DRG Research You Can Use

DRG Learning Quarterly

March 2018
Welcome to the March 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 includes infographics on two recent human rights literature reviews, findings from impact evaluations in Ghana and Niger, and the DRG Global and Regional Policy Division's Theories of Democratic Change II final report.

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.

Effective Human Rights Campaigns

A new DRG literature review addresses questions about human rights awareness campaigns, including: What makes human rights awareness campaigns successful? Why do many campaigns fail? What are the unintended negative consequences of both successful and failed campaigns? Findings highlight the benefits of strategic implementation and collaboration with media, pre-tested message design, and careful consideration of unintended consequences.  
 
See  infographic and  literature review  for additional information .
Top-down, Bottom-up, or both? A Ghana Example of Governance Accountability Programming

An impact evaluation of USAID's Ghana Strengthening Accountability Mechanisms (GSAM) project, which aims to increase accountability of local District Assemblies in Ghana, tested the effect of two distinct efforts to increase accountability and improve service delivery outcomes at the district level. One-hundred and fifty of Ghana's districts were randomized into three groups: a top-down treatment group that received performance audits conducted by the central government Ghana Audit Service; a bottom-up treatment group that received civil-society organization led scorecard campaigns; and a control group that did not receive either intervention. 

The study finds that both CSO and audit programming are effective at increasing citizen awareness of poor performing district projects and services, that citizens correctly attribute negative audit performance to poor-performing district authorities, but that citizens awareness did not translate into substantial changes in how administrators or politicians manage projects or project budgets. 

Read the  final report for additional information.

The persistence of authoritarian governments poses a challenge for the international community on a variety of fronts: dictatorships are more likely to repress their citizens, instigate wars, and perpetrate mass killing, among others. This challenge is even more pressing given the gradual decline in the number of democracies worldwide over the last decade.

Through a research grant funded by the DRG Center, a research team from Michigan State University organized and evaluated the body of current academic scholarship that contributes to understanding how and why countries move on paths from authoritarianism to democracy.

Read the literature review  here .
Civic Action in Successful Human Rights Programming

A new literature review addresses questions about human rights struggles and pressure "from below." What do we know about the role of citizens, social movements, and other domestic civic actors in advocating for human rights outcomes? What can we learn from their successes and failures? Can research findings on this topic in North America and Europe translate to other countries? Are certain rights easier to fight for than others? Findings show that domestic activism is critical both in mitigating the immediate impact of human rights violations and in providing redress and deterring future rights violations. Domestic civic actors should maintain dense and diverse networks, and frame their efforts in context appropriate ways.  

See infographic and  full  literature review  for additional information  .

Niger Impact Evaluation

To better understand how the USAID/Niger Mission's Participatory and Responsive Governance (PRG) project may affect governance in Niger, the DRG Center and USAID/Niger funded an impact evaluation focuses on PRG's multi-stakeholder dialogues that will bring together community leaders, municipal and regional councilors, private sector actors, professionals and citizens to confer upon, design, and initiate Regional Development Plans and Communal Development Plans. The expectation is the multi-stakeholder dialogues will catalyze development and government responsiveness both in terms of process and outcomes. The evaluation employs a randomized design to test this theory of change. The baseline report provides an overview of the design of the impact evaluation as well as findings from a baseline household and community leader survey.

Recommended Reading:

Department of State and USAID
Useful reference and discussion on the use of evidence (p21).

Authors: Valeriya Mechkova, Anna Luhrmann, Staffan Lindberg (V-Dem)
Accountability is a cornerstone of good governance, but how and in what sequence does accountability develop? The authors consider vertical (elections and political parties), horizontal (legislature, judiciary and other oversight bodies), and "diagonal accountability" (civil society and media) in both their de-jure and the de-facto dimensions. The study indicates that de-facto vertical accountability precede other forms of accountability. Effective institutions of horizontal accountability - such as vigorous parliaments and independent high courts - evolve late in the sequence and build on progress in other areas.   

By Aaron Abbarno (Democracy International)
Three approaches to improve evidence-based programming

Cracking the Evidence Conundrum: Four Ideas to Get People to Use Evidence
By Matt Baker and Monalisa Salib, USAID Learning Lab
This blog post provides insights on evidence-based decision-making that can help apply evidence to programming.
USAID DRG | Pages site
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