Highlights from MDG Week

New post on the IPA blog.

(also a quick poll - do people like getting links to posts at IPA like this? Or should I post the whole thing here? Or post nothing and let you find it yourself over there?)

Transparent Impacts?

New post up on the IPA blog.

Have your development cake and eat it too

So, British public, you think that it is morally right to for the UK to help developing countries, but you don’t want to spend any money on it?

Well, apologies for sounding like a broken record at times, but:

Good news!

Some of the best things in life are free (almost). Like allowing poor people access to our labour market and our consumer market. Or lobbying to end those EU farm subsidies. Or backing our firms to take risky but potentially profitable (and beneficial for the host country) ventures overseas.

Plus we can make the aid money we do spend go further by spending it on things with PROVEN IMPACT. DeWorm the World would be a good place to start, but more to come soon from IPA on other proven ideas.

Akwaaba!

That is twi (pronounced “chwee”, the principal native language of Ghana), for Welcome.

I was just welcomed to Ghana by a sign in the airport which read something as follows:

Welcome!

Akwaaba!

Ghana warmly welcomes all visitors of goodwill.

Ghana does not welcome paedophiles and other sexual deviants.

Indeed, Ghana applies extremely harsh penalties for such sexually aberrant behaviour.

If you are planning to engage in any such activities, we suggest that you go elsewhere.

Fortunately for me I am a visitor of goodwill and not a sexual deviant. I am here visiting IPA Ghana and doing a bit of work on setting up a new project.

Tips on things to see and do are very welcome!

Learning to Randomise

So yesterday was the last day of this year’s training week for JPAL and IPA staff based in Africa. I’m going to be starting in September as the IPA Communications Coordinator (professional blogger?!) based in New Haven, so this was a great opportunity for me to meet a bunch of the field and head office staff, and learn a bit more about how JPAL and IPA actually conduct an evaluation.

Things I have learned:

1. The phrase for “gamble” in Liberian English is to “put it in the hole.” Which apparently makes for some entertaining interviews with youths about their appetite for risk.
2. Limuru, Kenya, is COLD!
3. People can go to great lengths to get a drink. (but this is OK).
4. IPA staff are awesome. Everyone is fun, clever, and motivated, and are all total data-geeks. My kind of people.
5. Oh yeah, and how to conduct a randomised evaluation.

Here is my ultra-condensed summary.

Day 1: Why randomise anyway? (Because if you care about measuring the impact of your project - this is by far the best way)

Day 2: How to use STATA. (just spend a few hundred hours learning to code)

Day 3: How to design an evaluation, and how to manage data collection in the field. (what are you randomising and why? how do you manage the logistics in the field)

Day 4: Data entry and project management.

Day 5: Ethical and privacy issues, dealing with research problems, and budgeting (I totally rocked the budgeting session)

Day 6: Bringing it all together: presenting a complete project design from start to beginning.

If you are interested, all of the training materials are available on the MIT website, including videos, lecture notes, case studies and exercises.

The only thing not included is the trip to Lake Naivasha to walk amongst the zebra and giraffe. For that, you might just have to go and sign up…