devinitorg/iati-policy-markers huggingface dataset:
Does 'shame-proofing' anti-poverty programmes improve their effectiveness? Theory of change and impact policy evaluation in cross-national settings Our ESRC/DFID funded research (RES-167-25-0557) suggested that shame associated with poverty is ubiquitous and structural being imposed by others in their dealings with people in poverty. Shame may serve to perpetuate poverty through eroding individual agency, while policies that stigmatise could be counterproductive in adding to the debilitating effects of shame.
This research has proved very influential, spawning replications and adding poverty-related shame to the topics covered by the ESRC 'Understanding Society' study, following the successful inclusion of questions in the ESRC 'Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK' survey. It also led directly to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) including the principle of governments having respect for the rights and dignity of social protection recipients in Recommendation 202 on social protection approved in 2012. The UN has cited the research to support its guiding principles on extreme poverty and human rights.
However, while the previous research yielded a model hypothesising how shame and stigma might exacerbate poverty, the research was not designed to provide evidence of casual relationships. Hence, new research is proposed to rectify this omission by testing the effectiveness of social protection policies that have been 'shame-proofed' against those which have not. The robustness of the test is much enhanced by simultaneous replication in Uganda, India and China; each evaluation is sensitive to local circumstances, but shaped by a common theoretical framework with a core of standardised measures and comparable methods. In Uganda, theory of change evaluation, which employs diagnostic techniques to examine whether underlying logic of the policy works in practice, is combined with impact evaluation to measure the relative effectiveness (and value for money) of shame-proofing. Theory of change evaluations will be conducted in China and India with the prospect of impact evaluations being added with financial support from the ILO. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Making the elementary schooling system in India work for disadvantaged learners: a cross-scalar comparative study of accountability relations This project focuses on learning outcomes for 'disadvantaged learners' in India: children of primary school age who are disadvantaged by a range of structural inequalities, which are often cross-cutting, such as gender, location, caste, and class. It takes key quality and equity provisions in India's Right to Education Act (RTE) and examines how these are taken up in different ways, and with respect to differing understandings of education quality and equity held by actors across the four system scales of home, community, school, and bureaucracy. Empirical work takes place in two States, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, focusing on two districts and within each, two blocks which are purposively selected to enable intra-block, inter-district and inter-state comparisons. In each block, we sample ten schools, which include government, private and large scale 'alternative' provision to examine the accountability relations that surround differently positioned learners. The study design follows a sequential mixed methods approach, beginning with qualitative investigation and then using a quantitative survey to validate and extend the qualitative analysis. We will use an innovative process tracing approach, anchored in the sample schools, to track how specific policy initiatives stemming from RTE directives are understood by multiple actors across system scales. This enables the study to identify how their practical actions converge and diverge with goals for learning - as understood both by the RTE and these actors - and the impact on children's learning outcomes. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
China and Africa Research Programme Evidence and Policy Part of the ESRC/DfID Growth Programme. Separate strand of work focused on the development impact of China’s engagement in sub-Saharan Africa and the lessons China’s own economic development can offer. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Mobile payment systems to reduce rural water risks in Africa This research project aims to improved handpump management by insuring payment risks. Like insurance products that pool risk of unanticipated but costly events, like a car break-down, flood damage to homes or a serious health problem, we proposed to apply the same approach to community handpumps in rural Kenya. Currently rural communities must work independently saving and paying for maintenance on a case by case basis. This is fine until an unexpected but costly repair emerges. Then the communities, which include a majority of households with low and variable income, simply can't pay to have their handpump repaired. They then turn to more distant, often dirty and costly water sources. Our approach brings these communities together in a shared financial model that reduces costs by sharing them amongst hundreds of handpumps. Earlier research suggests the majority of communities will pay into this 'insurance system' on a regular basis provided the handpumps are repaired in a couple of days. The project can guarantee this higher maintenance service which has reduced repair times from over a month to a couple of days. The communities love it the current trial of the maintenance service and now want to pay for this service through a local company to make it sustainable. This next phase of research is to introduce a fair payment system and monitor how communities pay over time. This will provide evidence for a more sustainable approach which the Government of Kenya supports and can be scaled up by our regional partner, UNICEF. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Improving Learning: Developing Measures of Accountability and Evaluating their Association with Students' Gains in Achievement in Nepal We propose to develop and validate measures of accountability to be shared with the Nepal Ministry of Education (MOE) and to use those measures in an analysis of the determinants of accountability and its association with students' gains in achievement. The proposed study will build on the resources of the Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS), a 20-year ongoing panel study of 116 schools with 3,000 households with 3,500 school aged children in 151 communities located throughout the Western Chitwan Valley of Nepal. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MODELS TO ACCELERATE SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITIONS - IPACST Transformations to sustainability rely on innovation with complex diffusion and adoption processes. The role of intellectual property (IP) and IP rights (IPR) in sustainability transitions remains insufficiently understood. IPR can delay transitions by blocking new technologies, but if used effectively can encourage private investments, knowledge sharing and collaborative learning. The project transforms our understanding of how intellectual property (IP) models accelerate sustainability transitions integrating theories and concepts from sustainability, IP and innovation research. To date, sustainability and IP research have been studied independently. This project contributes to the integration of both fields through frameworks that conceptualize (i) which, (ii) how and (iii) under what conditions IP models accelerate sustainable transitions, in connection with sustainable business models. Hence, we build an interdisciplinary research community that furthers our understanding of dynamic sustainable economic development.  An IP model typology, a sustainable business model typology and conceptual frameworks will be developed based upon case studies in clean energy and circular economy in developing and developed countries. With a Delphi study and simulations, the frameworks will be tested for further sectors. To create impact in industries at different levels, we develop and promote tools for selecting suitable IP and business models, best-practice cases and guidelines, awareness and training kits for key stakeholders such as policy makers, funding organizations, businesses and start-up incubators, education institutions and technology transfer offices. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Financial contracts, small firm growth, and job creation: experimental evidence from Uganda We examine how key aspects of the most common form of financing-debt-may inhibit young firms' expansion. Starting a business entails learning and risk taking, implying that project returns to investment can start low but increase over time (in other words, be "backloaded") or be uncertain. Also, indivisible start-up costs often require large investments. Meanwhile, standard debt contracts available for micro-entrepreneurs from the formal or semi-formal financial sectors of many developing countries (such as microfinance) stipulate a constant repayment stream and caps on the initial loan size. The interaction of such features of the loan contract and the firm's production technology, may distort investment toward inputs that involve less learning, less uncertainty, and smaller projects; hampering firm growth. To shed light on the extent to which these theoretical mechanisms limit the effectiveness of microloans, we plan to collaborate with BRAC Uganda's Small Enterprise Lending Program to study the effect of the credit terms on starting firms' input use, profits, and repayment performance. As such, our project contributes to the DFID-ESRC Growth Research Programme's focus on Finance and Growth in Low Income Countries. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Predicting the escalation of conflict: A global forecasting approach to conflict escalation using big data The key objective of this research project is to forecast conflict escalation of intra-state armed conflicts, such as Syria, Libya, or Egypt, and deliver forecasting software packages that can be implemented by users of this project. The project considers two dimensions of escalation: temporal and spatial escalation of armed conflicts. In the context of this project, conflict escalation is an increase in the number conflictual events (e.g. episodes of fighting) over time and space. In focusing particularly on conflict escalation, this research project makes a new and unique contribution to the prediction of intra-state conflicts by developing a split-population forecasting framework that is motivated by a novel formal theoretical argument of conflict escalation. The split-population approach allows to forecast which countries are at risk of conflict, and in a second step assesses when and where conflicts escalate. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Anticipating Prosperity: A Study of Community Expectations and the Petroleum Industry in Timor-Leste Timor-Leste is a small country in Southeast Asia currently facing the challenge of state-building after an exceptionally brutal occupation by Indonesia (1975-1999) and prior colonisation by Portugal. Historically, Timor has recurrently evoked El Dorado-like dreams of great resource wealth, which until recently were never realised. When the country re-gained independence in 2002, the government managed to secure a 50% share in revenues from its offshore oil and gas reserves that Australia had claimed. Even though negotiations with Australia are still ongoing, the East Timorese government is currently planning to build a large industrial complex to bring oil and gas from offshore fields in the Timor Sea to its shores. The planned scheme has given rise to a great sense of anticipation that Timor-Leste's oil wealth will facilitate the development of a modern and prosperous nation. The aim of this study is to examine these visions of the future ethnographically and to explore how public expectations are articulated in relation to pre-existing ideas about the sacred significance of the lived environment. It seeks to advance anthropological debates about resource extraction and related expectations of modernity by investigating how local logics inform national imaginaries of modernity and how government promises foster utopian dreams of sudden societal transformations. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Financial Inclusion and Digital Connectivity in Refugee Governance The project examines emerging trends in refugee governance: debit cards for cash assistance and digital connectivity initiatives. We analyse uptake and challenges of these technologies in four countries: Greece, Jordan, Lebanon and the UK. We include these countries because each has innovated solutions to refugee governance and integration, but in different ways with different outcomes. Our project includes surveys of organisations working in this field and in-depth case studies with humanitarian and refugee-led initiatives. Working across four countries, we are uniquely able to identify both local and global trends in techno-humanitarianism. Working with refugee-led organisations, the project will generate alternative models of financial inclusion and digital connectivity and work with   international stakeholders to overcome exclusion.
As the first transnational study of connectivity and debit cards for refugees, this research produces a timely and rigorous intervention in the context of refugee governance, where enduring refugees' forced displacement and destitution are matched by rapidly changing and often experimental governmental approaches using digital technologies. Our study of connectivity and debit cards for refugees maps their operation, effects, and long-term impact. Our study improves the understanding of these digital solutions offered to refugees beyond the promotional or anecdotal slogans that reduce complex processes to either 'innovations' that speed and individualize aid, or 'traps' that disguise surveillance under service provision Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Negotiating conflict: Environmental violence, economic development and the everyday practices of islanders In developing countries experiencing high levels of poverty and inequality, getting the balance right between economic development and protection of the natural environment can be a major challenge for policymakers. This is particularly the case when powerful people are able to manipulate the physical environment in which the poor live, to their advantage - a form of intervention known as 'environmental violence'. To date, most research addressing these types of conflict and conflict resolution has applied universalised principles, such as justice and fairness. However, this approach can overlook what is significant to ordinary people as they attempt to go about their day-to-day lives. This project will address this research gap using an innovative approach known as 'everyday studies': a way of investigating the routine and seemingly mundane. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
South-South collaboration in realising the impacts of Peer-to-Peer Deaf Multiliteracies research in India, Uganda, and Nepal Research Grants  to introduce key elements from Peer to Peer Deaf Multiliteracies research into concrete educational contexts, working with partners in India, Uganda, and Nepal, 1 year. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
The politics of services subcontracting to NGOs in China There is little evidence to date on how these new sub-contracting arrangements affect welfare provision or NGO-state relations. So this project aims to fill this gap by investigating how the sub-contracting process unfolds on the ground, why NGOs and local governments co-operate to deliver services through sub-contracting, and how this affects provider capacity and the development of an NGO sector.
The research has several objectives:
a) To collect and analyse the laws, policies and contractual rules governing sub-contracting from NGOs in China nationally and in the selected sites, and gather information about the debates and arguments around this.
b) To generate original empirical data on why local government officials and NGOs co-operate in these service delivery contracts, and how sub-contracting affects NGO operations and relations with the local state.
c) At the policy and practical level, to highlight examples of best practice that can inform policy development in China and other similar contexts.
d) To conceptualise the emerging models of sub-contracting and NGO-state relations and to advance theoretical understanding of welfare-state building and civil society development in China. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Female labour supply and the escape from poverty: new evidence from household data This study will utilize household survey data from 4 African and Asian countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Rwanda) to examine in depth and on a comparable basis the evolving nature of female labour supply in low income countries over the past 2-3 decades, and to analyse how this has been associated with poverty reduction. We address primarily research question 1 from the call for proposals, the factors enabling households to escape from or stay out of poverty, although institutional factors (question 2) also play an important role in this analysis. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Education systems, aspiration and learning in remote rural settings Project aim:
To provide insight into how education systems can develop effective polices and interventions that work with young people's aspirations to enhance learning outcomes and address structural disadvantage in remote rural places

OBJECTIVES

1) To develop a robust understanding of the mechanisms that connect schooling, aspirations and learning outcomes

2) To develop methods suitable for capturing and understanding these mechanisms

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1) What roles do 21st century education systems play in shaping young people's aspirations in remote rural areas?

2) How are the aspirations of young people living in remote rural areas produced in relation to both schooling and their wider social, economic and cultural contexts?

3) How do young people's aspirations shape their educational engagement and learning outcomes? Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Poverty Alleviation in the Wake of Typhoon Yolanda This project will monitor the effectiveness of the typhoon Yolanda relief efforts in the Philippines in relation to building sustainable routes out of poverty. This project will focus on urban population risk, vulnerability to disasters and resilience in the aftermath of these shocks. Urban slum dwellers are extremely vulnerable to natural disasters. The key themes of the project are vulnerability, risk, resilience and shocks in relation to paths in and out of poverty. Lessons learned from our research will be highly relevant to post-disaster reconstruction efforts in Low Income Countries, specifically within densely populated urban areas. These communities are amongst the most at risk and yet least able to resurrect themselves after disasters.

Governance in the Philippines is devolved through a system of Local Government Units (LGUs), i.e. provinces, cities and municipalities. LGUs are further sub-divided into barangays that are the smallest administrative unit in the Philippines run by elected officials. The organization of LGUs and barangays offers a convenient mechanism against which poverty alleviation strategies can be measured across time and space. The performance of selected LGUs and barangays can be tracked over time and against each other over space to investigate which units perform more effectively and why.

Vulnerability and risk are conditions that are heightened by poverty. Vulnerability and risk inform why and how poor people are exposed to natural disasters whilst resilience informs how they coped and how coping strategies can be supported and risk lessened. We will contribute to capacity building in relation to these themes at both the local level and LICs that face similar conditions. We will measure resilience over time and to test the extent to which the notion of 'Building Back Better' is credible.

Our research will focus on the following research question in relation to the aftermath of typhoon Yolanda: 'What factors shape pathways into and out of poverty and people's experience of these, and how can policy create sustained routes out of extreme poverty in ways that can be replicated and scaled up?' Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Complementing Managerial Capital with Business Information: A Field Experiment on International Consulting for Entrepreneurs in Uganda and Rwanda This research seeks to address a significant constraint to growth among businesses in developing countries: managerial capital. Managerial capital refers to the capabilities and confidence associated with managing cash, customers, competition, capital and constraints within businesses (cf. Bruhn, Karlan and Schoar 2012). Improvements in managerial capital offer the possibility of improved growth and prosperity. However, there exists substantial evidence that it is not abundant among micro and small businesses. In this research, we examine how managerial capital might help entrepreneurs in developing countries to transform their businesses: from micro- to small-sized enterprises and from small- to medium-sized enterprises. Despite the importance of this transformation for economic growth, few researchers so far have examined this phenomenon empirically. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.