Imagine you work for UNICEF in Lebanon. Your team has the challenging task of ensuring that half a million displaced Syrian children who fled the war in their home country attend primary school. These children live scattered throughout the country, as Lebanon has a “no-camps” policy. Many of them are traumatized and grow up in bitter… Read more →←
Topic: Impact evaluation
Last Fall I visited three of the most poverty-stricken rural districts of Zambia: Kaputa, Kalabo and Shangombo. Each location took two days’ travel by car from Lusaka. We drove up to Kaputa, near the border with DRC, with a stock of jerry cans filled with fuel, passed through the Kafue National Park and crossed the mile-wide Zambesi… Read more →←
In international development, research is never purely an academic exercise. Its purpose, ultimately, is to provide knowledge that can be used to improve the lives of poor and vulnerable populations. Yet, despite increased focus on understanding the influence that research has on development policy and practice, methodology for… Read more →←
Recently, I’ve found myself immersed in a number of intellectually stimulating and ethically challenging discussions on the role of research in international development. Two instances stand out, because they vividly capture some of the dilemmas encountered in ethical research management and evidence-informed decision making. The first… Read more →←
I have just returned from rural Tanzania, where I got to see one of the largest social protection programmes in Africa in action. The Productive Social Safety Net provides three types of support to poor and food insecure households: conditional cash transfers, ‘cash for work’ and livelihood enhancement. I traveled to the Mbarali… Read more →←
During a recent trip to Ghana, we presented the baseline findings from an impact evaluation of the “LEAP 1000” cash transfer programme to UNICEF colleagues, government and development partners. LEAP 1000, an extension of Ghana’s Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty programme, targets households with young children. It is designed… Read more →←