Niger: Monitoring the Effect of Policy Reform (Niger: Suivi des Effets des Reformes des Politiques Economiques)

摘要

The report provides a conceptual approach to the design of systems to monitor the impact of policy reforms and then applies the approach to the problem of assessing the impact of two policy reform efforts, the Agriculture Sector Development Grant (ASDG) and the Niger Economic Policy Reform Program (NEPRP). The author identifies a number of issues which must be taken into consideration when designing policy reforms. First of all, it is important to specify the purpose of impact monitoring because different monitoring systems may be needed for different purposes. Perhaps the most difficult issue is the establishment of causal linkages between specific policy actions and specific measurable outcomes. Finally, it must be recognized that there will be trade-offs between the comprehensiveness of a monitoring system and its cost. As a result, decisions will have to be made on the number of variables to monitor, their coverage and frequency of collection. Three performance dimensions of importance to Niger are described and linked to structural conditions of the Nigerian economy.