MCDA Final Report Malawi - Standards and Trade Development ...

Figure 11. Decision criteria measures scores for SPS capacity-building options - impact on poverty
It is apparent that none of the SPS capacity-building options dominates across all or even most of the
decision criteria, such that it is not immediately apparent how these options should be prioritised. That
is where the outranking analysis comes in; it compares each of the capacity-building options on a
pairwise basis with respect to each of the ten decision criteria in turn. Each of these comparisons
determines whether one option dominates (or is dominated) by another and by how much. The
aggregate of all of these comparisons, taking account of the defined decision weights, gives an overall
measure of preference, what is termed the ‘net flow’. The maximum score an option can have is +1, in
which case it dominates all other options for all 10 of the decision criteria. The minimum score an
option can have is -1, in which case it is dominated by all other options for every one of the 10 decision
criteria. Thus, options with a positive and larger net flow are given a higher priority. Conversely,
options with a negative and larger net flow are given a lower priority.
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