In this edition of Development drums, Owen talks to Rachel Glennerster, Director of the Poverty Action Lab, about rigorous evaluation of development programmes.
Rachel explains how rigorous evaluation techniques can give important insights into the effectiveness of development programmes. She explains the role (and limitations) of randomised controlled trials, and she addresses some of the criticisms of this kind of evaluation.
This is an interesting episode episode! I liked the illustrative examples provided by Rachel. But, in what situations would randomized evaluation not be advisable to conduct randomized evaluation? I agree with Rachel that the ethical concerns may not be that serious in countries where factors such as sectarianism and corruption have already heightened the probability of certain individuals not being reached by externally designed development interventions. Given that mindsets tend to either facilitate or impair progress towards desired development change, how do you handle it in randomization since the trait may not be randomly distributed in a given community?