Parstats conducted the Guyana Miscellaneous Roads Program Evaluation to assess how new road improvements impacted community life across Regions 2 and 6 in Guyana. This study aimed to determine the effects of better road infrastructure on quality of life, access to essential services such as health and education and economic opportunities, providing insights to guide future investments.

The study used a mixed methods approach. The qualitative phase examined community members’ perspectives on road improvements through focus groups. The quantitative phase included a village- and a household-level survey covering 100 villages and 1,200 households. The former interviewed village representatives about infrastructure and community access. The latter gathered detailed information on education, health, employment, and overall living conditions.

GIS technology and satellite imagery played a key role in the study sampling design. Parstats’ GIS team created village urban boundaries and classified roads to generate treatment and control groups of villages and households. Villages with a high proportion of paved roads were designated as treatment, while those with less than 20% paved roads were used as control. All households were listed in each village and stratified according to their location on paved or unpaved roads.

By combining satellite imagery, GIS techniques and cutting-edge fieldwork quality control methods, Parstats produced high-quality data and analyzed it to support the design of future infrastructure programs.