Since the early 1980s, the Government ofNiger and its development partners have invested more than200 billion West African Francs (FCFA) in programs willpromote sustainable land management (SLM) and otheractivities to reduce poverty and vulnerability. Overall,more than 50 programs have promoted SLM in Niger. Despitelarge investments in SLM programs, their impacts on landmanagement, agricultural production, poverty, and otheroutcomes are not well known. A few studies have documentedimpacts of particular projects and land management practicesin selected locations, finding many favorable impacts.However, although these studies provide valuable insights,they are limited in scope and by the methods used. A commonproblem is the absence of suitable counterfactualobservations to compare to outcomes for communities andhouseholds participating in programs or using particularland management practices, or inadequate definition of thecounterfactual used. This analysis is intended to contributeto knowledge about the impacts of SLM programs in Niger byaddressing some of the methodological limitations of priorstudies. The evaluation is based on a secondary database ofmajor SLM program activities and village characteristicsassembled for all villages of Niger, and a community andhousehold survey conducted with more than 1,200 householdsin 139 villages selected to represent the rural regions ofNiger where most SLM programs have operated. Threats toexternal and internal validity of the findings wereaddressed by using statistical sampling methods to assurerepresentativeness of the findings, and quasi-experimentalmatching and econometric methods to assure that the programand counterfactual non-program villages and households wereas comparable as possible in terms of observablecharacteristics that affect program placement,participation, and outcomes.
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