Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG) Learning Agenda

What Will We Learn from Current Impact Evaluations?

Impact evaluations (IEs) generate rigorous evidence about the effects of DRG interventions on development outcomes and inform strategic planning, future programming, and in-service training. IEs answer questions about causal effects by randomly assigning

an intervention to create treatment and control groups that do not differ before the intervention. By comparing what happened with these groups after the intervention, IEs disentangle change that is attributable to the intervention from what is attributable to other factors.

Ghana Does a bottom-upor top-down approach work better for improving accountability and service delivery in local governments?

West Bank What is the best way to improve the functioning and service delivery of local government?

MalawiIs a bottom-up or top-down approach more effective in increasing local tax collection?

Cambodia (1)Can social networks and technology be used to increase women’s political participation?

Cambodia (2)What is more effective in stopping human trafficking and disrupting existing trafficking patterns: providing job opportunities or customized vocational training?

Country & Theme: Outcomes of Interest:Interventions:

Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG) Learning Agenda

What Will We Learn from Current Impact Evaluations?

GhanaLocal Government Accountability

CambodiaWomen’s Political Participation

CambodiaCounter-trafficking in Persons (CTIP)

West BankLocal Capacity Building

MalawiTax Compliancein Markets

Bottom-up approach: Mobilize civil society organizations and citizens to collect and use information similar to that collected by the Ghana Audit Service (GAS) to develop citizen scorecards.

Top-down approach: GAS to conduct audits of receipts for purchases and assess the quality of capital development projects and service delivery outcomes of locally managed small infrastructure projects.

Social networks and technology: Invite women identified by villagers as potentially good council members to run for office. Inform participants about the candidacy process through an SMS system; offer participants the option to appear on a list of potential candidates shared with political parties.

Social networks and technology plus traditional approach: Use training and community meetings to further increase women’s political involvement.

Job-seeking platform plus professionalism training: Provide trustworthy source of job opportunities and professionalism training to help at-risk population (ARP) keep their jobs.

Customized vocational training: Offer training in areas such as agriculture, fish-raising, garment work, and financial literacy, as well as small business grants to ARP.

Municipal Capacity Development: Offer technical assistance and support to streamline service provision.

Community Engagement: Enable citizens and community organizations to participate in local governance and municipal administration.

Small Infrastructure Projects: Assist municipalities in the design and construction of a service delivery project.

Bottom-up approach: Improve market infrastructure to increase vendor’s ability and incentives to pay taxes voluntarily.

Top-down approach: Provide training and incentive payments to market fee collectors to improve the government's ability to enforce and collect taxes.

• Responsiveness of politicians, bureaucracies to public pressure

• Publicfinancialmanagement

• Service delivery outcomes in capital projects, health, and education

• Citizen satisfaction and engagement with local democratic procedures

• Numberofwomenrunningforlocaloffice

• Improvement of women’s civic education compared to men’s

• Reduction of gaps in women’s political participation compared to men’s

• Electoral outcomes and local civic engagement

• Employmentandfinancialsituation(e.g., job status, income, and savings)

• Intention to migrate and actual migration overseas;traffickingstatus

• Knowledge, attitudes, and practices in workplaces and working conditions

• Economic performance, service provision, and revenue collection

• Citizen use of services

• Citizen satisfaction with local government performance

• Local government revenue per vendor

• Vendors’ self-reported tax compliance, trust in government, satisfaction with market services, and knowledge of how revenues are spent

• Feecollectors’levelsofjobeffortand knowledge of vendors