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General

Study Overview

Title:

Lake Victoria Transport Corridor Project

Study is 3ie funded:

No

Study ID:

RIDIE-STUDY-ID-5c64fed7c5d50

Initial Registration Date:

02/13/2019

Last Update Date:

05/17/2019

Study Status:

In Development

Abstract:

This Impact Evaluation (IE) proposes to leverage rich micro data to estimate the impact of the highway construction on travel times and costs, on firm-level outcomes, and aggregate economic activity. Specifically, the IE seeks to answer the following research questions: What is the impact of the southern corridor construction on transport costs, traffic flows, land values, economic activity, population, consumption, and income of economic agents living near the corridor? Our theory of change is based on the premise that the new highway’s immediate effect is the reduction of travel time and transportation costs between localities along the corridor. This is expected to allow efficient mobility of goods and population in the Southern and Eastern regions of Rwanda. As a result, the project is expected to reduce firms’ trade and transaction costs and population will have better access to markets. We expect this to generate an overall economic improvement for agents living close to the corridor through greater mobility of people and goods. Our proposed identification strategy combines existing administrative and survey data and new data collected on markets, traffic and trucking's.

Registration Citation:

Bougna, T., Kondolys, F., Jones, M.R. and Gonzalez-Navarro, M., 2019. Lake Victoria Transport Corridor Project. Registry for International Development for Impact Evaluations (RIDIE). Available at: 10.23846/ridie163

Categories:

Agriculture and Rural Development
Economic Policy
Health, Nutrition, and Population
Multisector
Private Sector Development
Transportation

Additional Keywords:

Secondary ID Number(s):

Principal Investigator(s)

Name of First PI:

Theophile Bougna, Florence Kondolys, and Maria Ruth Jones

Affiliation:

The World Bank Group

Name of Second PI:

Marco Gonzalez-Navarro

Affiliation:

University of California Berkeley

Study Sponsor

Name:

IeConnect Program

Study Sponsor Location:

United States

Research Partner

Name of Partner Institution:

University of California Berkeley

Type of Organization:

Research institute/University

Location:

United States

Intervention

Intervention Overview

Intervention:

The project intervention consists of the construction a new high-capacity highway between Ngoma, Bugesera, and Nyanza as depicted in blue in Figure 1. This new highway consists of two separate segments that will replace the existing gravel road and will provide new connectivity within the National Road System between the Tanzania port of entry in the south east of the country and southern central Rwanda. This will allow for faster and lower-cost movement of merchandise and people along the southern part of the country. Among other benefits, it will allow international trade between DRC, Burundi and the DRC without having to head north all the way to Kigali only to come heading south again. This route will also improve connectivity and market access for villages along the path of the intervened sections, as well as cities around the country that will as a consequence experience improved market access. The first section has a length of 53 km and is located between Kibungo and Ramiro and is being funded by The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The second section extends over 66 km between Kibugabuga - Shinga - Gasoro, and is funded by the World Bank.

Theory of Change:

Under current road conditions, mobility of people is limited, and firms face high transportation costs as well as unanticipated shipment delays. The input we analyze (the new highway) is expected to reduce travel time and transportation costs for users of the new road in the Southern and Eastern regions of Rwanda. As a result, the population in the region will have better access to markets. As an intermediate outcome, the Ngoma-Bugesera-Nyanza road is expected to significantly increase traffic volumes in these regions. Currently, traffic is generally limited, presumably because of the poor quality of the road with no pavement. We expect locals and local firms to increase their mobility and the project is expected to also divert traffic that was previously travelling through Kigali with destinations in the Southern Provinces of Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, and DRC. If the infrastructure has productivity effects for firms, and/or as an amenity for households, we expect positive impacts on land values, which we will measure with high-frequency at the parcel level. A second intermediate outcome is total population in villages around the road. This indicates whether the villages around the road have become more attractive places for households or firms. Changes in population count will be captured in the village-level Ubudehe listing, which is updated every three years. Finally, the above-mentioned impacts are quite likely to be heterogeneous across firms, individual characteristics, and spatial locations. Those living near the improved roads are expected to experience increased economic opportunity due to the increased traffic flow (in the case of those with businesses along the road) and increased mobility and connectivity (for those living near the road and using it to connect to other opportunities, e.g. taking agricultural goods to market or finding higher wage jobs).

Multiple Treatment Arms Evaluated?

No

Implementing Agency

Name of Organization:

Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA)

Type of Organization:

Public Sector, e.g. Government Agency or Ministry

Program Funder

Name of Organization:

ieConnect

Type of Organization:

Foreign or Multilateral Aid Agency

Intervention Timing

Intervention or Program Started at time of Registration?

No

Start Date:

06/03/2019

End Date:

12/31/2021

Evaluation Method

Evaluation Method Overview

Primary (or First) Evaluation Method:

Difference in difference/fixed effects

Other (not Listed) Method:

Additional Evaluation Method (If Any):

Regression with controls

Other (not Listed) Method:

Method Details

Details of Evaluation Approach:

The fundamental design which is shared across all outcomes is a difference-in-difference model. This model compares changes in a “treatment” group to changes in a set of controls. By focusing on changes over time, pre-existing differences between treatment and control are permissible. The key assumption is that while selection into treatment may be correlated with baseline characteristics, treatment and comparison groups would have followed parallel trends in the absence of the intervention. To select the appropriate counterfactual corridors, we take two approaches. The first takes advantage of the 2017 Rwanda road network to identify a number of trunk roads that are targeted to be paved in very similar to the one between Ngoma-Bugesera-Nyanza by the Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA). RTDA has agreed to share the GIS shapefile.

Outcomes (Endpoints):

Household income and consumption # new formal and informal, firms, # new formal and informal jobs, # formal firms, VAT payments, and receipts, # formal jobs, Availability and prices at local markets, Population increases/decreases at village level, # land transactions, value of transactions, Night light intensity

Unit of Analysis:

Villages, firms, households, land transactions

Hypotheses:

What is the impact of the southern corridor construction on: - Transport costs of corridor users along different origins-destinations? - Type and volume of traffic flows along the southern corridor? - Market valuation of improved road access as measured by aggregate land value changes along the corridor? - Regional development as measured by changes in total population, and enterprise development? - Regional market integration measured by product availability, and changes in consumer prices?

Unit of Intervention or Assignment:

Villages

Number of Clusters in Sample:

798

Change History for Number of Clusters in Sample

Changed On	Previous Value
05/17/2019	300

Number of Individuals in Sample:

5020

Change History for Number of Individuals in Sample

Changed On	Previous Value
05/17/2019	20000

Size of Treatment, Control, or Comparison Subsamples:

2048 (treatment) and 2966 (control)

Supplementary Files

Analysis Plan:

Other Documents:

Data

Outcomes Data

Description:

The spirit of our study is to leverage the current government’s investment in administrative data collection, complemented with a small amount of primary data collection, to document the national impact of a large infrastructure program. We will build on a data system established for the Rural Feeder Roads Development Program (RFRDP) impact evaluation in Rwanda and demonstrate how it can be extended to a Corridor context. We anticipate this methodology to be transferable to other road.

Data Already Collected?

Yes

Data Previously Used?

Yes

Data Access:

Restricted -- Access requires a formal approval process

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Data Approval Process:

Formal letter directed to the different Government institutions

Approval Status:

Yes-obtained approval and have received the data

Treatment Assignment Data

Participation or Assignment Information:

No

Description:

The spirit of our study is to leverage the current government’s investment in administrative data collection, complemented with a small amount of primary data collection, to document the national impact of a large infrastructure program. We will build on a data system established for the Rural Feeder Roads Development Program (RFRDP) impact evaluation in Rwanda and demonstrate how it can be extended to a Corridor context. We anticipate this methodology to be transferable to other road

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Yes

Data Previously Used?

Yes

Data Access:

Restricted -- Access requires a formal approval process

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Data Approval Process:

Formal letter directed to the different Government institutions

Approval Status:

Yes-obtained approval and have received the data

Data Analysis

Data Analysis Status:

Yes

Study Materials

Upload Study Materials:

Registration Category

Registration Category:

Non-Prospective, Category 4: Data for measuring impacts have been obtained/collected by the research team and analysis for this evaluation has started

Completion

Completion Overview

Intervention Completion Date:

Data Collection Completion Date:

Unit of Analysis:

Clusters in Final Sample:

Total Observations in Final Sample:

Size of Treatment, Control, or Comparison Subsamples:

Findings

Preliminary Report:

Preliminary Report URL:

Summary of Findings:

Paper:

Paper Summary:

Paper Citation:

Data Availability

Data Availability (Primary Data):

Date of Data Availability:

Data URL or Contact:

Access procedure:

Other Materials

Survey:

Survey Instrument Links or Contact:

Program Files:

Program Files Links or Contact:

External Link:

External Link Description:

Description of Changes:

Study Stopped

Date:

Reason: