Center for Effective Global Action
February 2015 - Impact Note
IMPACT 
 
EASST Fellow facilitates Tanzanian Government Scale Up
Constantine Manda presenting at UC Berkeley 
 

EASST fellow Constantine Manda, currently a researcher with Twaweza, has worked with Tanzania's Commission for Science and Technology to scale up evidence from a randomized evaluation of primary school financing strategies. The experiment, designed in part by CEGA affiliate Karthik Muralidharan, compares capitation grants sent directly to schools with transfers via local governments. Preliminary findings suggest that direct grants improve planning and management of schools. The ongoing study is also investigating the impact of teacher bonuses linked to student performance.  

 

 

New Technologies for Monitoring & Evaluation
 
CEGA contributed to an online course on technologies for M&E organized by TechChange that will run from April 20 through May 15. The two CEGA-sponsored webinars, accessible here and here, feature interactive presentations on the use of sensors and satellite imagery in impact evaluations.

UPCOMING

 

Makhtar Diop visits UC Berkeley as Regents' Lecturer
Image provided by the World Bank


Makhtar Diop, Vice President for the Africa Region at the World Bank, will visit UC Berkeley as a Regents' Lecturer this month, hosted by CEGA. He will deliver a public lecture on Tuesday, March 31; for more information, visit the event page.

Summer Workshop on Research Transparency and Reproducibility

The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS), launched by CEGA in 2012, is now accepting applications for its annual Research Transparency Summer Institute, taking place June 10-12, 2015. The Institute provides graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, faculty, and other researchers with an overview of cutting-edge tools and methods used to practice open and rigorous research. Apply by April 5, 2015. Limited funding is available for participant travel and accommodation.  
 
EVIDENCE

Text Message Loan Repayment Reminders for Micro-Borrowers in the Philippines 
 
George Conard via Flickr Creative Commons. SECDEP microfinance client in the Philippines.
Known as the text message capital of the world, the Philippines witnesses the transmission of over
1 billion text messages every day and thus offers a prime setting for testing the effectiveness of text message reminders on improving client repayment rates. Researchers, including CEGA affiliate Melanie Morten, in partnership with Microenterprise Access to Banking (MABS) and two rural banks in the Philippines, designed a study to test the effectiveness of text message reminders as a tool for boosting repayment among micro-borrowers. Beyond assessing the overall impact of text reminders, the study was designed to explore the importance of timing, framing and personalization of the text message reminders. Results are forthcoming.

 

CEGA SPOTLIGHT

Remembering Gaetano Borriello  

Gaetano Borriello 
With profound sadness we announce that our dear friend, colleague, and affiliate Gaetano Borriello, the Jerre D. Noe Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, passed away following a long fight with cancer. Gaetano was a CEGA affiliate and key leader within the  Development Impact Lab. He is known for developing the Open Data Kit (ODK), an open source toolkit that simplifies survey design and deployment, enabling users to build forms and analyze, transfer, and share data on various platforms. ODK is used by thousands of aid workers and researchers to capture information about the wants and needs of communities and individuals around the world. It is just one of the ways in which Gaetano has left a lasting mark on the development community.

 

 

NEWS

More Crops as a Result of Climate Change?

 

CEGA affiliate David Lobell has found that the amount of agricultural land suitable to a two crop harvest has grown as a result of climate change.   

 

Goldilocks and Randomized Control Trials: The Best Strategy

 

How do you create a monitoring and evaluation project that's not too large or too small, but "just right"?


Finalists in the Global Resilience Challenge
 
CEGA has been selected as a finalist in the Global Resilience Challenge. Out of nearly 500 applications submitted, the CEGA team, comprised of BRAC, The World Bank, and Premise was selected as one of the 16 organizations to identify resilience problems and produce transformative solutions in South and Southeast Asia.