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DRG Learning Newsletter: Nobel Prize Edition Impact Evaluations for Policy Change
November/December 2019
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Welcome to the November/December 2019 Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG) Learning Newsletter, where we highlight the latest learning and research in the DRG sector.
In this edition, we are thrilled to recognize and congratulate Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer, all Affiliated Professors of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), on being awarded the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. J-PAL is a research center based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a global leader in conducting randomized control trials (RCTs) of programs that combat poverty and advance DRG. For more information on J-PAL, please feel free to contact Adil Abadou
ataababou@povertyactionlab.org
or David Alzate at
dalzate@povertyactionlab.org
.
USAID's own DRG Learning efforts complement J-PAL's mission, and we highlight two of our recent impact evaluations in this edition.
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J-PAL and the Governance Sector
J-PAL was founded in 2003 with the goal of conducting research, policy engagement, and training to transform how the world approaches the challenges of global poverty. To date, J-PAL-affiliated researchers have conducted more than 950 RCTs, including
close to 220 evaluation studies
related to the DRG sector. These have resulted in a
range of publications
and their latest synthesis product,
Policy Insights
, that summarizes learning for policymakers, practitioners, and funders to improve programs.
Another Policy Insight on
Improving women's representation in politics through gender quotas
suggests that governments seeking to improve women's representation in politics should consider reservation quotas for local leadership positions. A review of eleven randomized evaluations in Afghanistan, Lesotho, and across 24 states in India found that reservation quotas influenced women's political participation and policy outcomes and increased the provision of public goods aligned with female voters' preferences.
Like the DRG Center, J-PAL's work aims "to identify policies and programs that improve service delivery and make governments more responsive to citizens' needs." J-PAL has been a trendsetter in taking a data-driven approach to develop and test poverty alleviation strategies. The DRG Center has similarly expanded its use of RCTs, supporting USAID Missions around the world to conduct impact evaluations to better understand the effectiveness of DRG programming. To date, the DRG Center has completed 20 impact evaluations covering a range of topics, from government transparency to political transition to civic education. Two notable evaluations, described below, were conducted in Nepal and Haiti.
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Electoral Debates in Nepal
USAID conducted an
evaluation
to determine the impact of citizen exposure to parliamentary candidate debates. Debates instigate policy-based discussions and set standards against which voters can hold elected officials accountable. Given the difficult geography and short campaign periods, Nepali citizens do not usually have the opportunity to hear their candidates discuss policy issues in an organized format.
In collaboration with NORC at the University of Chicago, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Principal Investigator Nahomi Ichino, USAID evaluated constituencies in three districts in the run-up to the parliamentary elections of 2018. NDI engaged the Samriddhi Foundation to organize three candidate debates in November 2017, and recruited community radio stations to host screenings of, and discussions around, the recorded debates. Researchers selected a random sample of eligible adults in the selected constituencies, totaling 957 individuals, to attend the sessions.
The impact evaluation found that the screening of candidate debates and small-group discussions had a positive impact. These interventions improved participants' sense of political efficacy, swayed their views about the role of government, and helped inform what they deem priority issues. Participants developed more positive views of the candidates who performed best in the debates, though this did not affect participants' preferred candidates in the end-line survey. This may be because political parties in Nepal are more clientelistic than ideological.
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Legal Representation Access in Haiti
In 2016, USAID conducted an
evaluation
of the PROJUSTICE program, whose primary goal was to enhance justice delivery to promote stability and security in Haiti. One component of the program worked to reduce prolonged pretrial detention (PTD) that exceeded constitutional time limits. The prevalence of PTD highlights a grave human rights concern, as 70 percent of the Haitian prison population is composed of individuals in (often prolonged) PTD. To combat this, PROJUSTICE provided free legal assistance to individual detainees held in PTD. The legal assistance provided by the activity to selected prolonged pretrial detainees resulted in the procedural advancement of 1,364 cases, the acquittal of 630 individuals, and the release of 578 individuals over the seven-year PROJUSTICE activity.
In this impact evaluation, individual detainees were offered legal assistance in randomly assigned order. The design maximized the number of detainees that ultimately received this assistance. The evaluation found that legal assistance increased the proportion of detainees who were freed nine months after they began to receive legal aid. In addition to improving human rights conditions, the evaluation estimated that this USAID-funded legal assistance provided substantial financial benefits to the Government of Haiti, as imprisonment is costly and reductions in the length of PTD correspond to substantial savings and increased investment in hiring lawyers. Based on extensive research, the evaluation recommended follow-on programming to continue to help reduce prolonged PTD by: improving the availability of free legal assistance; investing in record-keeping to complement legal aid; and reforming the legal framework.
Utilizing these findings, USAID/Haiti supported a process leading to the adoption in September 2018 of legal assistance legislation that created Haiti's first Legal Aid service. If properly funded, that legislation will provide Haitians with access to government-funded public defenders and reduce prolonged pre-trial detention.
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We welcome your feedback on this newsletter and on our efforts to promote the accessibility, dissemination, and utilization of DRG research. Please visit the
DRG Center's website
for additional information or
contact us at
dcha.drg.lmaillist@usaid.gov
.
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