For five days, 50 social researchers, academics and others working on developmental matters from different African countries, Europe and the United States were ensconced in the serene Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja, Nigeria's capital. They spent most of their time dissecting the various strands that make for effective social programme evaluation.

The five-day executive training, with the theme "Evaluating Social Programmes", was put together by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Total.

According to Mr. John Addeh, Executive Director, External Affairs of Total Upstream Companies in Nigeria: "Total and its partners are moving from an 'assistance' paradigm to promoting enterprise and entrepreneurship in the communities around us, having done a good number of infrastructure in the past. This Seminar in partnership with MIT is planned to jump-start the process of enterprise-promotion by giving community participants (and those from the larger society) the analytical tools for making the right choices in the projects to undertake."

Several topics were dwelt on during the seminar, in addition to group work and case studies. The topics included: "What is Evaluation?" "Why Randomise?", "How to Randomise", "Measurements and Outcomes", "Sample Size and Data Management", "Managing Threats" and "Analysing Data".

Resource persons came from top grade institutions in the US. They included Dean Karlan from Yale University, Pascaline Dupas from Dartmouth College, Nava Ashraf from Harvard Business School, and Esther Duflo from MIT.

Participants, most of whom were effusive in their praise of the seminar, are expected to apply the knowledge and skills acquired during the training to evaluate several social/development programmes they are directly involved in. These include eradication of diseases in both rural and urban areas, impact of provision of potable water, enlightenment campaigns on HIVAIDS, improved hygiene, provision of social infrastructure, such as schools, roads, etc.

In his remarks at the plenary session of the programme, Mr. Jacques Marraud des Grottes, Managing Director of Elf Petroleum Nigeria Limited, said that with the seminar taking place in the early days of the new Nigerian government, it is hoped that "the distillation of ideas" from the programme "could possibly filter into the policy formulation of new key players in the new dispensation, leading to new developments that will be beneficial to all Nigerians and indeed mankind."

He also said: "The greatest benefit our company will derive from this joint initiative is that participants take back the benefits from here, apply them to make a difference and to build capacity." His address was read on his behalf by Mr. Addeh.

Mr. Joseph Eilor who came from Uganda captured the thoughts of most participants, some of who also spoke, when he said during the Open Session, that the seminar was "very useful" and has enabled the participants sharpen their skills in programmes monitoring and evaluation. He promised to ensure that "others benefit from the knowledge I have acquired in the past few days."

Also speaking in the same vein was Mr. Chizor Wisdom Dike of the Egi Community Development Foundation. He is from Total's host community in OML 58 in Rivers State of Nigeria. According to him, the seminar has impacted "invaluable lessons" in him. He added that it will strengthen the quality of work his Foundation is doing in the realm of sustainable development in conjunction with Total and others in the Egi Community.

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is eminently placed to provide skills in social programmes evaluation. J-PAL is dedicated to fighting poverty by ensuring that policy decisions are based on scientific evidence. This it does by undertaking, promoting the use of, and disseminating the results of randomised evaluations of poverty alleviating programmes.

J-PAL has worked on issues such as boosting girls' attendance at school, improving the output of farmers in Sub-Sahara Africa, racial bias in employment in the United States and the role of women political leaders in India.

J-PAL was started in June 2003 by Prof. Abhijit Baneyee, Esther Duflo and Sandhil Mullainathan at the MIT. J-PAL was renamed in honour of Abdul Latif Jameel in October 2005.

The pictures below complete the story.