This paper evaluates the efforts of one international development intervention — the Kokoyah Millennium Villages Project (KMVP) — to improve welfare and build social cohesion in post-conflict Liberia. The study is based on a preliminary analysis of survey data from a quasi-experimental, difference-in-differences (DID) research design, and shows that social cohesion was already higher than anticipated before the project began.
Despite operational challenges with implementation of the KMVP, complaints about the project, and lack of improved perceptions of welfare, there is evidence that the KMVP had positive effects on some measures of social cohesion and no evidence of adverse effects, yet no changes on some factors that may be important to contribute to development. The findings demonstrate that DID measures and quasi-experimental designs that use appropriate comparison groups can yield important insights in social science research conducted in complex and changing contexts such as a post-civil war setting.
Key findings:
- A better understanding of social cohesion in post-conflict contexts could help development programs improve social cohesion and, ultimately, facilitate achievement of communities’ development goals. In that vein, this study presents a preliminary differences-in-differences analysis of a panel survey to investigate the impact of the KMVP on social cohesion in Liberia. It presents the first quasi-experimental evaluation — with control and treatment groups, and pre- and post-project data — of any Millennium Villages Project. It shows that social cohesion was already higher than anticipated before the project began.
- The study finds that there were operational challenges with implementation of the KMVP, complaints about the project and lack of improved perceptions of welfare. At the same time, it provides evidence that social cohesion was already high at baseline and that the Kokoyah project had positive effects on some measures of social cohesion and no evidence of adverse effects, although no changes on some factors which may be important to contribute to development.
- These findings have important implications. Firstly, DID measures and quasi-experimental designs that use appropriate comparison groups can yield important insights in social science research conducted in complex and changing contexts such as a post-civil war setting. Secondly, policy makers and practitioners should measure existing social cohesion before beginning a project and examine how best to harness what may already be there. Thirdly, development policy makers, donors and practitioners working in post-conflict countries should, wherever possible, integrate the examination of social cohesion into research as well as program monitoring and evaluation.
