L’évaluation Des Projets D’eau Potable En Milieu Urbain Par L’analyse Factorielle

Abstract

The projects currently funded and implemented in several African cities are aimed at achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); the focus is on improving access to basic services, including drinking water. However, very few evaluations of these projects result in a transparent reading of their contributions to the actual achievement of aforementioned MDGs, namely poverty reduction. Indeed, the large number of variables to handle in targeting evaluation units and analysing data often makes their representation difficult to understand for decision makers. Moreover, the choice of targets to be assessed remains a permanent concern. Factor analysis is a statistical tool facilitating target identification and focussing evaluations on the most relevant parameters in order to measure the objective achievement announced in the project documents. Indeed, the evaluation restriction to relevant variables enables a clear demonstration of the evaluation performance, while facilitating the reconciliation of views between scientists, technicians and decision makers. Through a case study, this document aims at showing descriptively the relevance of this tool in evaluating development projects. It focuses on the effectiveness evaluation in targeting grants for water connections as a part of the improvement of drinking water access in Yaoundé city’s precarious neighborhoods (Project AQUA / GPOBA) project. Principal and multiple components analysis associated with factor analysis of correspondences thus identified 5 relevant household poverty evaluation variables in Yaoundé’s precarious neighbourhoods, as well as the adequate distance to the network that would enable actually poor households to reach GPOBA grants.