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Posted 2009-10-26
Evaluating the impact of Conditional Cash Transfer on children’s poverty
A recent study on Oportunidades, Mexico’s large-scale conditional cash transfer program for poor families (Ozer et al., 2009), found that though the program did not directly address children’s behavior problems, it had a ripple effect in reducing children’s aggressive and oppositional behaviors.
The program was also found to have a significant impact in lowering the level of stress amongst children of mothers with high depressive symptoms (Fernald and Gunnar, 2009).
Earlier, Oportunidades was associated with lower prevalence of obesity and hypertension in rural Mexico (Fernald et al., 2008) suggesting that the educational component of the program was counterbalancing the income effect.
However in Malawi, a one-year schooling impacts from a conditional cash transfer experiment among teenage girls and young women (Baird et al., 2009) showed that a total transfer offer of $5 per household per month induces the average girl to be 10 percentage points more likely to be in school after one year and concluded that such insignificant increase in schooling rates achieved by doubling the total transfer to the household to $10 does not seem cost-effective.
Posted 2009-10-02
Evaluating fair trade interventions
For Kenyan farmers, the impact of fair trade has been positive in terms of higher income satisfaction, higher food consumption and value added effects such as access to services and training.
But a recent impact assessment of fair trade programs for bananas and coffee in Peru, Costa Rica, and Ghana, found that fair trade producers will benefit more from the ability to attract long-term delivery contracts, which give them the assurance and stability of selling their products in large-scale market outlets, than only from the price advantage of selling fair trade products.
Evidence showed that fair trade in Bolivia also had a positive influence on conflict prevention by reversing horizontal inequalities biased against indigenous people.
Posted 2009-09-07
Improving humanitarian impact assessment: bridging theory and practice by Karen Proudlock, Ben Ramalingam and Peta Sandison. The latest ALNAP review of humanitarian action summarises current debates on impact assessment in humanitarian aid, and identifies a series of challenges and approaches to impact assessments.
Focus of humanitarian evaluations is shifting towards analysis of the impact of humanitarian assistance – to understand, in an evidence-based way, how aid ultimately affects the lives and livelihoods of aid recipients. Improved impact assessment could contribute to greatly improved beneficiary participation, more robust needs assessments, and more evidence of what works.
Posted 2009-08-26
Evaluating anti-corruption interventions
A randomized control trial in Indonesia finds introducing universal auditing at village level reduced "missing expenditures" by 8 percent. By contrast, increasing grass-roots participation in the monitoring process only reduced missing wages and had no effect on missing materials expenditures. An earlier study also cautions relying on community based approaches.
Two studies in Madagascar show that an independent media can be an important tool in the fight against corruption. There is evidence that local presence of mass media significantly decreased the capture of cash as well as in-kind interventions. However, the impact of media is conditional on the level of literacy and reach of print and broadcast media in remote areas.
Posted 2009-08-10
Evaluating Nutritional Programs
Two studies of the Nutrition Enhancement Program in Senegal – one using a double difference, and the other propensity score matching - find a significant impact on nutritional outcomes. The program was meant to use randomized placement, and a simple comparison of treatment and control found no significant impact. But the matching methods show differences in the characteristics of the treatment and control, demonstrating that selection was at work, and so teaching the lesson that the integrity of randomization cannot be taken for granted.
A new paper from the World Bank outlines the methodological challenges in evaluating nutrition programs.
Posted 2009-08-06
Evaluating the impact of ‘citizen participation’
A randomized evaluation in education in India showed that providing information on existing institutions, training community members in a testing tool for children, and training volunteers to hold reading camps had no positive impact on community involvement, teacher effort or learning outcomes inside the school. However, children who attended the camps substantially improved their reading skills.
In contrast, community-based monitoring of primary health care providers in Uganda proved to be effective in improving usage of health service, as well as increasing child weight and reducing mortality.
An earlier study in Malawi and Zambia concluded that social funds use existing social capital ratherthan build it, and have done so successfully to improve and expand infrastructure facilities.
Posted 2009-06-23
Evaluating impacts of microfinance interventions
In the Philippines, new findings show that individual liability as opposed to group liability to repay loans has no impact on loan repayment and is more profitable to the lender.
In India, a new evaluation of microcredit found that while access to microcredits had a positive impact on household expenditure and creating and expending businesses, it had no discernible effect on education, health or women’s empowerement.
However, another study in the Philippines found that access to credit leads to a shift towards female-oriented durables goods purchase by the household.
Posted 2009-06-03
Impact evaluation of rural roads
In Madagascar, eliminating transport costs was shown to boost the
incomes of the most remote families by half, mainly by raising
An earlier study in Peru also demonstrated that rehabilitation of
More studies to confirm these effects are needed, but a recent review lays out the challenges to be faced in impact evaluation of rural roads projects (Dominique van de Walle, 2009).
Posted 2009-05-18
New impact studies on bednets
Free distribution of insecticide treated nets are both more effective and more cost-effective than cost-sharing finds a randomized malaria prevention experiment in Kenya (Cohen and Dupas, revised March 2009).
Results from a field experiment in Uganda also shows that distribution of mosquito nets for free led to a greater number of children covered than offering nets for sale (Hoffmann, 2008).
However, a new study in rural Orissa shows a 50 percent subsidy for the price of bednets would have a negligible effect on adoption (Aprajit Mahajan et all, 2009).
Posted 2009-05-11
New impact studies on health insurance
Recent randomised assessment of the Mexican Universal Health Insurance ‘Seguro Popular’ shows a substantial reduction of extraordinary health expenditures though no effects on medication spending, health outcomes, or utilisation (Gary King et all, 2009).
Another study on 'Seguro Popular' using different methodology also finds a protective effect on excessive health expenditures for the poorest (Galarrága et all, 2008).
Community-based health insurance in rural Burkina Faso has a significant impact but does not benefit the very poor (Gnawali et all, 2008).
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