The Hunger Project (THP) works towards tackling poverty in Africa by partnering with local people to establish community centers ("epicenters") offering a comprehensive range of services, from health and education, to agriculture, microfinance, water and sanitation, as well as fostering community spirit. The centers aim to be economically sustainable within 5 years.
"Brain drain", or the emigration of skilled workers, is one of the most common concerns African countries have about migration. Yet migration, broadly speaking, plays a significant role in economic development in the form of remittances and continued interaction of migrants with their home countries.
This study assesses the willingness of households in Northern Ghana to purchase a ceramic water filter. The Kosim filter is sold by Pure Home Water (PHW), a Ghana-based NGO, and has been demonstrated to be highly effective at improving water quality without needing electricity. We will also measure the health effects of household-level water treatment in areas with high waterborne disease loads.
Policy Issue:
Increasing the productivity of people lies at the core of the development process. Yet the drivers of worker productivity in developing countries remain largely unknown. Recent survey evidence shows that the most profitable and productive firms tend to adopt personnel policies that link pay to performance and that firms in less developed countries are less likely to do so. However, observational studies cannot establish causality, and rigorous field evidence on the effectiveness of pay for performance contracts is limited largely to the US and the UK. Whether pay for performance contracts can be effective at increasing productivity in developing countries remains an open question, the answer to which likely depends on how incentives interact with local cultural norms.
Surveys on financial knowledge and behavior have revealed that individuals in both developed and developing countries around the world lack adequate knowledge to make informed financial decisions. Empirical evidence demonstrating correlations between financial literacy and various measures of well-being has directed service providers, donors, and policymakers to include financial training and business education programs as part of broader anti-poverty strategies. Financial education, especially when provided in early life stages, has the potential to create long lasting impacts. Intuitively, provision of education in financial skills offers useful tools to persons of all ages facing distinct economic challenges, yet evidence of impact is thin and mixed. This project seeks to identify an effective program curriculum and delivery for financial education for primary schools students. Specifically, it will measure the impact of financial education on students’ behaviors and attitudes and will allow future research to determine if this early education has a bearing on future financial decision making.
Policy Issue:
Many small-scale farmers in the developing world face significant income uncertainty, and rural farmers who live from harvest to harvest don’t have much room for error. Variables beyond the farmers’ control, such as fluctuating crop prices, can make a significant difference in how much a family earns for the year. Farmers may be unwilling to take on additional risks by borrowing and making long-term investments due this uncertainty. This reluctance is thought to contribute to the decision of many farmers not to invest in technologies such as hybrid seeds, fertilizer, or irrigation that could potentially improve crop yields. Many lenders are also extremely wary of extending credit to farmers, fearful that they will inherit the risks inherent to farming. Crop price insurance could help solve this problem, reducing the risk to farmers and providing them with encouragement to make investments in their farms. Lenders, too, may feel more confident in lending to farmers with greater income certainty, facilitating even more capital investments.
In northern Ghana, farmers underinvest in potentially profitable agricultural inputs like fertilizer and high-yield seeds. It’s unclear, however, why farmers forgo these opportunities.
It could be that farmers are risk averse—that they’re reluctant to take loans for fear that a poor harvest, crop price fluctuation, or unexpected weather patterns means money lost or a debt to repay. Or it could be that farmers lack the initial capital to invest in agricultural inputs.
This project uses a business plan competition to judge the growth potential of micro business owners, and then evaluates if business training for entrepreneurs can improve the managerial capacity of owners with different levels of growth potential.
Policy Issue:
Entrepreneurship and small businesses are widely promoted as vehicles for economic growth. However, little rigorous research has been done to support this premise or answer the critical question of what factors constrain small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Managerial capital or training may be one factor limiting the efficiency and growth of firms. This evaluation measures the impact of business training on targeted businesses to determine whether it has the intended multiplier effects for economic welfare by leading to job creation, faster firm growth and stronger supplier or customer networks.
Policy Issue:
Savings are crucial for managing irregular and unpredictable cash flows in order to meet daily needs, finance lumpy expenditures, and deal with emergencies. For poor households, informal tools like credit from moneylenders are often less efficient than savings mechanisms as they require high interest rates to finance predictable and recurring expenses. Evidence suggests that these households often have excess financial capital after subsistence expenses that could be used for savings.Access to and utilization of financial products that help the poor save funds for the future may have substantial welfare consequences.
The recognition of this need has led to the creation of greater financial access throughout the developing world. Banks, for instance, have increased their reach over the past decade in Sub-Saharan Africa, offering savings accounts with minimal fees and opening requirements. Take-up of formal savings accounts among the poor, however, remains low. Why do poor individuals fail to take advantage of the lower-risk, lower-cost vehicle for saving that bank accounts offer? One explanation for sub-optimal saving is lack of self-control; individuals lack the self discipline to put small sums of money aside to save for the future. Psychological and transactional barriers must also be considered to better address the question of why take-up of formal savings accounts is so low.
