Rebecca Thornton, Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan, and Scott McNiven, a Hewlett Population, Reproductive Health and Economic Development Fellow and PhD Candidate at the University of California at Davis, recently won 3IE awards.
3IE—the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation—was initiated by the
Center for Global Development. In a report by CGD's
Evaluation Gap Working Group,
“When will we ever learn?”, CGD recommended the establishment of an entity to channel funds to high-quality, independent impact evaluations around an agenda of key questions that confront policymakers. 3IE was developed out of this recommendation.
Mr. McNiven will conduct research with Daniel O. Gilligan, a senior research fellow at IFPRI and lead principal investigator on this project. Mr. McNiven and Dr. Gilligan will collaborate with the International Potato Center to study the diffusion and adoption dynamics of a biofortified crop in Uganda. Biofortification programs introduce staple food crops bred to have more micronutrients to poor, rural populations in developing countries in order to reduce micronutrient deficiencies. HarvestPlus has introduced a beta-carotene-biofortified crop, the orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP), to Uganda in order to reduce vitamin A deficiency. The intervention’s treatment includes providing farmers with sweet potato vine cuttings to cultivate, information about growing OFSP, and the health benefits of vitamin A.
They will survey 1,116 households that received the treatment, 709 untreated farm households in the same villages and 432 farm households in nearby communities. The intervention’s roll-out design allows the researchers to isolate the impacts of three features of the program—OFSP vine distribution, training about the technology, and spillovers like social learning—on longer-run outcomes for both farmer group members and their neighboring nonmembers. Outcomes include child vitamin A levels, agricultural profits, OFSP adoption rates, and child consumption of OFSP.
With
her award from 3IE, Dr. Thornton will collaborate with Banja La Mstogolo (BLM), a reproductive health NGO in Malawi, and the University of Malawi College of Medicine to conduct research on scaling up male circumcision service provision. Recent findings indicate that male circumcision significantly and substantially lowers the likelihood of a man contracting HIV by up to 60 percent. This has led to many discussions about how circumcision might be a viable prevention strategy for reducing the spread of HIV.
However, the roll-out and scaling up of services in Africa has been slow. There have been limited rigorous studies on what could be the most effective way of scaling-up male circumcisions in Africa. This study will separately measure the effects of subsidies and information/counseling on the increase in demand for male circumcisions among adult men and infants in Malawi.
In partnership with BLM, the evaluation will involve surveys among 3,000 adult men living within clinic catchment areas and 1,500 women attending antenatal and neonatal clinics. At the end of the survey, respondents will receive vouchers of varying prices for a male circumcision at BLM clinics. This will allow for measuring the elasticity of demand for circumcision among both adult men and women (for their infant sons). In addition to the voucher randomization, the evaluation will randomly allocate information about HIV and circumcision among respondents to measure the relative effect of information on the willingness to pay. Results from the evaluation will guide policy makers and health providers about cost-effective ways of increasing male circumcisions, and consequently reducing HIV infections.