Concept note for Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) Tanvir Hussain (GM ERD, PPAF) Hassan Akbar (ME ERD, PPAF) Aleena Naseem (ME ERD, PPAF) Imtiaz Alvi (World Bank – TTL) Nethra Palaniswamy (IFPRI)

Project description Scale Working in 126(of 130) districts with 84 Partner Organizations 3 rd Phase with USD 250 m budget Components  Social Mobilization & Institutional building  Formation of inclusive Community Based Orgs, federation of COs at different levels  Livelihood Enhancement & Protection  Productive asset transfers to Ultra-Poor, Livelihood skills training and Community Livelihood Fund  Micro-credit Access  Micro-credit, enterprise loans, and enterprise training  Basic Services & Infrastructure  Health, Education, Water & other community infrastructure

Research questions  Has the project been able to affect household income, consumption and production?  Has the project succeeded in enhancing the following assets of its target beneficiaries: Financial, Physical, Human, Social, Natural  Has the project been able to increase access to basic services and infrastructure?  Has the project been able to improve community level institutions in terms of their social capital, empowerment, and governance?  Has the project been able to reduce vulnerability and improve food security, resilience to external shocks and reintegrate and rehabilitate conflict affected communities?

Indicators  Household income, consumption, food consumption and household assets  Agricultural production and non-farm enterprises (gender disaggregated)  Access to drinking water, roads, sanitation, irrigation schemes, and education and health facilities  Linkages and access to other public and private service providers  Participation of poor and women in community institutions  Reconstruction of conflict affected infrastructure and rehabilitation of communities

Identification strategy  Basic sampling unit: Settlement  Randomly assigned treatment and control settlements, based on phasing.  Several baseline and impact evaluations staggered over 5 cohorts, same households interviewed at 3 points of time.  Difference-in-difference method for analysis, use of IV for any possible contamination.  Results augmented with monitoring reports and data.  Poverty scorecard to identify the poor and track poverty levels in the assessment areas.

Sample  A representative sample taking care of geographic spread, partner diversity, financial weight of interventions, and multitude of components and interventions will remain a challenge.  Sample to be stratified to ensure adequate representation of each cateogry.  Sample is expected to provide statistically valid results at the project level.  Based on final stratificaton, 95% confidence level, and ±3% error margin, a representative sample of settlements and households to be selected.  Based on the above parameters, an estimated 384 settlements (192 treatment, 192 control) to be covered  And an estimated 4,000 treatment (and 4,000 control) households will be interviewed

Timeline  Treatment and control groups for each cohort of baseline, mid- term and end-term surveys; Use of cohort fixed effects mehtod to account for variability over cohorts.  To supplement the evaluation, Case Studies to be conducted at various points of time, and User Surveys to be conducted at the end of each financial year.

Impact evaluation team  ERD Unit – PPAF  World Bank PPAF Project Team  DIME Team  Consultants

Estimated budget  Estimated cost: 1 million USD (approximately)  A portion of the financing from project funds  Seek remaining funds from DIME, national, regional, and global sources  Existing MoU with premier academic institutions.  Similar linkages to be established with international institutions seeking partnership

Thank you