to unbalanced panel data in the final analysis. Quantitative Household Survey: The baseline and endline survey questionnaire includes two sections – one (including questions about household income and agricultural productivity) that is answered by the male head of household who is interviewed by a male survey taker and one (including questions about household demographics, time allocation, and expenses) which is answered by a female in the household, i.e. spouse or female household head, who is interviewed by a female survey taker. Quantitative and Qualitative Community Survey: The community survey was administered to key informants in communities where selected households live; each section of the survey was administered to the better-informed informant. The surveys took place from November to February of the indicated years. Interviewing was conducted by teams of interviewers. Each interviewing team comprised of 3-4 interviewers, and a supervisor, and a driver. The role of the supervisor was to coordinate field data collection activities, including management of the field teams, supplies and equipment, finances, maps and listings, coordinate with local authorities concerning the survey plan and make arrangements for accommodation and travel. Additionally, a chief field supervisor assigned the work to the supervisors/interviewers, spot checked work, maintained field control documents, and sent completed questionnaires and progress reports to the central office. The team 2 coordinators for data entry and quality control that were responsible for managing the headquarter team reviewing each questionnaire, checking for missed questions, skip errors, fields incorrectly completed, and checking for inconsistencies in the data. For the follow-up surveys electronic devices where specifically programmed for the survey that automatically performed checks of the data in the field. The evaluator will produce cleaned raw datasets that follows MCC’s guidelines for public use data, including programming syntax used to clean the datasets for documentation purposes. A full set of documentation for each survey will be provided. The raw data and the data used for the final analysis will be provided. A public use version of analysis data files will be provided. The publicly available version will be anonymized, and thus free of personal or geographic identifiers that would permit identification of individual respondents or their household members. Millennium Challenge Corporation Millennium Challenge Corporation http://data.mcc.gov/evaluations/index.php/catalog/135 Cost: None