Thomas de Hoop

Blogs by author

Empowering women through Self-Help Groups: Evidence of effectiveness, questions of scale

Thomas de Hoop, Stuti Tripathi 08 March 2020 blog  
Since the 1980s, India has invested significantly in Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and other women’s groups to improve gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Moving impact evaluations beyond controlled circumstances

Thomas de Hoop 12 June 2013 blog  
The constraints imposed by an intervention can often make designing an evaluation quite challenging. If a large-scale programme is rolled out nationally, for instance, it becomes very hard to find a credible comparison group. Many evaluators would shy away from evaluating programmes when it is hard to find a plausible counterfactual. Since it’s also harder to publish the findings of such evaluations, there don’t seem to be many incentives for evaluating such programmes.

Of rumours related to blood, poison and researchers

Radhika Menon, Thomas de Hoop 28 January 2013 blog  
The attempt to collect blood samples of children for a malaria treatment intervention in Kenya met with stiff opposition from the study community. There were rumours of blood stealing, covert HIV testing and suspicion about the safety of the study drugs. It may be quite easy to attribute this rumour to ignorance and superstition. But these rumours do not come out of the blue. Historical, anthropological and sociological accounts can trace the roots of such distrust and suspicion.

African theories of change: lost in translation?

Sulley Gariba, Thomas de Hoop 06 February 2012 blog  

The word ‘evaluation’ has several different meanings in African languages. In the Yoruba language, evaluation is often associated with ‘ayewo’ which means ‘investigation’. The meaning ties in with the cultural concept of evaluation. Many African societies have ‘evaluation’ rooted in their traditions in that they undertake all  kinds of ‘investigations’ before they embark on a major project – farming, marriage, travel, assessment of causes and sources of illness.