Over the past twenty years, the use of cash transfers in development and humanitarian interventions has experienced exponential growth. Both evidence and ethics have contributed to its rise. Extensive research has demonstrated how cash transfers can serve as critical lifelines in both acute humanitarian emergencies and more stable development contexts, whilst also providing recipients with […]
With the steady rise of the number of impact evaluations (IEs) per year, it should come as no surprise that not every single IE will show a positive impact. The authors of “no impact” evaluations will understandably be worried that their work will not be academically published nor be used for public policy. There is, however, still value in such information. Evidence that a particular program does not work paves the way for alternative interventions to happen. Licona (2017) provides several examples where null results in Mexican education programs encouraged the tweaking of aspects such as selection criteria, consolidation of redundant programs, and budget optimization.
We work with clients who are running poverty interventions in the field. These are not experiments – where the program is designed around an experiment – these are impact evaluations that have to be designed around a development program that has already been designed or is in progress. As such, often times the sample size […]
Causal Design & Mercy Corps Partner to Investigate Cash Transfers in Humanitarian Response Last year Causal Design partnered with Mercy Corps to investigate the impact of various operational models for dispersing cash grants after a natural disaster. Specifically, we wanted to see if the frequency of cash disbursements, offering of financial literacy training, or sending reinforcing voice messages had […]
