Does your program
actually work?
We find out.
Rigorous evaluation frameworks — experimental and quasi-experimental — that turn field data into credible, decision-ready evidence for donors, governments, and development partners.
“The hardest question in development isn’t what to do — it’s whether what you did made a difference.”
— Dr. Stanley Karanja, FounderEvidence that earns donor confidence
Millions of dollars flow into development programs every year. But how many can truly demonstrate impact? At Profit Logic Consultancy, impact evaluation is not a box to check at the end of a project — it is the architecture that makes evidence credible, actionable, and fundable.
This capability rests on the 15+ years our founder, Dr. Stanley Karanja, spent designing and leading evaluations in some of the world’s most demanding donor environments — before founding Profit Logic Consultancy — publishing his findings in top-tier peer-reviewed journals along the way.
That same methodological rigour, field experience, and lessons learned are now applied to every evaluation delivered through Profit Logic Consultancy today.
A framework built for real-world complexity
Design Before Data
Every evaluation begins with a rigorous design phase — defining counterfactuals, sampling strategy, identification strategy, and ethical protocols before a single enumerator enters the field.
Systems-Level Thinking
Programs don’t operate in isolation. We capture spillovers, gender dynamics, market effects, and institutional factors that narrower evaluations often miss—using integrated analytical frameworks.
Decision-Ready Outputs
Findings are communicated not just as academic papers, but as policy briefs, investment cases, and scaling roadmaps — tailored to what donors, governments, and program managers actually need to act.
IRB & Ethics Compliance
All evaluation designs meet international ethical standards, with full documentation support for Institutional Review Board (IRB) submissions and data governance frameworks.
Digital Data Infrastructure
Standardized digital data collection protocols — SurveyCTO, ODK, SCML — with quality control systems, validation routines, and clean datasets ready for analysis and archival.
Capacity & Knowledge Transfer
Evaluations are opportunities to build lasting institutional capacity. Training, mentoring, and co-authorship ensure that your team can independently interpret and build on findings long after project close.
Selected evaluation engagements
These engagements were carried out by our founder, Dr. Stanley Karanja, over 15+ years working with international agricultural research organisations and universities — before he founded Profit Logic Consultancy. The methodological expertise and lessons learned from each assignment now transfer directly into every evaluation delivered through Profit Logic Consultancy.
Evaluating Climate-Smart Agriculture at Scale: The R4ICSA-II Programme
Co-led the evaluation of the IKEA Foundation-funded Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Rice Initiative for Climate-Smart Agriculture across Kenya and Uganda. As Co-Principal Investigator, held full ownership of the baseline data collection end-to-end — planning field logistics, training enumerators, refining survey tools, and coding the survey into ODK, through to data analysis, data cleaning, and drafting of results.
The evaluation deployed a quasi-experimental framework combining Difference-in-Differences, propensity score matching, and panel data methods to rigorously assess program impacts on productivity, income, resilience, and CSA adoption among smallholder farmers. Also organised the stakeholder workshops in both Kenya and Uganda for the baseline and midline evaluation stages, engaging multi-stakeholder platforms to identify drivers, risks, and institutional bottlenecks — translating evaluation evidence into actionable scaling roadmaps with clear policy, financing, and investment recommendations for the funder.
Gender, Investment Decisions, and Labour in Smallholder Households
A key member of the team that designed and supervised a lab-in-the-field randomised controlled experiment examining intra-household gender dynamics in investment and labour allocation among smallholder farmers in rural Tanzania. This pioneering work generated rigorous causal evidence on how gender roles shape agricultural decision-making — filling a critical gap in CSA adoption literature.
The study was presented at the International Conference of Agricultural Economics (ICAE 2021), where it was awarded the Best Paper on Gender Award.
Manuscript under review · Journal of Development EconomicsAre Risks to Climate-Smart Investment a Red Herring? Evidence from 11 Countries
Led a multi-country financial cost-benefit and impact evaluation examining whether perceived risks and uncertainties actually constrain investment in Climate-Smart innovations across Africa and Asia. Deploying Monte Carlo simulations and ex-ante economic modelling, the study generated quantitative evidence across diverse agro-ecological and socio-economic contexts.
Findings were published in Climate Risk Management and directly inform investment strategy for development programs operating under uncertainty.
Read the PaperCost-Benefit Evidence for Climate-Smart Soil Practices and Livestock Investment
Led first-author cost-benefit analyses on two related fronts: a working paper evaluating Climate-Smart soil practices in Western Kenya, and a USAID-commissioned business case assessing livestock management improvements in the lowlands of Ethiopia. Both combined ex-ante cost-benefit analysis with field-level data to evaluate trade-offs, co-benefits, and the conditions under which each investment delivers the highest societal returns.
This work also contributed to a related multi-country study on the cost-benefit case for climate adaptation strategies across value chains in Sub-Saharan Africa, published in Heliyon.
USAID Report Working Paper Related StudyRwanda’s Path to Resilience: Evaluating Climate-Smart Agriculture & Risk Management
Led an economic impact evaluation unveiling the economic potential of Climate-Smart Agriculture and risk management strategies in Rwanda, using a combination of household modelling, economic analysis, and impact assessment frameworks.
Read the PaperSelected peer-reviewed publications
With an h-index of 21 and over 2,300 citations across 30+ peer-reviewed publications in leading development, economics, and climate journals, the methodological expertise underpinning every evaluation is independently validated by the global research community.
Cost-Benefit Analysis of prioritized climate adaptation strategies among smallholder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa
View PublicationAre risks and uncertainties as constraints to investing in Climate-Smart innovations a red herring? Evidence from 11 countries
View PublicationCommunity-based approaches to support the anchoring of climate-smart agriculture in Tanzania
View PublicationComparative Profitability and Relative Risk of Adopting Climate-Smart Soil Practices — Six Practices in Western Kenya
View PublicationTrade-offs and synergies of climate change adaptation strategies among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review
View PublicationRwanda’s Path to Resilience: Unveiling the Economic Potential of Climate-Smart Agriculture and Risk Management Strategies
View PublicationAward-winning research
Best Paper on Gender Award
International Conference of Agricultural Economics — for the interesting lab-in-the-field research on gender and investment decisions in smallholder households in rural Tanzania.
Exceptional Contribution Award
Recognised for exceptional contribution in the use of integrated models in agriculture at the Tropentag International Conference, University of Bonn, Germany.
2,379 Citations · h-index 21
Peer reviewer for 10+ international journals including Climate Change, Environment Development & Sustainability, and Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change.
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