Rwanda Research Design Report (Memo)

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) sponsored a Threshold Program in Rwanda to help improve Rwanda’s scores on the MCC Political Rights, Civil Liberties and Voice and Accountability governance indicators. The Rwanda Threshold Program (RTP) consisted of five initiatives designed to help deliver training and technical assistance to the Rwandan National Police (RNP) to enhance transparency and professionalism; improve the country’s judicial and legislative capacity; train Rwanda’s journalists and members of the media to enhance their professionalism and skills; and provide training, technical support, and grants to civil society organizations (CSOs) at both the local and national levels to expand civic engagement. Mathematica designed a rigorous evaluation of these components to determine their ultimate impact on intermediate and long-term outcomes.    

In this memorandum, we briefly review the status of program implementation and present proposed research designs to evaluate each of the main RTP activities. The memorandum is divided into two sections. In Section A, we provide an overview of the five RTP programs and briefly discuss our recommended approach to evaluating each program. In Section B, we summarize the design plan for a nationwide data collection effort and Mathematica-led evaluations of three programs (Strengthening RNP Inspectorate Services, Media Strengthening, and Strengthening Civic Participation).