This impact evaluation study was designed to provide empirical evidence of the impact that can be attributed to the financial and capacity development support that development projects in South Africa have received from the National Development Agency through its grant funding mandate. The scope of this investigation was restricted to a focus on development projects in the fields of income generation, food security and early childhood development and for the grant funding period 2007 to 2012.

The National Development Agency (NDA) is a statutory body, established in 2000 in terms of Act No 108 of 1998, with a primary mandate of promoting a partnership between the state and civil society organisations (CSO’s) for addressing poverty and development in general. Its creation was informed by the need for the state to create a vehicle for channelling state resources for anti-poverty programmes to non-state actions (CSO’s) towards the implementation of poverty eradication interventions (RSA, 1998).