A comparison of perceived effectiveness of technology projects from viewpoints of external nongovernmental organizations and host country beneficiaries in Haiti

Abstract

Three nongovernmental organizations sponsoring four projects in the Northern Department of Haiti were surveyed between May and July of 1998 to determine if their perceptions of the effectiveness of their projects correlated with the perceptions of the beneficiaries of those projects. Each NGO was surveyed prior to a survey team going into the community and performing a door-to-door interview survey of the project beneficiaries. Care was taken to adhere to cultural norms and customs. It was found that there was a positive correlation between the perceptions of the NGOs and their beneficiaries. Consequently, it could be concluded that the null hypothesis can be accepted, that is, an organization's perception of the effectiveness of its projects did not differ significantly from their effectiveness as perceived by the host country nationals who were the beneficiaries of the project. However, a further conclusion was drawn that while the NGOs are correctly perceiving what the project beneficiaries are telling them, in reality, a cultural tendency in Haiti toward providing a positive response to questions may have resulted in a bias that modifies the reality somewhat about what actually existed.