Missing the Forests for the Trees? Assessing the Use of Impact Evaluations in Forestry Programmes

Abstract

In this chapter, we examine how impact evaluations can contribute to measuring and understanding the overall effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of forestry programmes. In most cases we find that impact evaluations have used quasi-experimental methods rather than experimental methods to identify and measure change that can be causally attributed to forestry programmes. We conclude that in measuring the change that be attributed to these programmes, impact evaluation methods help to measure the overall effect, deal with sources of potential bias and mitigate confounding factors while undertaking these measurements. Impact evaluations also hold enormous potential because they are able to leverage the potential held by big and open data. However caution must also be exercised in using these methods. Impact evaluation methodologies must also incorporate causal pathways and methods of implementation research if they are to be relevant to policy and programme managers.