Rwanda Democracy and Governance Threshold Program Evaluation

The Millennium Challenge Corporation is sponsoring the Rwanda Threshold Program (RTP), which is intended to strengthen the rule of law, civil society, civic participation, media, and the inspectorate services of the national police. The RTP seeks to improve the country’s judicial and legislative capacity; deliver training and technical assistance to the Rwandan National Police to enhance transparency and professionalism; train Rwanda’s journalists and media organizations to enhance their professionalism and skills; and provide training, technical support, and grants to civil society organizations and government officials at both the local and national levels to expand civic engagement.

Mathematica designed a rigorous evaluation of key activities. The evaluations included a comparison group design for the national police program, pre-post surveys assessing the reach of new community radio stations created by the media program, a pairwise random selection design for the local civic participation program (where training activities were randomly assigned to half of Rwanda’s 30 districts in the program’s first year), and qualitative designs for several additional program components.

To carry out several of these evaluation options, we conducted an independent data collection surveying households nationwide on civic participation issues and perceptions of the police, media, and other relevant institutions. This nationwide survey had a sample size of 9,990 households—9,619 households completed the survey, resulting in a response rate of 96.29 percent. After baseline data collection concluded, Mathematica prepared a public use data set, codebook, and user’s manual.

In 2012, the Mathematica team completed a second round of national household data collection with the assistance of a Rwandan research firm. A draft report of that data collection is forthcoming. A codebook, user’s manual, and final data file are currently available.

Mathematica is also implementing a series of qualitative data collection activities related to the RTP initiatives. These activities include program reviews and document analyses, interviews with RNP officials and civic leaders; training on the development of a database of citizen feedback for the RNP; observations of local government and community meetings; and the scoring of supreme and high court judicial decisions using a standardized rubric.

Publications

"Evaluation of the Rwanda Threshold Program: Baseline Report" (October 2011)
"Rwanda Threshold Program: Baseline Findings" Presentation (October 2011)

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Publications

Rwanda Democracy and Governance Threshold Program Evaluation

Publications