De-mystifying Impact Assessment
Joanne Sprague

This note aims to provide a basic summary of the field of impact assessment (IA) in development, and to de-mystify this seemingly complex topic to some extent. We start by defining what we believe impact is - the difference between what actually happened as a result of an organization’s program implementation and what would have happened if the programs had not been implemented at all. Next, we explore how to assess impact. Historically, the challenges of isolating the impact of a program have led organizations to assess themselves on measures that fall short of impact, such as outreach quantity or fund utilization. More recently, the development sector is moving towards assessing actual changes in the lives of clients, which is a much more accurate but far more difficult task. Moreover, there seems to be no consensus on terminology for this field of study – the following terms are often used interchangeably: impact assessment, impact evaluation, impact management, performance management, results measurement, monitoring and evaluation, and so on. We believe that no matter what the preferred jargon, a holistic approach to the topic of impact assessment would lend clarity of purpose to the task.