This archive report was first published on 21 October 2019.
Global poverty has long been a complex issue, with policymakers and economists struggling to find effective solutions. One of the primary reasons for this challenge is the assumption that poverty is solely a matter of income inequality.
However, as Derek Thompson of The Atlantic notes, poverty encompasses a broader range of factors, including financial, psychological, and cultural disadvantages.
These complexities make it difficult to grasp the true nature of poverty, leading to misinterpretations and ineffective policies.
Kenya, like many other countries, has struggled to define and address poverty. Many Kenyans have either grown up in poverty or are currently battling it in some form.
Fortunately, the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics recognized the outstanding work of Michael Kremer, Esther Duflo, and Abhijit Banerjee in solving the global poverty puzzle using an experimental approach.
Their work leverages Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT), a methodology initially used in clinical medicine to investigate the efficiency of new drugs. By granting access to a given intervention to limited participants and comparing the results with those without it, RCTs provide valuable insights into what works and what doesn't.
Two of this year's laureates, Kremer and Duflo, have extensively conducted field experiments using RCTs in Kenya, exploring topics such as agriculture, education, and health. Their 2009 study on the use of fertilisers by farmers in western Kenya, in collaboration with International Child Support Kenya, is a classic example of this approach.
The study found that offering farmers a discount to buy fertiliser soon after harvest and later delivering it for free increased uptake. This innovative approach has become a standard method in developmental economics, helping to break down the complex issue of global poverty into smaller, easier-to-tackle questions.
As a programmes officer at Eco-Ethics Kenya's Mombasa office, I am grateful for the trio's work, which has informed policy decisions in my country, particularly on sensitive topics such as free supply of preventive health products, provision of agricultural subsidies, and improvement of the quality of education.
