devinitorg/iati-policy-markers huggingface dataset:
Can financial products reduce poverty and vulnerability? Experimental evidence from Benin on the impact of access to saving accounts and microcredit. Microcredit and microsavings are of great interest given that the vast majority of populations in LDCs have little if no access to formal finance. Most individuals in Benin use informal saving or lending mechanisms; informal due to the lack of any binding legal arrangement. In the absence of formal finance many Beninese resort to rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs). Participation in ROSCAs is costly and no interest is earned. Their members also bear the risk of default by other members, which frequently leads to financial loss and the breakdown of groups. ROSCA members have less flexibility in saving than they would on their own, since the group-determined contribution level is likely to differ from their individual optimal saving rate. Despite these constraints, ROSCAs enjoy popularity and are pervasive in LDCs. One can speculate that access to more secure and reliable formal financial products could lead to significant improvement in people's ability to save and invest and would reduce the impact associated with shocks the poor face on a near daily basis.

To carry out our comparative analysis, we will offer access to microcredit and microsavings to different samples of individuals. This will allow to:
1) Analyse what drives the demand for these financial devices and enhance our understanding of the poor's motivations for saving and investing.
2) Compare the effectiveness of microcredit vs. microsavings and examine whether formal financial services are more effective in helping individuals to escape poverty than ROSCAs. Our proposal thus directly addresses the Overarching Question 1 of the present Call.
3) Investigate subsidiary effects of formal finance on consumption patterns and the use of informal finance. Does formal finance help in reducing expenditures on luxury/frivolous items? Do the poor manage better to avoid falling into a debt trap with or without formal finance? Is formal finance driving people out of ROSCAs?
4) Analyse the resulting investments and their sustainability in two crucial dimensions: education and health. These are known to crucially impact long-term poverty. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Assessing the impact of the food system on poverty, nutrition and health, and environmental sustainability in urban Ethiopia We propose mixed methods including a quantitative household survey and qualitative value chain analysis to assess the food system for protein source foods among an urban population in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Review (and updating where necessary) of systematic reviews and meta-analyses will be used to estimate etiological effect sizes on health and environmental outcomes. Results will be used to develop a conceptual model that will allow us to test interventions toward optimal planetary health. Ultimately, we will form recommendations for immediate action and future research that will be of relevance for a wide range of stakeholders in Ethiopia and other sub-Saharan African countries.

The relationships between food systems, the environment, and health in sub-Saharan Africa are exceedingly complex and have not been studied in detail. A clear understanding of these dynamics will allow us to develop potentially groundbreaking, long term solutions. There is perhaps no issue more pressing for global populations than the establishment of resilient food systems that promote health, nutrition and sustainable environments. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Watersecurity in Ethiopia and the Emotional response of Pastoralists (WEEP) This research will seek to understand the emotional response of pastoralists to this water insecurity. It will compare three types of habitation: those dominated by pastoralists, mixed habitations and those where pastoralists form a minority. Through focus groups and related activities researchers will seek to understand how water use by all groups can be rewarding, stressful or disappointing. These responses will, be used in the second stage of the project to develop an easy-to-administer a survey tool where users are asked to rate their experience regarding water use on a Likert-scale. The results of this will be compared to more conventional indicators, for example those used by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF to monitor progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

The findings will be used to influence water policy and practice in Ethiopia. Globally, the research will be used by people who are trying to provide water holistically for both domestic and productive uses. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Exploring the opportunities for learning justice: a case study of girls' educational experiences in English medium Rwandan basic education This study aims to critically explore the ways that learning in English influences Rwandan girls' educational experiences and outcomes throughout the basic education cycle. Sustainable Development Goal 4 calls on all governments to ensure that, by 2030, all children complete a basic education that is inclusive, equitable and of high quality. While much research has explored the ways that gender and the language-of-instruction separately present a challenge to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4, there is an evidence gap about girls' learning in a dominant language, such as English. This study will address this gap through a mixed-methods case study of girls' learning in Rwandan upper primary and secondary education; the years of basic education where the language-of-instruction is English. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Improving learning outcomes in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the midst of COVID-19 through Community based system dynamics and project-based learning The overarching goal of our project is to ensure that all disadvantaged children - girls, from under-represented minorities,
the poor or displaced children, or those with disabilities- find their rightful place in the learning process. We aim to do this
by elaborating contextually relevant models of community-based social accountability for children in rural primary schools.
The additional research we are seeking funding for aims to test a novel approach based on participatory, school-level,
decision making processes and learning methods to compensate the learning loss expected from school lockdowns due to
the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis and political unrest in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan. Key outputs include
developing effective inclusive education tools (a project-based learning (PBL) module) and system dynamics methods
(Group model building (GMB)) for teachers, education experts and policy makers. COVID-19 Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
How the Urban Poor Define and Measure Food Insecurity and Nutrition Poor communities usually have little voice but enormous and in-depth knowledge of their contexts, and of the priorities for action. And while local governments in low-income nations have a key role in reducing poverty and increasing environmental sustainability, they are typically under-resourced and unable to gather sufficient, timely and reliable data on rapidly changing contexts where urban growth and the erosion of natural resources overlap and can lead to conflict.

Working with poor community organisations led by women in cities in Cambodia and Nepal, this project lets the poor themselves define and measure food security and nutrition using methods and tools that include the use of innovative but affordable technology. The collection of data and their analysis provides the groundwork for a dialogue that brings together grassroots organisations of the urban poor, local governments and other stakeholders. This, in turn, sets the basis for the co-production of solutions that respond to the needs of local low-income communities. At the same time, the knowledge developed informs global debates on policy that addresses the intersection of poverty, environmental sustainability and institutional fragility that can lead to conflict. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Relative poverty and decision-making: Investigating the impact of incentivised conservation programmes on poverty in Madagascar. This project focuses on how relative poverty affects decision-making in developing countries, where conservation programmes are used to encourage behaviour change amongst farmers. Recent evidence suggests that the psychological impact of being poor exacerbates a poverty trap mechanism. People living in developing countries' rural area are exposed to stress that affects the way they make decisions over time. It increases their discount rate (Tanaka et al, 2010) and their propensity to behave in a manner consistent with hyperbolic discounting, that is, overweighting immediate outcomes (Ashraf et al, 2006; Clot and Stanton, 2014). This prevents them from making choices consistent with improving their prospects for long-term sustained improvements in well-being (Haushofer and Fehr, 2014). In parallel to the effect of absolute poverty, additional findings demonstrate the aggravating role of relative poverty (unbalanced cash flows over a calendar year) on individuals' preferences (Haushofer et al, 2013; Carvalho et al, 2016). Participating in a conservation scheme can change farmers' cash flows over a year. Participation could also impact farmers' individual preferences by changing their level of relative poverty. The following question thus arises: Could payment (re-)scheduling help poor farmers to escape poverty traps? We propose to test two main hypotheses: 1) Relative poverty impacts farmers' risk, time and social preferences; 2) Rewards (such as those offered to promote alternative activities) are more likely to translate into stress-biased decisions, worsening farmer's prospects for long-term sustained improvements in well-being, when occurring in a context of relatively higher poverty. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Peer to Peer Deaf Multiliteracies: research into a sustainable approach to education of Deaf children and young adults in the Global South The exclusion of deaf children and young adults from access to school systems in the developing world results in individuals and communities being denied quality education; this not only leads to unemployment, underemployment, low income, and a high risk of poverty, but also represents a needless waste of human talent and potential. To target this problem, this project extends work conducted under a pilot project addressing issues of literacy education with young deaf people in the Global South. Creating, implementing and evaluating our innovative intervention based on the peer teaching of English literacy through sign language-based tutoring, everyday real life texts such as job application forms, and the use of a bespoke online resource, enabled us to generate a sustainable, cost-effective and learner-directed way to foster literacy learning amongst deaf individuals. To reach further target groups and conduct more in-depth research, the present project extends our work to new groups of learners in India, Uganda, Ghana, Rwanda and Nepal, both in primary schools (ca 60 children in India, Ghana, and Uganda) and with young adult learners (ca 100 learners in interventions, plus ca 60 young adults in scoping workshops in Nepal and Rwanda). Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Spatial Inequalities in African Political Economy The main objective of this project is to develop the theory and data needed to solve this analytic and policy problem. Based on our earlier research and the results of our
LSE-funded pilot study, our objective is to show that there are economic, socio-economic and institutional drivers of regionalized competition that have been systematically overlooked in policy and social-scientific understandings of political
competition and conflict in Africa. Our results should shift scholars' and policy-makers' attention away from simplistic analyses that overemphasize political identity (ethnicity) as a driver of politics, and toward factors amendable to policy and
administrative reforms -- institutions and regional inequalities -- as drivers of competition and conflict.
Lack of data and theory about the political effects of regional inequalities in sub-Saharan African countries persists in spite of the fact that many scholars recognize that African countries are characterized by extreme disparities across subnational
regions (Brown and Langer 2009). This gap is costly for scholars, policy makers, and citizens alike: social scientists know that very high levels of spatial or "horizontal" inequality are correlated with socio-political ills that hit African countries hard.
These include the underprovision of public goods, deep social cleavages, the prominence of political grievances around inequality and exclusion, and civil conflict (Stewart 2000) Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Youth, poverty and inequality in urban Tanzania: New perspectives, new interpretations Young people in urban areas are at the forefront of the development challenges facing Tanzania. Indeed, with countries across Sub-Saharan Africa characterised by rapid urbanisation and large and expanding youth populations, these two major demographic changes have the potential to 'make or break' the region's development. While urbanisation has the potential to open up new social and economic opportunities, in many countries, including Tanzania, urbanisation has been accompanied by high levels of poverty and inequality. These problems are exacerbated by a lack of serviced and secure homes in which to live, and a lack of stable jobs through which to survive. Despite the magnitude and severity of these problems, little is known about what this means for young people as they seek to negotiate the path to adulthood.Firstly, the research will examine the role of different assets and institutions in shaping the economic, social and political opportunities and obstacles facing young people in two cities of Tanzania. In doing so, it will use innovative research methods to capture the dynamism of youth experiences and to reveal a greater understanding both of the factors that promote positive outcomes and of those that lead to negative outcomes for youth. In doing so, it will prioritise localised meanings and definitions of poverty and well-being and reveal new insight into the experiences, struggles and successes of urban youth. In-depth research with urban youth themselves will be contextualised against research with parents and other adults. This will explore how perceptions and stereotypes of young people influence the level of support they receive, as well as situate youth experiences within broader experiences of urban poverty, inequality and disadvantage. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Trading Mongolia's Sovereign Meat: the Social Transformations and Everyday Geopolitics of the 'Livestock Revolution' While its mining-driven GDP growth figures in 2011-2014 were among the highest in the world, Mongolia is now experiencing the full effects of the so-called 'resource curse'. Corruption and mistrust are rife, its international financial reputation is in tatters, and the domestic economy flounders from crisis to crisis. One sector, however, still appears promising to policymakers: the livestock that now graze Mongolia's vast pasturelands in record numbers. As a former socialist bloc state, Mongolia once exported significant amounts of meat to fellow socialist countries; however, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, exports dwindled. Today, the Mongolian government and international donor organizations are promoting meat export as a key industry for development in order to halt the rural exodus, and reduce stocking rates, thereby combatting grassland degradation, while generating new employment opportunities for the newly marginalised peri-urban population. COVID-19 Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Heterogeneous quality of agricultural commercial inputs and learning through experimentation This proposal aims to answer three research questions regarding small holder technology adoption of great interest to our partners and to the policy makers aiming for higher agricultural productivity in Africa. First is the heterogeneous and hidden quality of inputs a barrier to technology adoption? If so, this would lead to the recommendation of interventions that guide the farmers toward the right inputs, through regulations or through the diffusion of information. Second, do estimates regarding returns to new technologies coming from agricultural research in on-farm trials provide biased estimates for the response to inputs in real life conditions? If so, what are the most important sources of such bias, and how can trials be designed to avoid them? The study hence aims to reinforce the bridge between agronomic and development economics work. Third, does learning-by-doing and learning-from-others regarding new agricultural technologies differ depending on soils, skills and gender? And does this heterogeneity provide useful lessons for the design of more inclusive extension models and on the role of own experimentation in such models?

To answer these questions we propose two Randomized Control Trials (RCT). The first "research trial RCT" will allow the farmers in the randomly selected villages to participate to the on-farm trials carried out by the agronomists of IITA in order to test inputs of different quality. Second, in the "technology dissemination RCT" village based advisors will be trained in randomly selected villages to promote the best inputs identified in the research trials. For each RCT we will collect several rounds of panel data to study the dynamic adoption processes. This will be complemented with information from soils sample and with detailed information on farmers' cognitive, non-cognitive and technical skills. The study has been jointly designed with IITA scientists during a series of meetings and field trips, drawing on the expertise of agronomists and economists. A specific objective of the collaboration between PSE and IITA is capacity building for IITA social scientists in rigorous impact evaluation methods, through hands-on collaboration in all the different steps of the research. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Understanding and managing intrastate territorial contestation: Iraq's disputed territories in comparative perspective This project examines the dynamics of the disputed territories - internally in terms of the social and political aspirations of communities there, and 'externally', in terms of their links with Baghdad and Erbil (the capital of the Kurdistan Region), and the interests of these two power poles, plus their regional and global interactions. It does so with a view to assessing current proposals (including those submitted by the UN in 2009 and Kurdish demands for a referendum on the disputed territories) to resolve what remains a dangerous political stand-off, while presenting an empirically rich and comparative analysis to assist in the formulation of approaches that may assist in the management of the dispute. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
Improving curriculum and teaching methods to influence policy and increase the quality of ECDE provision for children with disabilities in Malawi The University of Birmingham (UoB) and Sightsavers International have invited researchers and academics from leading institutions working in the areas of early childhood development and education (ECDE) and special educational needs and disability (SEND), educational psychology, applied anthropology, and epidemiology in Malawi, the UK and the USA to co-design and conduct an innovative three-year study. This study will provide the ESRC, DfID, the Malawi Government and its partners in education with a better understanding of the complex dynamics that can enable or inhibit quality ECDE for CWDs. The Malawi Government has prioritised ECDE as part of its Growth and Development Strategy II (2012-16) to increase equity of access and improve the quality of early childhood services which are currently reaching just over one third of children aged three to five years.

This research programme, which aims to address the widespread need for equitable and quality ECDE services in Malawi, will establish advanced level collaboration between UoB - a research institution specialising in the education of children with disabilities (CWDs) - and Sightsavers, a UK-based charity that supports the educational inclusion of CWDs in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. They will collaborate with the University of Malawi (Chancellor College), Arizona State University, and a UK-based research organisation specialising in applied anthropology in global health research (Anthrologica). Non-academic stakeholders will include the Malawi Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare (MoGCSW) and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST), Save the Children, and the Association of Early Childhood Development in Malawi (AECDM), the main agency responsible for the delivery of ECDE training to all caregivers in Malawi. Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.
SMS Africa: Social Media and Security in Africa The project aims to provide a timely understanding of the role social media plays in documenting and driving (in)security in East and West Africa. As more people connect to social media in Africa, their expectations for real-time information is changing, especially in terms of security. This is leading those charged with community safety to alter their ways of interacting with the public, posing new challenges concerning the rapid flow of (mis)information. At the same time it creates opportunities for security sector agencies to engage more directly with the public in providing security-related information, and potentially offers new prospects for an improved cooperative relationship in enhancing community safety. The project works towards the goal of reducing the insecurity that contributes to poverty. It corresponds to question 3 of the call concerning measures that can be taken to reduce the risks and impact of violence and instability that affect the poor.

We have 4 research questions 1) Who are the key stakeholders in relation to social media and security in the case study countries, and who is being excluded? 2) How is social media being used by authorities responsible for community safety to reduce the risks and impact of violence and instability? 3) In what ways can social media be used to increase security or perceptions of security? 4) How can social media serve as an early warning of tensions that threaten security? Research and development activity contributing to the UK’s strategy to address key development challenges.