Researchers compared the impacts of providing group- or individual-liability loans to women in rural Mongolia. Access to group loans increased business ownership and food consumption among poor women, while individual loans had no effect on these outcomes.

In 2008, women accounted for 18 percent of parliamentarians worldwide, and only 13 countries had a female head of government. In India, researchers studied the impact of a constitutional amendment that reserved village council leadership positions for women on adolescent girls’ career aspirations, educational attainment, and labor market outcomes. The gender gap in adolescent educational attainment was erased in villages with female leaders, and girls spent less time on household chores. Furthermore, adolescent girls had higher aspirations, as did their parents on their behalf.

Youth unemployment—an acute problem in Sub-Saharan Africa—can have long-term negative implications, both on individuals’ quality of life and on broader socio-economic development outcomes. A lack of necessary skills is often cited as contributing to high unemployment, and there is little evidence on what types of training can lead to positive outcomes. In an ongoing evaluation, researchers are investigating the impact of entrepreneurship training and the role of soft versus hard skills on Ugandan youth.

In Ghana, researchers are evaluating the impact of a health communications program, which includes in-person, radio, and mobile phone interventions, on five key health behaviors.

Researchers are evaluating the effect of improving communal toilet facilities, and implementing innovative systems for facility maintenance, on the use of community toilets in Orissa, India.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, young girls drop out of school at higher rates than boys. A large portion of drop outs occur between primary and secondary school, when families in most countries have to start paying fees for their children to continue attending school. In Zambia, researchers designed and evaluated the impact of a training that taught adolescent girls non-cognitive skills to negotiate health and educational decisions with authority figures in their lives. They found that girls who were taught negotiation skills had better educational outcomes in the following three years. The negotiation training appeared to have larger effects on girls with higher abilities.

In Uganda, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to test the impact of a communication training program targeting mothers on child health investments. The intervention increased spousal discussion about the family’s health, nutrition, and finances.

Researchers expanded microcredit offerings in Sonora, Mexico to evaluate the effect of improved credit access on economic and social outcome. They found that microcredit increased access to formal financial services and enabled some businesses to expand, but did not increase household income or prompt new business creation.

Subsidizing entrepreneurship training in the United States did not improve access to training services or promoted employment among groups affected by discrimination.

In Malawi, researchers tested the relative effects of providing conditional and unconditional cash transfers to teenage girls and their families. Among girls enrolled in school at the start of the program, conditional cash transfers increased school attendance and reduced HIV prevalence while unconditional transfers were more effective in helping girls delay marriage and childbearing in the short-term. Improvements among the unconditional cash transfer group quickly dissipated, while conditional cash transfer beneficiaries who had dropped out of school before the program experienced sustained improvements in educational attainment, marriage, and fertility outcomes two years after transfers ended.

Working in Botswana, researchers rapidly evaluated a phone-based remote learning program aimed at keeping children engaged with math during the Covid-19 pandemic. Students who received weekly SMS messages and phone calls to review math exercises increased their math skills after twelve weeks, while students who received only SMS messages did not.

Town hall meetings in Benin reduced the ability of the most popular presidential candidate in that village to garner political support using clientelist tactics, and still appear to be effective for motivating people to attend the polls.

Voters in Benin had a preference for clientelist political platforms, but certain subsets of voters such as women, consumers of mass media, and members of social organizations were less receptive to clientelism.

Researchers evaluated the impacts of a $68 million infrastructure investment program in Mexico on urban residents’ access to infrastructure, property values, private investment, moving rates, and community cohesion. The study found that access to infrastructure and property values improved in neighborhoods participating in the program. Private investment in these neighborhoods also increased; moving rates decreased, and data suggests that safety improved as a result of the program.