· How has the use of photos to raise money for humanitarian programs and international NGOs changed, and what problems does it still have? Abhishek Bhati gives a summary on the Conversation – while there is greater emphasis on positive images, there is (from the paper) “overwhelming representation of single mothers, infants, and girls, and few representations of men and families”….” These images also avoid showing male figures, such as the children's fathers, which contributes to the perception of males in developing countries as not “present” for their families and feeding into the colonial discourse about the “Other” as lazy and irresponsible” (h/t Ugo Gentilini’s weekly social protection links).
· The Innovation Growth Lab has put out a handbook for experimental research funding. This includes discussion of how to use experimental methods in research funding itself – from randomizing allocation of reviewers to proposals, randomizing elements of the funding process to help improve it (e.g. how much and what type of information to require from applicants, blinded vs unblinded applications, randomizing messenging and outreach, etc.) to discussion of partial randomization of the allocation of grant funding itself.
· Marianne Bertrand, Chang-Tai Hsieh and Nick Tsivanidis discuss on VoxDev how Indian firms have increasingly used contract labor to reduce the bite of India’s strict labor laws.
· Youtube video of the advances in difference-in-differences workshop held by YoungStatS, featuring Clément de Chaisemartin, Jonathan Roth, Brantly Callaway and Lihua Lei.
· From the CGD, a blog (and paper) on what works/what USAID should try to do to reduce irregular migration from the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras).
· Call for papers – PACDEV 2022 to be held hopefully in-person at the University of San Francisco on March 5, submissions due Jan 10.
· Request for proposals: Women’s Economic Empowerment and Digital Finance (WEE-DiFine) is a research initiative aimed at generating a comprehensive body of evidence on the causal impact of digital financial services on women’s economic empowerment. WEE-DiFine’s third RFP will accept proposals for all grant categories: large grants are available for greenfield evaluations and extensions to existing studies, and small grants for measurement studies, qualitative studies, and pilot studies. Additionally, this RFP is expanding the regional scope to include studies in Southeast Asia in addition to proposals concentrated in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Submissions due March 3.
The Development Impact blog will now be on holiday until sometime in early January. We thank all our readers for their engagement and support over the year, and we look forward to seeing you in the new year.
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