Special Issues for the Measurement of Program Impact in Developing Countries

The application of evaluation techniques in developing countries has expanded rapidly in recent years, although the absolute number of programs of social and economic development which explicitly contain evaluation components remains relatively small. Examples range from the evaluation of small non-formal education projects in rural Guatemala to wide ranging regional development programs in Brazil. Governments are not only concerned with assessing the benefits of long espoused development strategies (e.g., land reform or technical assistance) but also in improving methods for implementing existing as well as experimental projects (e.g., rural health care, community participation in development planning, etc.).