Ten-Year Impacts of Burkina Faso’s BRIGHT Program

I. INTRODUCTION
From 2005 through 2008, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) funded a two-year
Threshold Program (TP) to increase educational attainment of girls in Burkina Faso by
constructing primary schools with classrooms for grades 1 through 3 and providing
complementary interventions. The program, known as the Burkinabé Response to Improve Girl’s
Chances to Succeed, or BRIGHT, was implemented in 132 rural villages located in the 10
provinces in Burkina Faso with the lowest enrollment rates among girls. The initial short-term
impact evaluation of BRIGHT using data from a 2008 survey (see Levy et al. 2009; Kazianga et
al. 2013) found positive impacts on school enrollment and test scores for both boys and girls, 5
to 12 years old, three years after the program’s launch. Encouraged by the positive impacts, but
concerned they would be short-lived, the government of Burkina Faso decided to extend the
program in 2008. This extension, which consisted of constructing three additional classrooms for
grades 4 through 6 in the original 132 villages and continuing the complementary interventions,
was implemented between 2009 and 2012. During the TP, the initial phase of the program was
known as BRIGHT I; the extension has been known as BRIGHT II.
MCC hired Mathematica Policy Research to conduct a rigorous independent impact
evaluation of BRIGHT using two additional rounds of data collection. The impact evaluation
using the first of these two rounds of data collection in 2012 (Kazianga et al. 2016) found
statistically significant positive impacts for children 6 to 17 years old on enrollment and test
scores, as well as a reduction of child labor in various household activities, seven years after the
start of the BRIGHT program. The current impact evaluation uses data from the second
additional round of data collection that occurred in 2015. This impact evaluation assesses
whether the program affected the school enrollment, attendance, academic performance, and
other outcomes of children and young people 6 to 22 years of age in the 132 villages where
BRIGHT was implemented and the extent to which that occurs. The evaluation team members
included Harounan Kazianga at Oklahoma State University and Leigh Linden at the University
of Texas.
In this report, we present details on the evaluation design of the BRIGHT program and
impact findings from the evaluation 10 years after the program's launch, using the 2015
household and school surveys. Although BRIGHT focused on increasing girls’ enrollment and
educational attainment, this analysis looks at improvements in outcomes for both boys and girls.
We begin this chapter by discussing the context of primary schooling in Burkina Faso. Next, we
briefly summarize the findings from the previous short-term evaluation, then provide details on
the extensions to the program implemented since 2008 and the program’s logic and links to
economic rates of return. Finally, we review the literature and discuss the evidence gap filled by
the current evaluation.
A. Primary schooling context in Burkina Faso
Primary school enrollment rates in Burkina Faso were among the lowest in the world in the
1970s. Despite making good progress during the next two decades, the gross enrollment rate at
the beginning of this century (in 2001) was 46.4 percent and the primary school completion rate
was 26.7 percent (Table I.1). Also, Burkina Faso’s primary enrollment rate in 2001 was one of
the lowest in the West Africa region (Figure I.1). Moreover, there was a substantial gap between
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