This archive report was first published on 26 December 2019.
On October 14, 2019, the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences were announced, sparking pockets of applause across Kenya. The laureates, Michael Kremer, Esther Duflo, and Abhijit Banerjee, were awarded the Nobel for their experimental approach to global poverty alleviation.
Their work, which has resonated with many Kenyans and Africans, was forged through research evaluations conducted in Busia County. Organisations traditionally focus on measuring outputs, not impact. Outputs show whether a programme is implemented as intended, but the real question is what the initiatives accomplished.
The laureates applied randomised evaluations to development work, establishing a way to confidently know if a programme made any real change to people's lives. Some critique this approach, but NGOs and governments are often limited in how many people they can reach at once; randomisation simply leaves it up to chance.
Others have questioned the usefulness of randomised controlled trials, but the answer is 'yes' on both counts. In Kenya in the 1990s, Michael Kremer and colleagues found that delivering textbooks to students did not substantively improve learning, but delivering cheap deworming treatment strongly impacted on education outcomes.
Today, a global non-profit, Evidence Action, leverages this evidence to deploy a safe water delivery model that improves water quality not just at its source but at its point of use. They reach roughly two million people in Kenya alone.
The Nobel laureates' approach is rooted in a healthy dose of self-scepticism while remaining optimistic that viable and cost-effective solutions to challenges confronting people in poverty can be found or forged.
