Assessing the Impact of Development Projects – Looking for a Black Cat in a Dark Room and Hoping that the Cat is There?

Do development projects reach their stated objectives, such as reducing poverty, improving skills, creating jobs, etc.? This turns out to be a complicated question about project impact that a simple before-and-after measurement would not help answer. Why?
Jobs For Sale

As Harry S Truman once noted – “It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own”. While Georgia was able to grow its economy, this growth did not trickle all the way down.
The Puzzle of Agricultural Productivity in Georgia (and Armenia)

While more than half of all jobs in Georgia are in the agricultural sector, agriculture’s share of value-added to GDP was only 11 percent in 2007 (World Bank).