IPA's study on the effects of cash transfers on youth employment and income in Northern Uganda appears in Bloomberg Businessweek. You can read more about the study on Chris Blattman's blog or on our project summary.
IPA's study on the effects of cash transfers on youth employment and income in Northern Uganda appears in Forbes. You can read more about the study on Chris Blattman's blog or on our project summary.
IPA's study on the effects of cash transfers on youth employment and income in Northern Uganda appears in Slate. You can read more about the study on Chris Blattman's blog or on our project summary.
IPA's study on the effects of cash transfers on youth employment and income in Northern Uganda appears in Foreign Policy. You can read more about the study on Chris Blattman's blog or on our project summary.
Over at The Smoke-Filled Room, Yale PhD student Suparna Chaudhry writes:
The Indian government must realize that simply granting a lump-sum of money to ex-combatants for a period of time cannot guarantee their reintegration—education and training are crucial skills that need to be imparted, but until these skills are used to develop these regions further, there is not [sic] guarantee that other civilians might be deterred from taking up arms.
Her post is inspired by the Government of India’s offer to rehabilitate the Maoist insurgents in many parts...
The drum beats in the distance grow louder and the warmth of the flames tickles my arms and face. Dancers around me shimmy at a moderate speed to the rhythm of their own drums awaiting the arrival of the parade of participants from the nearby village. As the two groups merge into one around the bonfire, the sound of the competing drums becomes deafening and the dancing reaches a frenzied pace.
As the evening goes on, I listen to the retelling of countless stories from the decade-long war in Sierra Leone. It’s an intense experience—and it represents one of many approaches aiding the...
Chris Blattman describes an update on one of his projects with IPA in Liberia:
Helen, the research assistant overseeing the targeting, surveying, and behavioral measurement emails me on progress:
…surprisingly none of our equipment disappeared and none of our enumerators were juked, harassed or hustled from.
On two different occasions in the past week our respondents allegedly stole from community members–some tennis shoes and a blind man’s radio–so at least anecdotally we’ve got the right guys.
We also had one mobilizer visit a respondent in jail (for stabbing...
Chris Blattman is off to Liberia to check in on a couple of projects being implemented with IPA. I'm pretty sure our excellent field staff will have everything under control.
One project is a study on a training program for former civil war combatants, another an evaluation of a peace education program. If you thought that RCTs couldn't do governance, you thought wrong.
IPA Researcher Chris Blattman's evaluation of an intervention aimed at Street Youth in Liberia is covered by the BBC's The World program.
Listen to the audio here, including interviews with Liberia Country Director Tricia Gonwa and Professor Blattman.
"So you're asking: How does somebody recover from being conscripted and having to kill their family members. And I think recover is the wrong word. You don't... Recovering is not the goal. It's like when people ask me, so, how is alleviating poverty? How's that going? You have to actually narrow it...
Check out this post in the New York Times' Freakonomics Blog Dwyer Gunn's time tagging along with the research team for the WINGS project in Uganda.
"I went to northern Uganda to observe an economic experiment - a randomized program intervention focused on highly vulnerable women in the region. The program, Women's Income Generating Support (WINGS), is being implemented by the Association of Volunteers in International Service (AVSI) and will provide the women with grants and business training. Women's Income Generating Support (WINGS), is being implemented by the Association of...
Fieldwork is not all fun and games, but that seems to be the recent experience for IPA Research Affiliate Chris Blattman's project evaluation, "Women's Income Generating Support (WINGS) Program"
In two recent blog posts, he describes how including behavioral games (with cash prizes!) as part of their survey has practically turned his experiments team into a "roving casino", then goes on to describe the very public randomization lottery that they held to select the treatment and control villages.
