Designing Impact Evaluation of Rural Adelante in El Salvador

The Office of Development Effectiveness (ODE) at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) randomly selected its programme “Rural Adelante” in El Salvador for an impact assessment. The corresponding data collection was integrated with the programme’s endline survey that was about to commence fieldwork, requiring us to quickly design and prepare the survey.

rowsquared was hired to lead the survey design. Within a very limited timeframe, we integrated the sample and questionnaire design of both surveys so that all survey objectives could be met within the resource constraints. We delivered successfully due to our expert knowledge of agricultural surveys and IFAD’s framework for impact measurement.

To develop the questionnaire, rowsquared adapted IFAD’s standard survey template for impact evaluations to the local context and the programme’s objective to strengthen climate resilience of smallholder farmers. We incorporated relevant parts of the programme’s endline survey. Using our dynamic translation system, we translated the instruments into Spanish, ensuring consistent and rigorous translation even while the questionnaire underwent significant changes.

We harmonized the sample of households and producer organisations to utilize the programme’s baseline survey and incorporate effective control and treatment groups.

rowsquared also delivered interviewer training in Spanish in eastern El Salvador. This included standardized written tests to identify comprehension gaps and assess interviewers’ readiness for fieldwork.

rowsquared provided all core survey design inputs, effectively harmonizing two surveys. The project served as another valuable test case for IFAD’s standard survey template that has been implemented across 4 countries. We fed improvements back into the template.