Improving Democracy Assistance Building Knowledge Through Evaluations and Research (2008) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix E: Field Visit Summary Report
Appendix E: Field Visit Summary Report
Pages 289-314
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From page 289... ...
Objectives of Field Visits In support of these overall project objectives, the field visits were intended to serve two major purposes: 1. The collection of information for the NA committee to inform its recommendations, in particular to increase members' understanding of: • how USAID programs are developed and implemented in the field as background for its recommendations to improve program evaluation and understanding of program successes and failures, • what data, evidence, and other resources are primarily or Some of the material in this Appendix also appears in Chapters 6 and 7.
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From page 290... ...
Each field team therefore selected one or more projects and worked closely with USAID Mission DG officers, project implementers, and local partners through a series of in-depth conversations to understand the various opportunities and challenges presented by newly proposed program designs, data collection, and more rigorous evaluation techniques. A fuller discussion of these proposed program designs in each country visited follows.
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From page 291... ...
Similarly, mechanisms created by local implementers should be strategically collected and analyzed to maximize cost benefits and This text is drawn from memos prepared for the committee by three of its field consultants -- Thad Dunning, Yale University (Peru) ; Devra Cohen Moehler, Cornell University (Uganda)
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From page 292... ...
One example gathered in connection with the decentralization program was the percentage of local citizens who rate the quality of local government services as "good" or "very good." Controls Most program evaluations involve indicators gathered only or mostly on "treated" units (those groups, individuals, or organizations who were assisted by USAID)
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From page 293... ...
SAMPLE PROPOSED PROGRAM EVALUATION DESIGNS FROM THREE FIELD VISITS Selected Designs from Albania: Rule of Law Programs A major part of USAID's DG-related activities in Albania involved increasing the effectiveness and fairness of legal sector institutions. With one possible exception, none of these rule of law activities are amenable to randomized evaluation.
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From page 294... ...
For example, the goal of the technical assistance to the Inspectorates of the High Council of Justice and the Ministry of Justice is to improve the transparency and accountability of the judiciary and to increase public confidence in judicial integrity. The latter can be measured fairly easily using public opinion polls that probe respondents' trust in the judiciary and perceptions of its integrity (these would be administered before and after the period during which technical assistance was offered, and the results of the polls compared)
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From page 295... ...
. The problem here is that the preferred method of selecting NGOs for support is through a small grants competition, whereas a truly rigorous evaluation of the impact of support would require randomly choosing NGOs for funding.
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From page 296... ...
: Ayacucho, Cusco, Huanuco, Junin, Pasco, San Martin, and Ucayali. These seven regions contain 61 provinces, which in turn contain 536 districts. Workshops on participatory budgeting, training of civil-society orga As discussed elsewhere, the regions were nonrandomly selected for programs because they share high poverty rates, significant indigenous populations, narcotics-related activities, and because a number of the departments were strongholds for the Shining Path movement in the 1980s. Peru has 24 departments plus one "constitutional province"; the 24 departments in turn comprise 194 provinces and 1,832 districts.
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From page 297... ...
The simplest design would involve randomization of treatment at the district level. Districts in the treatment group would be invited to receive the full bundle of interventions associated with the decentralization program (e.g., training in participatory budgeting, assistance for civil society groups, and so on)
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From page 298... ...
Several different kinds of outcome measures can be gathered. Survey evidence on citizens' perceptions of local government responsiveness will be useful; so may be evaluations of municipal governance capacity taken across all municipalities in the seven regions (both treated and untreated)
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From page 299... ...
Do workshops on participatory budgeting matter more than training civil society organizations (CSOs)
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From page 300... ...
Other Examples: Rule of Law, Political Parties, and Extractive Industries Several of the programs planned under the new Peru strategic assessment might also be amenable to randomized designs. In this section, we briefly review possibilities for experimental designs afforded by programs related to the rule of law, political parties, and extractive industries.
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From page 301... ...
While the research design idea is straightforward, however, it was likely to be politically difficult: Chief judges may not want to relinquish power over these assignments. Political parties. One idea under the new political parties program is to provide assistance to the major national-level parties in opening or strengthening local offices in selected municipalities.
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From page 302... ...
In recent regional elections, for example, 23 different regional parties won office across Peru's 24 departments; these regional parties differ from the national parties whose local roots USAID seeks to strengthen. Extractive industries. There is currently a very small pilot program that seeks to promote dialogue in two mining communities among the State, companies, and local citizens, with the larger goal of "decreasing the probability of social conflict." This program has the advantage of possessing a relatively easyto-measure outcome variable, social conflict (compared to, say, transparency)
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From page 303... ...
Selected Designs from Uganda: Civil Society, Parliamentary Strengthening, and Anticorruption Large and Small Grants to CSOs In the proposed project for Strengthening Democratic Linkages in Uganda Program, USAID proposes to provide at least $100,000 per year for grants to CSOs to enable them to monitor local governments and help improve representation and service delivery at the local level. 12 These grants are thought to have two main effects: (1)
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From page 304... ...
Evaluation. The primary question for evaluation purposes is: What are the effects of monetary grants on the organizational capacity of CSOs and on the ability of CSOs to monitor and improve government service delivery? The best possible evaluation for this type of project would be a large N randomized controlled field experiment.
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From page 305... ...
Equivalent data should be collected about CSOs and service delivery in the treatment, partial-control, and full-control subcounties. The ability of USAID to collect comparable data in the partial control group should be facilitated by the fact that the CSOs are receiving some funds from USAID.
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From page 306... ...
For example, in each subcounty, one CSO working on education and one working on HIV/AIDS will be selected with the aim of finding similar CSOs across subcounty groups and issues. One subcounty will be randomly assigned to receive a large education grant and a small HIV/AIDS grant, and another subcounty will receive a large HIV/AIDS grant and a small education grant.
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From page 307... ...
Training and Assistance for a Random Selection of New Members of Parliament The Strengthening Democratic Linkages in Uganda program seeks to enhance the knowledge, expertise, and resources of members of parliament (MPs) so they can more effectively operate in a multiparty parliament, legislate and perform oversight functions, foster sustainable development, and engage constituents, civil society, and local governments.
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From page 308... ...
308 APPENDIX E to the treatment group, then it is very likely that many legislators in the control group would gain access to the newsletter and receive the same treatment as those in the treatment group. Measurement. Jeremy Weinstein and Macartan Humphreys, in cooperation with the African Leadership Initiative, are currently producing annual scorecards for all of Uganda's MPs recording their behavior in the parliament, in committee, and in their constituencies.
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From page 309... ...
Evaluation. The primary question from the perspective of evaluation is: How do changes in remuneration policies affect recruitment and retention of qualified personnel and the performance of employees? Possible alternatives. If time permits, it would be better to stagger the changes in remuneration policies by types of civil servants or grades.
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From page 310... ...
-- ARD, Inc. Political parties/Elections -- NDI/Transparencia Congress Program -- United Nations Developoment Program and George Washington University LAPOP Survey "Democracy Political Culture in Peru, 2006" -- Vander bilt University Not Included in Field Visit Conflict Mitigation in Mining -- CARE Human Rights National Coordinator Institutional Development and Therapy Attention to Victims of Torture and Political Violence -- Human Rights National Coordinator and Center for Psycho-Social Attention Trafficking in Persons -- Capital Humano y Social Alternativo Uganda (June 2007)
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, etc. Daniel Posner, associate professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, conducts research in the following four broad areas: ethnic politics, ethnicity and economic development, political change in Africa, and social capital and civil society.
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Thad Dunning is assistant professor of political science and a research fellow at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale. His current research focuses on the influence of natural resource wealth on political regimes; other recent articles investigate the influence of foreign aid on democratization and the role of information technology in economic development.
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From page 313... ...
Her research interests include political communications, education and democratization, consequences of political participation, political behavior, comparative constitution-making, law and development, cross-national survey research, and the international refugee regime. Her dissertation, based on research conducted in Uganda, focused on the effects of citizen participation in Ugandan constitution making in creating "distrusting democrats." She received her Ph.D.
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