The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the Middle East North Africa Investment Initiative (MENA II) as an approach to improve investor and business access to equity capital, contribute to the development of the investment ecosystem, advance development of the financial system, and encourage increased equity investment in early stage businesses in participating countries. USAID made selections and awards to partners to implement MENA II in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and West Bank. USAID was interested in measuring the impact of this initiative within and across these countries. The purpose of this project was to conduct the following to assist in the development of an impact evaluation program and plan:

• Develop MENA II regionwide impact indicators. Indicators across all countries were developed as a way to measure impact and compare effectiveness.
• Develop initial country-specific impact evaluation approaches. Because of the uniqueness of each country, the impact indicators needed to be measured using different data collection or evaluation methodologies that recognized local contextual nuances, country-specific MENA II approaches, and resource or evaluation constraints. Through this activity, Banyan Global helped USAID review options for evaluating MENA II’s impact and then select the most appropriate evaluation methodologies.

The identified indicators and evaluation approaches served as a precursor to collecting baseline data and then impact data periodically throughout the life of MENA II. Ultimately, these efforts supported an analysis of this innovative initiative’s development impact and helped compare MENA II’s performance across the aforementioned countries.