As part of a joint consortium, International Economics is conducting a Joint Evaluation of the Trade Mark East Africa (TMEA) programme. Since 2010 TMEA has been working to support the growth of trade in East Africa, and this project will assess how successful it has been in achieving its intervention output, trade outcome and poverty impact objectives. The core objectives of the evaluation include:
(1) assessing all causal links and the robustness of underlying assumptions (including links between trade, growth and poverty reduction); (2) analysing and, to the extent possible, measuring the impact of the regional integration aspects on regional trade, growth and poverty (particularly on the key stakeholders – men and women separately, poor and vulnerable groups, as well as traders and consumers), and sustainability; (3) assessing the effectiveness of the TMEA programme, including its organisational effectiveness, and whether it represents Value For Money; and (4) identifying lessons learnt that are relevant beyond TMEA, such as insights on enabling and constraining factors, and critical actions and gaps which would be generalisable to future programmes or other contexts. Specifically, the CEO of International Economics is the workstream leader of the team undertaking a trade and growth impact study.