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Community Driven Development in the Philippines

Amanda Beatty
Ariel BenYishay
Elisabeth King
Aniceto Orbeta
Community-based approaches to development, also called community-driven development (CDD), seek to empower local communities to identify and implement the projects they most need. Researchers evaluated the impact of a national community-driven development program in the Philippines on governance...

Flipcharts, School Inputs, and Retrospective versus Prospective Analyses in Kenya

Sylvie Moulin
Eric Zitzewitz
Researchers provided educational flipcharts to 89 randomly selected Kenyan primary schools and evaluated their impact on student learning, comparing retrospective and prospective estimates. In the prospective study, the estimated impact of flipcharts on student test scores was found to be close to...

Influencing the Provision of Social Services through Mandated Female Representation in Policymaking in India

Researchers studied the policy consequences of mandated representation of female policymakers by determining whether there was any difference in the provision of social services between male- and female-led village councils. Results suggest that reservations for female leaders affected policy...

Small Business Training and Loans for Aspiring Entrepreneurs in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods in France (ADIE)

Elise Huillery
Juliette Seban
Researchers evaluated whether coaching, guidance, and financial support could help young people create and sustain independent businesses. The entrepreneurship training program did not increase entrepreneurship, and participating youth were more likely to be unemployed and earn lower revenues from...

Text Message Loan Repayment Reminders for Micro-Borrowers in the Philippines

In “the text message capital of the world,” the Philippines, researchers tested the effect of text message reminders on client repayment rates. In contrast with previous research, they found that text message reminders did not increase repayment on average. Yet for repeat borrowers, who had known...

Gazelles in Ghana: Identifying high-growth firms through panel judges or survey instruments

Researchers conducted a business plan competition to test whether panel judges or questionnaires answered by firm owners could more accurately identify the fastest growing firms in Ghana. Both survey assessments and judging of business plans through panels selected firms with the potential for...