GIZ’s five-year Northern Uplands Integrated Rural Development Project in Laos came to a close at the end of 2015. INTRAC was commissioned to make key findings and recommendations from existing reports and data available to a wide audience in an easily-accessible format.

The report drew on primary survey data collected among beneficiaries in target villages in 2013 and 2015, analytical data, and implementation monitoring data. Throughout the process, the consultant had meetings with individuals and groups of GIZ staff and other key stakeholders for contextualisation, sense- and fact-checking and to discuss possible implications of findings for recommendations and lessons learned.

The report was an easily digestible, honest account of what the GIZ project had achieved, carefully considering the limits of attribution and counterfactuals. It included lessons learned, including forward looking recommendations and reflections on the methodologies used to establish outcomes.