Assessing the distributional impacts of development interventions - the Inequality Marker

Persistent economic and social inequalities constrain the inclusive development of nations. The internationally agreed Sustainable Development Goal 10 (SDG10) and its targets, aim to address these constraints through the promotion of equalising policies. This paper tests the validity of the Inequality Marker and Distributional Impact Assessment (DIA) tools that have been developed to assess the contribution of development projects to inequality reduction using as case studies four AFD and European Commission funded projects in Benin, Djibouti-Ethiopia, Uganda, and Vietnam. The DIA analyses have been carried out in two cases: in Benin (ex-post) and Uganda (ex-ante). Overall, the study shows how the Inequality Marker and DIA methodology can provide relevant information on the potential contribution of development projects to inequality reduction. The study identifies critical issues for the implementation of the DIA analysis that reflect both organisational constraints in donor agencies internal procedures, and external contextual factors. The study also provides a set of policy recommendations to mitigate these threats.