Impact Assessment and Impact Measurement of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Smart Power for Rural Development (SPRD) Initiative

The Rockefeller Foundation (RF) funded programme (SPRD) aimed to promote sustainable business models delivering renewable electricity to the households and enterprises. By enhancing access to quality electricity, SPRD aimed to spur economic development among the poor consumers and underserved rural population. The initiative have focused in the areas where a new organization, Smart Power India (SPI) has been established by the RF. SPI partnered with energy service companies, telecom tower operators, investors, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and government agencies to electrify 1,000 villages during the intervention period. Sambodhi was engaged with SPRD as its impact measurement partner. The measurement approaches focuses on economic growth through incubation of new as well as handholding of existing micro-enterprises. The study also carries out periodic consumer research for their willingness for electric connection and measures the economic impact on the micro-enterprises & impact on improved quality of life on household/consumer level.
Design: Quasi-Experimental Design, mix method design including both qualitative and quantitative data collection, results monitoring, periodic rapid assessment, Thematic Study. The data are being collected across 2700 HHs using tablets and mini laptops. CSPro based program was developed to collect quality data. The collected data will be analysed using statistical packages STATA, SPSS and ATLAS Ti.