The Mathematica team designed the evaluation of the cable activity in close cooperation with MCC, MCA-T, and stakeholders in Zanzibar. The impact evaluation will address four research
questions. These research questions are answered with different sets of data, but together contribute to answering an overarching question about the extent of the cable activity’s impact.
The four research questions are:
• Research question 1—What is the impact of the cable activity on the reliability and quality of electricity supply on Unguja Island?
• Research question 2—What is the impact of the cable activity on the financial performance of hotels on Unguja Island?
• Research question 3—What were the effects on hotel operations of the extended power outage (“blackout”) in Unguja Island from December 2009 through March 2010?
• Research question 4—Is the cable activity warranted based on the benefit-cost analyses? (Re-estimation of the project’s economic rate of return.)
One planned component of the evaluation was a pre-post study using ZECO data on aggregate electricity consumption, reliability, quality, and connectivity in Zanzibar; that component will not be carried out due to concerns about data quality.
The other component of the evaluation involves a pre-post analysis of hotel survey data. The hotel survey is meant to be a case study focusing on a specific key industry that is sensitive to electricity supply. This case study is used as a proxy for how businesses may be affected by power quality and reliability. The survey questions related to the blackout are meant to provide some indication of the nature and potential magnitude of the impacts that can be expected from the cable activity by reducing blackouts.