Evaluating Country Programmes - OECD Online Bookshop

OECD 1999
Country Programme Evaluation: A State of the Art Review
Appendix 2.7
Approaches to the Construction of a Counterfactual
in Country Programme Evaluation
1. Long-run growth models: forecasts based upon cross-sectional data and a limited number
of assumptions with regard to demographics, and resources and using technology.
Does not account for factors such as external shocks which might change the pattern of
growth.
2. Large-scale econometric models: Simulations are run on multi-equation econometric
models of the national economy (where such exist) to compare performance with and
without assistance.
3. Country comparisons: comparing the performance of two countries with similar baseline
characteristics, one of which received aid and one did not.
4. Induced implicit assumptions: the evaluator uses his or her assumptions about what
explains unsuccessful operations to approximate what the situation would be in the
absence of that operation.
5. Ex-ante counterfactual: at the initiation of a country programme, donor staff should ideally
prepare predictions of future country performance likely to occur in the absence of
the donor’s operations. Country performance is subsequently compared to this and the
difference attributed to aid.
(Summarised from IDB, 1999: 4)
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