Political economy

To complement our analysis of development interventions, we research the best means of delivering these programmes. Broadly this means investigating the organisation of implementation, be it by community groups, non-governmental organisations, the private sector, or government. We ask how we can create the incentives for providers to implement the intervention so to maximise its efficacy or minimise its cost.

Our hope is to combine our findings on the optimal design of interventions with information on efficient and cost-effective means of delivery. We believe this is a crucial part of our advice to governments aiming to reach populations at scale.

As an example, an integral part of our work on early childhood development in Colombia is determining whether we can utilise local focal persons to deliver the intervention. Doing so could dramatically reduce the cost of scaling up the intervention countrywide. Other work in this area has been in Malawi and Nigeria.