devinitorg/iati-policy-markers huggingface dataset:
Indigenous development alternatives: An urban youth perspective from Bolivia The project examines the dynamic interactions of urbanization, youth activism and indigenous development alternatives. It explores the driving forces contributing to the urbanization of indigenous peoples, with particular emphasis on youth; describes the lived realities of indigenous youth living in distinct urban settings; investigates indigenous development alternatives put forward by activist youth groups; and assesses the extent to which practitioners address and integrate the interests, needs and priorities of indigenous youth into policy and planning interventions. The project focuses on Bolivia, a country with a particularly large and diverse indigenous population which is predominantly young and urban. The PI has worked over the last five years with indigenous communities in this country and established trustful relationships with indigenous youth groups and support organisations. Building on existing partnerships, the project develops a new tradition of youth participatory action research which involves indigenous youth in all stages of the research, following primarily their interests and priorities. The project will aim to inform policy direction through the production of academic papers and policy briefs speaking directly to relevant key stakeholders. Based on a strategy to address different target groups, the project will simultaneously inform academics, governments, international organisations, NGOs and the general public over practices that can better meet the above-mentioned SDGs. The project will do this by focusing on four impact objectives: (1) build research capacities of indigenous youth from the four case studies in Bolivia; (2) raise public awareness of the specific interests, demands and needs and associated development priorities of urban indigenous youth, (3) secure the commitment of relevant stakeholder groups; and (4) influence key local, national, regional and global policy makers to undertake policy and planning interventions in a way that these are sensitive to the interests and needs of urban indigenous youth. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Assessing Models of Public-Private Partnerships for Irrigation Development in Africa (AMPPPIDA) This research aims to provide guidance to these SSA countries and irrigation officials on developing and implementing PPPs that are beneficial to the countries, private investors, and, ultimately, the end-users of these irrigation projects. This objective will be addressed through research to understand the factors that influence the outcomes of PPP processes and outreach to raise awareness and build capacity for policy makers on how to engage in PPP processes. We will assess different types of irrigation arrangements across SSA and implement in-depth case study work in Tanzania and Ghana, based on key informant interviews and focus groups, that highlight, among other factors, the different ways that men and women participate in and benefit from different irrigation arrangements, including PPPs. In addition, workshops with country stakeholders will employ participatory Netmapping techniques to identify relationships and networks critical for engaging in effective and equitable PPP arrangements. Both local universities and government stakeholders from irrigation ministries will be key partners in the process, along with an international policy research organization with considerable expertise on institutional arrangements for irrigation development. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Raising Learing Outcomes (RLO) - Phase 1 - Evaluation 2020 Impact evalution for the Raising Learning Outcomes Programme Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Accountability for Gender Equality in Education - Statistical Expansion This application for follow on funding to the Accountability for Gender Equality in Education (AGEE) project builds on the work done thus far to develop an indicator framework for gender equality in education linked with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reviewed through critical participatory discussion at local, national, and international levels. Through this work we have investigated how stakeholders engage with accountability processes concerning education, equalities and rights, and the gender dynamics of learning outcomes. Work on AGEE in 2018-2020 has led to the conceptualisation of an indicator dashboard comprising data under a range of headings concerned with analyzing levels of gender inequality and equality in an education system, and processes that can lead to change. This has potential to be used in national planning (e.g. in preparing Education Sector Plans) and in cross-national monitoring and assessment exercises, such as UNESCO's annually published Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report where information is assembled for governments, organizations and citizens to hold each other accountable. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Social contracts in transformation: Tax reform in Nigeria The research will build upon my previous research on policing in Nigeria, by adopting a similar perspective, working as participant observer not just with the public as they interact with revenue officials and become subject to new forms of taxation demands, but also working 'inside' the state with revenue officials themselves, to ascertain with what meanings they imbue their work, and what practices they evolve in pursuit of its goals, as an emergent transition in political economy gathers pace. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Integrated assessment of the determinants of the maize yield gap in Sub-Saharan Africa: towards farm innovation and enabling policies The aim of this project is to develop and implement a framework that identifies the key bio-physical and management factors that influence the maize yield gap in SSA and how these are related to existing institutional, infrastructural, socio-economic and policy constraints. The research focuses on the major food crop in SSA, maize, mainly produced by small scale farmers. Maize is an important food crop in almost all Sub-Saharan African countries. Addressing yield performance in maize is therefore valuable from both a food security and poverty perspective. The project will focus on Ghana and Ethiopia as maize-growing case study countries where it builds on existing data and local partnerships. It is assumed that enhanced understanding for these two countries from West and East Africa will have wider meaning. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Incentives for Accurate Diagnosis: Improving Health Care Quality in Mali Finding ways to deliver high-quality health care to low-income populations in developing countries is a critical policy challenge. Our initial ESRC-funded project found that reducing user fees (by providing primary health care for free) does substantially increase Malian households' use of this care. However, we also find evidence that much of this care may be unnecessary or mis-targeted: our data suggest that children seeking care in government-run community clinics (CSCOMs) are frequently prescribed antimalarials and antibiotics when they do not need the treatment. This is particularly striking for malaria, since the Malian government has mandated that malaria diagnoses be confirmed by diagnostic testing. Our findings are consistent with a large body of economic literature, which on the one hand provides theoretical underpinnings for the problem of over-prescription and over-treatment, and on the other documents low levels of doctor effort and quality of care in both the public and private sectors across the developing world. Our implementing partner, Mali Health, has indicated that the increase in program costs due to over-prescription and the need for close monitoring and quality checks are a key barrier to scaling up the free-care intervention.

We propose to conduct a follow-on project to identify the leading causes behind over-treatment, and test whether alternative incentive regimes can improve care outcomes without producing unnecessary costs. Our analytical framework is motivated by economic models of an "informed expert" selling "a credence good": the doctor has knowledge about the patient's illness and need for treatment that is not verifiable, and the patient must buy the treatment without knowing if it is truly what he or she needs. The model clarifies how doctor incentives, patient incentives, observability of diagnostic test results, and beliefs about test accuracy interact to produce care outcomes in this context. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Visualising and representing environmental change in island communities The 'Negotiating conflict: Environmental violence, economic development and the everyday practices of islanders' project raised awareness and contributed to knowledge by better informing policymakers and the general public about these problems. The project also significantly built the capacity of the communities to articulate their concerns and propose locally-driven solutions directly to decision makers. There is now the opportunity to considerably deepen and extend these initial impacts by raising awareness of different ways in which not only present-day but also future island-based environmental change might occur, especially in relation to climate change and sea level rise. Working in the context of a single island, and building on the data and techniques developed in the original research, the proposed follow-on project will bring together a diverse range of ways of visually depicting how island environments are altering as a result of these global phenomena. The follow-on project will bring together material collected locally in the previous project, including islanders' photographs depicting changes in their environment, with scientifically and digitally produced maps and images and archival material in community workshops in order to stimulate and deepen local and national debates on future island development. Drawing on this range of information sources, islanders will be invited to create 'story maps' that represent their perceptions of changes over time. These story maps, plus associated materials, will then be displayed publicly at the National Art Gallery in the capital, Malé. The exhibition will create a space where policymakers and representatives of island communities can come together to discuss their priorities and concerns and identify how small islands can be made liveable over the long-term under climate change. It is anticipated that the project will contribute to intensifying debates in the Maldives concerning different ways of building community resilience and protecting coastlines. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Shock tactics: urban health futures in the wake of Ebola This research will address the interconnected challenges of rising urbanisation and vulnerability to infectious disease. From acute epidemics to slower onset issues such as antibiotic resistance, the world is facing a resurgence of infectious disease challenges. Far from being a thing of the past, these diseases have the potential to spread extensively in densely populated urban settings and to 'go global'. This research will focus on health in informal settlements in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in the aftermath of Ebola. It will explore if and how such a major epidemic is changing the game and what lessons can be drawn for other contexts. To be able to know this we need a much deeper understanding of the social, political and economic relationships which surround urban health systems and which will determine the opportunities for change. Although aspects of the political and social determinants of urban health have been broadly characterized, less is known about the logics and practices of health in informal settlements from the perspectives and experiences of local community members - for example urban residents' own understandings of transmission, or socially embedded hygiene practices. It is equally unclear how such local norms and practices do or do not connect to policy understandings of these contexts, and to what effect. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Education Marketplace Platform Key objective is to explore whether it is possible to expand impact by scaling up access to financial and ESS services for a larger number of schools in a cheaper and faster way as compared to physical melas and school visits. For over a decade the LEAPS (Learning and Educational Achievement in Pakistan Schools) Program has studied Pakistan's education landscape and growing low cost private school (LCPS) sector. In a country where over 40% of enrolled students attend private school, the LEAPS program has shown that a number of market failures limit the ability of schools to expand and provide higher quality education, ranging from teacher shortages and informational constraints to lack of financial resources and knowledge failures (Andrabi et al. 2013, Andrabi et al. 2014).

This project will build on its parent study, "Facilitating Innovative Growth of Low-Cost Private Schools: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan," which demonstrated that the ability of low cost private schools to innovate and improve is hindered by two key constraints: 1) lack of access to financial resources, and 2) lack of access to affordable, quality enhancing educational inputs such as better textbooks, teacher training and teaching and learning aids. It also demonstrated that these obstacles can be successfully overcome by market-making interventions that connect low cost schools (especially remote rural ones) to finance providers and education support service (ESS) providers that offer products specifically tailored to their needs. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
How Can Technology Improve Learning? Information Technology, Education and Welfare in Niger Our research team ran a successful randomized evaluation in Niger in 2009-2011 (Project ABC) and showed that a mobile phone-enhanced adult education program improved literacy and math skills of adult education participants by 19-25 s.d., equivalent to an additional year of education (Aker et al 2012). This difference remains significant over time, even as learning depreciates.
Building upon the successful pilot program, this research will provide rigorous evidence on the impacts of adult education programs on educational and socio-economic outcomes in Niger. Yet more importantly, this research will assess the extent to which information technology - in particular, mobile phones -- can affect learning outcomes and households' asset ownership, ability to deal with shocks and farm and off-farm earnings. This will be achieved by including two variations of the basic education intervention. The first variation will teach students in the basic adult education course how to use mobile phones, similar to a previous pilot program in Niger. The second intervention will also provide educational content to adult learners via short message service (SMS), thereby allowing us to measure the extent to which information technology can be used as a distance-learning tool. In addition to its impacts on adult learning, this research will also investigate the extent to which adult education influences parents' investments in children's educational outcomes and which education affects intra-household and intra-village decision-making. And finally, since the research will be conducted in an expanded study population (250 villages, as compared with 117 in the pilot), we will be able to assess the scalability of the approach, thus allowing us to directly address the first overarching research question set out in this call for proposal ("What approaches are most effective in enabling the poorest to exit and stay out of poverty, and under what conditions can such approaches be replicated elsewhere and at scale?") Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Technology, Monitoring and Teacher Support in Niger Our research team ran a randomized evaluation in Niger between 2014-2016, which showed that a mobile phone monitoring intervention in the context of an adult education program - whereby teachers, students and village chiefs were called on a weekly basis - significantly improved students' test scores (Aker et al 2016). Although the intervention did not include financial incentives for teachers, mobile monitoring increased teachers' attendance and motivation. At the same time, teachers often asked for pedagogical support, which the monitoring team was unable to provide.
This proposal builds upon this initial research in five ways. First, it will expand the program to more villages in order to test the intervention at a larger scale. Second, the research will test different types of mobile monitoring - i.e., calling the teacher only, as compared with calling the teacher, the village chief and students - to determine which approach is the most effective in increasing teacher performance and learning. Third, the program will assess the potential for using mobile phones to provide pedagogical support to teachers. Fourth, our research will seek to understand how education and technology affect intra-village dynamics, as well as the dynamics between the teacher, community and education service providers. And finally, these interventions will be piloted in a small number of primary schools in order to understand whether the dynamics of teacher monitoring and support are different in a primary school setting and with governmental institutions. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
The Management of Teachers in Primary Schools: Using Phone Calls for Oversight Under a current DFID-ESRC grant, our research team is conducting a randomized control trial in Niger that provides mobile phone-based "monitoring" and pedagogical support to community teachers in the context of an NGO-implemented adult education program - whereby teachers, students and village chiefs are called on a weekly basis. A prior study showed that these simple weekly phone calls could increase adult students' reading and math skills by .12-.15 s.d. as compared with the standard adult education curriculum (Aker et al 2019). It is somewhat striking that this simple intervention led to changes in learning outcomes, especially without any financial incentives for teachers. During our current work, we learned that similar challenges confront the primary school system in Niger; limited budgets, long distances and teacher contracts often make it difficult for the Ministry and school directors to monitor and provide support to teachers. It is estimated that 49% of primary school teachers miss any school in a month, often between 1-3 days (Malam Maman 2016).
This proposal seeks to explore new but related avenues in our existing research in three ways. First, we will pilot the mobile phone-based approach in a different educational context, namely primary schools. Second, we will seek to understand what types of mobile engagement - i.e., calling the teacher only, as compared with calling the teacher, school director, village chief and parents - are the most effective in reducing teacher absenteeism and increasing learning. And third, we will seek to better understand the mechanisms through which phone calls could affect teachers, students and communities by carefully measuring teacher attendance and motivation, student attendance and learning and parental involvement. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Sensing bodies: urban exposure and asthma in Delhi, India The project will look at what it is like to wear these sensors, and how scientists use the information they provide. To do this, we will talk to the young people, and
walk around the city with them as they are wearing the sensors. We will also interview the scientists, and observe how they do the research and what they do with the results. We will also use group workshops. These will explore how young people
with asthma who wear these bodily-worn sensors understand, experience and contribute to scientific knowledge about air pollution and health. Studying how participants in this research use these personal sensors will provide knowledge about
the social contexts of exposure and the way in which air pollution is seen (or not) as affecting health. The research will also raise awareness of the potential societal and ethical challenges of involving people in research about air pollution. The research aims to contribute to air pollution research involving personal sensors by examining how these may help us better understand the health effects of exposure, but also the potential risks and ethical problems that may arise as a result. This will be achieved by: i) Conducting interviews and walking interviews around Delhi with young people with asthma wearing the air pollution sensors on their body. ii) Drawing maps with some of the young people with asthma to understand how they manage their asthma as they move around the city. iii) To study how the young adults participating in the scientific research and scientists conducting the research interact and communicate. iv) Examine how the research in Delhi can be used to understand air pollution in other cities around the world. v) Share the findings from the interviews with the young
adults with the scientists using these sensors in their research to consider their social and ethical implications. vi) Present the drawn maps by the young adults with asthma in exhibitions open to the public in London and Delhi. The research findings of this project will contribute to the development of policies that can help reduce exposure to air pollution and improve health. There is currently little knowledge about the ways in which some people are exposed to different levels of air pollution and therefore at higher risk of health problems. What is known, however, is that some people are more at risk to air pollution than others. This means the health effects of air pollution are not equally shared by society. Generating knowledge about how people use cities and why some people may be more at risk to pollution than others is urgently
needed if we are going to help build cities that protect their citizens' health now and in the future Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.