IBSS-Ex: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Effectiveness of Aid-Funded Programs: Spatial Analysis of Developmental Outcomes

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

This project will examine variation across localities in the effectiveness of development aid projects designed to improve provision of basic needs for people. The investigators will consider the impact of the efforts of national governments and international organizations, which have distributed more than $6 trillion in non-military development aid around the world since 1950, including more than $2 trillion since 2000. This exploratory research project will provide policymakers, donors, practitioners, and scholar with new tools that can be used to evaluate and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of aid. The methods, data, and resources emerging from this project will target evaluation in a manner that previously has been difficult to undertake. Project findings and products will enable analysts to more effectively assess the extent to which a particular project has succeeded or failed as well as to more precisely identify local factors that enabled or hindered the program's success. Project findings also will give donors improved information regarding how to target and administer aid programs more effectively in order to achieve their desired goals. The investigators will collect and analyze local (subnational) data on the effectiveness of aid projects as well as pertinent contextual factors. The project will be facilitated by the increasing availability of geographically coded, local data dealing with development aid projects, development policies, environmental change, violent conflict, political control, and development outcomes, such as measures of human well-being. The investigators will integrate these data into useable datasets with common units, and they will develop tools that will enable other scientists to integrate other kinds of data. These tools for creating new datasets will relieve existing bottlenecks in research on the effectiveness of aid. Using the resulting datasets, the investigators will analyze relationships between intentions and outcomes of aid projects, focusing initially on four outcomes in countries around the world: cropland coverage as an indication of food security, levels of inter-ethnic violence, vaccine coverage, and infant mortality. This project is supported through the NSF Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (IBSS) competition.