Currently, many Health Extension Workers (HEWs) in rural Ethiopia face challenges accessing their payments due to limited financial infrastructure and long distances to financial service centers, which negatively impacts job satisfaction, retention, and...

Small agri-processing activities represent a major source of income for women in rural and urban areas in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the limited access to formal financing pushes women entrepreneurs to resort to informal financing with the associated risk...

Currently, cash transfers for social protection programs in Senegal are distributed through a network of post offices. Still, challenges such as accessibility, long travel distances, and outdated beneficiary data hinder the program's effectiveness. This...

Digital identification systems have become increasingly vital in promoting financial inclusion and improving access to social welfare programs, particularly in developing countries. This proposal investigates the causal impact of the adoption of biometric...

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), in partnership with seven licensed buying companies, has introduced an electronic payment system utilizing mobile money and biometric payment cards to enhance efficiency and reduce transaction risks. This proposal explores the...

Elimination of the cash payment mode in the collection of water revenue is imperative in reducing water waste, managing water resources, ensuring sustainability and shaping rural water supply systems in the country. Our team collaborates with Community Water...

Informality hinders firm profitability and growth in a variety of ways, including limiting firms to suppliers in their social networks due to issues of trust and fraud. Digital IDs offer potential paths to increasing formality, such as by allowing the...

Despite the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2005, coverage remains low, particularly within the informal sector, which represents 93% of Nigeria’s workforce. This project seeks to evaluate the effect of digital and flexible...

Nigeria faces significant fiscal challenges, compounded by armed conflicts, inefficient tax collection, and widespread revenue leakages, which have weakened governance across its 36 states. This proposal explores the role of digital financial platforms...

This project investigates the effects of biometric tracking on health workers’ absenteeism and its impact on maternal and child health outcomes in rural Nigeria. Using a randomized evaluation, biometric devices, such as fingerprint scanners, will be introduced...

This proposal seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of an "e-wallet" scheme designed by the Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB) to assist households in saving for their annual health insurance premiums. The e-wallet is a mobile phone-based application that...

This proposal investigates whether digitization can enhance the synergies between urban service delivery and local revenue mobilization in The Gambia, with a focus on the Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC). KMC is undergoing reforms to digitize its waste...

Despite having enormous potential for unbanked and marginalized groups and women, mobile phone-based money and digital financing system remain low in developing countries. Using beneficiaries of the Ethiopian Safety Net program, the largest in Africa, this...

High rates of absenteeism among both teachers and students in rural schools pose a significant challenge to improving educational outcomes and human capital formation, particularly in developing regions. This study proposes the implementation of biometric...

While the economic effects of digitization in developing countries have been studied extensively, the general equilibrium effects of digitizing business payments along the supply chain and on neighboring businesses have been less explored. In this proposal, we...

Mobile money services can help households smooth shocks and increase women’s control over their finances, but, despite their popularity, they are used by only 33% of women in Tanzania and by less than 10% of people for savings or business transactions. We will...

Digital technologies have spread rapidly in much of the world. Despite their expected impacts on productivity and growth, rates of adoption remain modest among firms in sub-Saharan Africa. This research will investigate the role of information asymmetry within...

This proposal explores the adoption of the biometric Ghana Card, a critical tool for accessing government services and financial transactions. Despite high national registration rates, marginalized and low-income populations face significant non-cost barriers...

Smallholder farmers face significant barriers, including financial exclusion and limited access to timely, affordable, and quality farm inputs due to bureaucratic middlemen. This proposal seeks to leverage digital solutions to explore how smallholder farmers...

Financial inclusion is a critical component of poverty reduction and sustainable development, particularly in developing countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Despite the potential of mobile money to expand financial services to...

Health insurance is a critical tool for managing healthcare costs and reducing economic vulnerability, yet informal sector workers—who constitute a large portion of the workforce in developing economies—often face significant barriers to accessing such...

The Government of Togo has launched an ambitious cash transfer program to provide immediate cash support to poor households that are impacted by COVID-19. The project will assist the government response by improving geographic targeting by building high...

Health worker absenteeism impedes Uganda’s progress towards the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and reduces trust in healthcare system quality and dependability, two factors crucial during difficult times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a randomized...

In many developing countries, mobilizing tax revenue from the informal sector remains a significant challenge. This proposal seeks to conduct a formative evaluation of Senegal’s “m-tax” reform, a mobile tax payment platform designed to enhance tax compliance...

As digital financial markets evolve, new actors will enter the business environment; thus, influencing market competition. What are the potential impacts of such competitive digital transformation on financial inclusion, innovation and transparency in digital...

The aim of the pilot study is to examine how the implementation of the mobile money renewal service by the NHIS can be improved and made more effective and efficient. Specifically, the study would: 1. Determine the most appropriate form of reminder systems for...

Mobile money services have accelerated progress in global financial inclusion. However, a majority of mobile money customers perceive it just as a money transfer instrument and do not make use of features such as storing money for future needs – which could...

The informal sector accounts for around 80% of Gambia’s economy, making direct taxation of micro, small, and medium-sized businesses difficult. This project proposes a randomized control trial (RCT) to assess the impact of mobile money accounts, combined with...

The rapid expansion of digital payment systems presents a unique opportunity to address inefficiencies in the informal business sector across sub-Saharan Africa. This project investigates how digital payment systems can reduce transaction costs and incentivize...

Despite efforts to implement a unified digital ID system in Nigeria, rural households remain largely excluded due to factors such as location, literacy barriers, and lack of access to registration centers. The project aims to assess current enrollment levels...

Old-age pensions are important for the wellbeing and social protection of older individuals. However, in Ghana, until recently the coverage of pension plans has been limited to the formal sector, due partly to the challenges pension fund managers have in...

This project examines whether formalizing an informal labor tax can reduce its regressive nature and improve citizens’ access to public services. For the informal tax, salongo, citizens contribute labor towards local public good projects such as road...

As coronavirus spreads in developing countries, an important question is how to improve the resilience of poor households to its economic ramifications, and facilitate their adherence to calls for social distancing. Lockdowns and social distancing measures...

In 2017, IPA launched a randomized controlled trial in Kenya to test the effectiveness of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) in eradicating extreme poverty. Participants in the study treatment groups have been receiving regular digital cash transfers for over two...

The project aims to investigate how the frequency of salary payments impacts the ability of civil servants in developing countries to manage liquidity shocks, save, and invest. It also seeks to assess whether combining increased salary frequency with automatic...

Informal taxation, often characterized by non-monetary contributions such as labor for local public goods, plays a significant yet frequently overlooked role in local public finance in developing countries. This proposal addresses the regressive nature of...

Smallholder farmers face limited access to credit, which restricts their ability to purchase essential inputs such as fertilizers and seeds. How might digital lending unlock access to credit for smallholder farmers? This project aims to investigate how...

The inefficiency and mismanagement of human resources, particularly absenteeism and ghost workers, undermine effective service delivery in the public sector. The project aims to evaluate the impact of biometric identification systems on eliminating ghost...

The National Registration Bureau (NRB) achieved near-universal registration of adults over the age of 16 by the middle of 2018. However, there are ongoing challenges related to the registration of newly eligible individuals. Moreover, many technical and policy...

This project studies the introduction of a digital tax assessment and collection system into local tax administration in Northern Uganda. We will partner with the UNCDF and Ministry of Local Government to measure the impacts of the digitized system on the...

We partnered with the Senegalese tax administration to conduct a randomized evaluation of the introduction of a modernized property tax system in Dakar. This new system includes a modernized registry aggregating geolocated cadastral data with taxpayers’...