In late March, Executive Director Temina Madon and colleagues from MIT held a series of meetings with the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad to explore partnerships in the design of technology-driven development interventions. Discussions with IIM, and with the Indian Department of Science and Technology, were coordinated by USAID's Science and Technology Advisor, Sheila Desai.

Imperfect adherence to Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) regimens among people living with HIV/AIDS can drive drug resistance and reduce treatment effectiveness. To improve patient adherence in Kenya, CEGA Affiliate Josh Graff Zivin turned to a ubiquitous technology: text messages. Graff Zivin implemented a four-arm randomized evaluation of different texting strategies, targeting early-phase ART patients. Patients received either short or long reminders on a daily or weekly basis, via text message. Subjects' adherence to the ART regimen was monitored using technology that recorded each time the patient opened his or her pillbox. The results suggest that weekly reminders lead to a significant increase in adherence to ART, while daily reminders have no lasting effect. In addition, the length of message does not have any additional affect. See the project summary for more details.

 

Miriam Golden in The Economist: Voter Education Matters

 

Voters with low literacy constitute a large share of the electorate in many countries going to the polls this year, including Afghanistan, Brazil, Iraq, Malawi, Mozambique, and India. A working paper from CEGA affiliate Miriam Golden and colleagues, featured in The Economist, suggests that Indian politicians with criminal records are more likely to stand for election in districts with high illiteracy rates and competitive races. Under these circumstances, voters may be more easily manipulated. 

 

David Lobell Contributes to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 

 

 

Demonstrating the impact of programs and policies has become an important focus of nonprofit organizations. A new blog in the Stanford Social Innovation Review by CEGA affiliate Mary Kay Gugerty and co-author Dean Karlan suggests that measuring impact may not always be appropriate or feasible. In their forthcoming book, The Goldilocks Problem, Gugerty and Karlan posit that randomized impact evaluations should only be conducted when the evaluation plan will narrow a knowledge gap. Otherwise, organizations should work to build appropriately-sized data-collection strategies that demonstrate accountability to funders, while providing timely and actionable operational data that can directly impact organizational decision-making.