Evaluations

A key challenge to achieving universal health coverage is that non-poor informal workers are difficult to enroll and retain in government health insurance programs. Researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of various programs, including subsidies, registration assistance and...

Despite the initial promise of microcredit, randomized evaluations have found at best modest effects of microloans on poverty. Digitized payments from government cash transfer programs provide a unique opportunity to offer microcredit while addressing some of its shortcomings, potentially reducing...

The Graduation Approach, a model for holistic livelihoods programs, has been proven to have lasting impacts on poor families’ income, assets, food security, and mental health, but these programs can be expensive to implement. In Ghana, researchers are evaluating the impact of different variations of...

Helping families with young children living in high-poverty housing projects to move to lower-poverty neighborhoods improves the later-life outcomes for the children and may reduce the intergenerational persistence of poverty.

Researchers partnered with a local organization in Malawi to randomly vary the wages offered in a rural cash-for-work program, and evaluate the impact of wages on participants’ willingness to work. They found that nearly three-quarters of participants were willing to perform agricultural work even...

Researchers evaluated the effects of a free health insurance policy and UCTs of the same value on the economic, health, and psychological outcomes of informal workers in Kenya. Participants who received health insurance self-reported reduced stress and had lower cortisol levels; UCTs led to fewer...

Researchers examined whether intra-household risk-sharing mechanisms such as financial transfers between spouses operate efficiently in Western and Nyanza Provinces of Kenya and found that intra-household insurance to protect against economic shocks was inefficient among daily income earners.

Child marriage remains prevalent in many countries despite laws prohibiting the practice, leading to negative health and education outcomes for young women and their children. Researchers evaluated the impacts of an incentive program and an adolescent empowerment program on child marriage, teenage...