This publication is part of a seriesaimed at promoting good policies and practices on ruraltransport in Africa. A recent review of the status of RuralTransport Knowledge Products and Practice (Riverson, 2012)identified a number of knowledge gaps and recommended theproduction of working papers to address these. One of thesegaps was the absence of robust tools, including relevantindicators and instruments, to measure the impact of ruraltransport projects on rural growth and poverty reduction.This paper addresses this gap. The focus on impactmonitoring appears relatively straightforward but in realityrequires a distinction between effects and impact, termsused interchangeably in the literature. Similarly, there isa range of technical terms and definitions applied toMonitoring and Evaluation, presented in annex four. Amonitoring and evaluation system is an essential element ofplanning, design and implementation of a rural transportproject1 as it serves to assess whether it has achieved itsobjective and its development goal. Thus, the MillenniumChallenge Corporation (MCC) sees independent evaluations asthe most rigorous means of measuring [program] impact and[is] at the heart of MCC s commitment to accountability,learning, transparency, and evidence-based decision-making.Yet, there are few completed independent evaluations on theMCC website and the majority of their evaluation effortseems focused on performance monitoring. Similarly, theIndian Government s results-based management of its largeagricultural support program separates outcomes from impactand stresses the importance of the former as a means ofassessing the performance of government departments such aspublic works and transport in supporting the government sambitious agricultural development program (Government ofKerala Memo, 2013).
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