DRG Research You Can Use

DRG Learning Quarterly

April-July 2018
Welcome to the April-July 2018 DRG Learning Quarterly, the newsletter that will keep you informed on new learning, evaluation, and research in the DRG sector.

This edition of the Learning Quarterly features impact evaluations of CVE programming in Burkina Faso and tax collection programming in Malawi, CTIP surveys in the Philippines and Honduras, an elections survey in Liberia, and some summer reading.

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.
Countering Violent Extremism in Burkina Faso

A new DRG Impact Evaluation examines aspects of CVE programming in Burkina Faso.  ' Voices for Peace' is a communication media activity implemented by Equal Access to promote peace and tolerance, and counter violent extremism in the Sahel region of West Africa, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad. The activity seeks to strengthen and sustain local narratives of tolerance and moderation by building on local cultural and historical traditions. Promoting positive alternative narratives can be effective in countering violent extremist propaganda. One innovative approach to promoting such narratives involves the use of educational radio dramas. An impact evaluation was designed to examine whether radio dramas can be an effective tool to counter violent extremism.   
 
See the  baseline report  for additional information .
Liberia Elections Survey

USAID/Liberia and the DRG Center partnered to conduct the Liberia Electoral Access and Participation (LEAP II) survey. The objective of the survey is to track the influence of civic and voter education efforts on voter engagement and collect data on Liberians' perceptions of the national election administration's performance.  The survey began immediately after the Presidential and House of Representatives run-off elections in January 2018. Findings from the data  include: 

- Most Liberians know where they need to go to vote and believe the NEC has done a good job informing the population about voting requirements;

- While both voter registration and participation in the elections is higher among all Liberians, Liberian women made greater gains than men and now report registering and voting at levels nearly identical to Liberian men;

- Perceptions of unfair election practices remain problematic - compared to 2015 (LEAP I), respondents in 2018 are more than twice as likely to say vote buying is a practice "almost everyone" takes part in;

- Liberians are more likely to identify with a specific political party than they were in 2015.

See the  survey report  for additional information .
Tax Collection in Malawi

This report presents the findings of a baseline survey for a field experiment (impact evaluation) to be conducted in Malawi on tax compliance in markets. The proposed experiment will test the effectiveness of two different approaches to improving tax compliance: a bundle of bottom-up interventions that focus on increasing quasi-voluntary tax compliance, and a bundle of top-down interventions that focus on improving the government's ability to collect taxes and enforce tax compliance. This experiment will be randomized at the market level, across 128 markets in eight districts in Malawi.  
 
See the  baseline report  for additional information .
Honduras CTIP Survey

This CTIP survey examines the prevalence of different forms of human trafficking in Honduras, and how victim vulnerabilities, recruitment patterns, regional particularities, and servitude experiences vary given different types of human trafficking.  Findings include:

- Approximately 30% of vulnerable populations who receive services from NGOs in Honduras are victims of some form of human trafficking.

-   The vast majority of trafficking taking place in Honduras is internal trafficking, with most occurring in one's own hometown or village. 

See  Survey report   for additional information .
CTIP in the Philippines

USAID's DRG Center, in collaboration with USAID/Philippines, implemented a TIP Knowledge, Awareness, and Victim Identification Survey with two principal components. The first component is a variant of a standard knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) survey designed to assess the public's general knowledge about, and attitudes toward, trafficking. The second component of the survey focuses on identifying victims of trafficking and interviewing them about their experiences.  The survey found the following: 

- Component 1 data provided estimates of national and regional trafficking prevalence. The national trafficking prevalence rate was estimated at 3.28%. Seven hotspot regions of the country that have trafficking prevalence rates above 5% were also identified.

See the  survey report   for additional information .
Recommended Reading:

This Wiki is a one-stop shop for practical resources on research design, data collection and analysis, and publishing and disseminating results. It focuses on implementation rather than theory and is easily accessible to practitioners with varying levels of expertise. Whether you are seeking information on sampling, questionnaire design or preparing for a pilot survey, this is the go-to hub for practical guidance. As a collaborative resource, you can also contribute with your own experiences to the DIME Wiki. 

A simple procedural reform giving judges more power to reach faster decisions resulted in quicker completion of pre-trial procedures. What accounted for the quicker processing? Judges used their new power to desk-reject extremely weak cases while fast-tracking well-documented cases straight to deliberation. In addition, judges were more likely to put pressure on parties and issue strict deadlines for adjournments. Perhaps even more interesting, sharing the results of the evaluation (of the reforms) motivated high-level magistrates to create a new law on the organization of commercial tribunals and appeal chambers, which helped improve Senegal's Doing Business ranking and boosted momentum for the ongoing reform process. As the authors state: "reforms may be good, but evaluating them is even better!"
 
V-Dem Policy Brief : The V-Dem Method for Aggregating Expert Coded Data.  This methodology has sparked interest in improving the way that expert rankings are calculated in the DRG sector.
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