Project

Rigorous Impact Evaluation of the  WIDU.Africa project in Ghana and Cameroon

Client

Athena Infonomics / GIZ

Duration

January 2021 - December 2023

African migrants in Europe send billions of Euros each year to family, friends and acquaintances in their home countries, which could be leveraged for productive investments in capital-constrained micro, small and medium-sized businesses. 

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The project “Promoting employment in the informal sector in Africa by leveraging diaspora money transfers” (WIDU.africa) is implemented by Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Development. WIDU.africa provides grants and training to African entrepreneurs in connection with existing flows of money from private individuals within the African diaspora in Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden. 

Using a quasi-experimental Difference-in-Difference approach, this research project follows nearly 500 treated and comparison entrepreneurs in Ghana and Cameroon across three time-intervals (baseline, midline, and endline) to measure the impact of WIDU on a set of indicators such as business performance, job creation, income, financial literacy, etc in the short and medium-run. The research project is carried out by Athena Infonomics an Impactloop as a subcontractor.

ImpactLoop team members involved are Anja Grob, Nurudeen Sulemana, Tanju Fidel Kottoh, Ashmika Gouchwal, and Manuela K. Günther.