RMC’s Prince and Boswell present findings at CENCAM International Workshop
Ray Marshall Center’s Dr. Heath Prince and Thomas Boswell presented findings from their study titled “Prevention, Resilience, Efficiency, and Protection for workers in industrial agriculture in a changing climate (PREP): Baseline results from a household panel survey of the socioeconomic conditions experienced by agricultural workers in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua” at the Fourth International Workshop on Chronic Kidney Disease sponsored by Consortium for the Epidemic of Nephropathy in Central America and Mexico (CENCAM) and held February 13th-16th in Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala. The workshop was developed as a collaboration between CENCAM, the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers of Health of Central America and the Dominican Republic (SE-COMISCA), the Latin American Society for Nephrology and Hypertension (SLANH), and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).
Their poster presentation, seen here, summarizes the key research strategies and results from their study, the purpose being to examine the socieoconomic outcomes associated with chronic kidney disease not related to well-known risk factors (CKDnt) in four communities in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua that are home to a substantial number of sugarcane workers. Despite strong similarities in terms of demographic characteristics, and despite residing in the same communities with similar access to the available resources, households experiencing CKDnt exhibit distinct and statistically significant differences in important socioeconomic outcomes when compared to non-CKDnt households. Contributing to the study were Jason Glaser (La Isla Network), Catharina Wesseling (Karolinska Institute, Sweden), Ashweeta Patnaik (RMC), and William Martinez-Cuadra (La Isla Network).
Evaluation of Travis County Investments in Workforce Development 2023 Update
Evaluation of Travis County Investments in Workforce Development 2023 Update
Authors: Cynthia Juniper, Patty Rodriguez, David McCoy, Heath Prince (Principal Investigator), and Thomas Boswell
Date: November 2023
Publication Type: Report, 173pp.
INTRODUCTION
In FY 2016–FY 2022, Travis County invested over $16 million to support a continuum of adult education, training, and employment services. The adult education programing supported by the County includes English as a second language, basic adult education, high school equivalency and GED classes. Sectoral occupational training includes healthcare professions, information technology, skilled trades, manufacturing, and other occupations in area growth industries with good prospects for career advancement, improved economic stability, and access to employee benefits.
Four of the Travis County workforce development grantees receive county-funded assistance as a consortium, the Workforce Education and Readiness Continuum–Travis County (WERC-TC). WERC-TC providers are Workforce Solutions Capital Area Career Centers, Goodwill of Central Texas, Austin Area Urban League, and American YouthWorks. Four additional community-based organizations maintaining workforce development contracts with Travis County are included in this report: Literacy Coalition of Central Texas, Capital IDEA, LifeWorks, and Skillpoint Alliance. In addition, WERC-TC grantee American YouthWorks also delivers services to participants through Travis County funding that is not WERC-TC.
To understand program participant outcomes and the impact of these services, the county has contracted with the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources (RMC), an organized research unit in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas, to conduct a longitudinal evaluation of its investments. This evaluation report presents findings and analyses of programs funded during a seven-year on-going evaluation (FY 2016–FY 2022).
Nuru Burkina Faso 2023 Impact Report
Nuru Burkina Faso 2023 Impact Report
Authors: Heath Prince and Thomas Boswell (Ray Marshall Center); Souleymane Ouedraogo (Nuru Burkina Faso); and Matt Lineal, Casey Harrison, Ian Schwenke, Bethany Ibrahim (Nuru)
Date: May 2024
Publication Type: Report, 23pp.
This report is commissioned by Nuru.
Executive Summary
Nuru Burkina Faso (NBF) is a locally-led and locally-registered NGO in Burkina Faso. NBF’s mission is to build resilience corridors by eradicating poverty and unlocking economic potential within fragile communities in Burkina Faso to stop the spread of violent extremism by 2030. NBF was founded in 2022, and at the time of this report is in its second year of operation. Since its inception, NBF has created a capable and professional local organization that is engaged across several interventions. Currently, NBF is working with USAID to implement the Tiligre Initiative for Farmer Resilience (TIFR) in the Centre Sud and Plateau-Central regions of Burkina Faso, just outside of the capital Ouagadougou, and receives further support from additional donors to provide support in terms of crop input packages to farmers. Furthermore, NBF has partnered with ignitia to provide two consecutive years of weather forecasting services to nearly 2,000 Nuru-registered farmers.
In 2023, NBF conducted its first input-distribution activity, allowing farmers who are members of the cooperatives that NBF supports to receive crop input packages, consisting of various inputs aimed to improve the yields of soy and groundnut production for individual farmers. Crop loan repayments are made to the cooperative, which becomes a revolving fund at each cooperative. This report examines the results of this 2023 agricultural season, including the yield potential between farmers and demonstration plots. This report also explores baseline gender evaluations aimed at uncovering gender dynamics at the household level.
Findings from RMC’s Jordan/MENA project led by Dr. Prince featured in Policy Press publication
RMC Research Scientist, Dr. Heath Prince, and former RMC Research Associate, Amna Khan (LBJ MPAff, 2012), along with Brandeis University colleague, Dr. Yara Halasa-Rappel, examined post-Arab Spring youth unemployment policies in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia for the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development in 2017. Their findings have now been published as a book chapter in the newly released University of Bristol’s Policy Press publication, Emerging Trends in Social Policy from the South: Challenges and Innovations in Emerging Economies (Yi, Kaasch, and Stetter, eds). Their chapter, “Economic Growth, Youth Unemployment and Political and Social Instability: A Study of Policies and Outcomes in Post-Arab Spring Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Tunisia,” documents their fieldwork to better understand the multiple policy approaches taken by these countries, as well as the constraints they faced, in addressing the crisis of youth unemployment that contributed to the uprisings between 2010 and 2012. You can read more about the book here.
Nuru Kenya 2023 Dairy Impact Brief
Nuru Kenya 2023 Dairy Impact Brief
Authors: Heath Prince and Thomas Boswell (Ray Marshall Center); Fatuma Nyanjong (Nuru Kenya); and Casey Harrison, Matt Lineal, Ian Schwenke, and Bethany Ibrahim (Nuru International)
Date: December 2023
Publication Type: Research Brief, 6pp.
This report is commissioned by Nuru International
INTRODUCTION
Nuru Kenya (NK) was established in 2008 with the goal of enabling meaningful choices for vulnerable communities to lift themselves out of poverty. Their multifaceted approach addresses food insecurity, ability to cope with shocks, and addressing unnecessary disease and death. NK has since been engaged across the sectors of agriculture, financial inclusion, and healthcare. This report will focus on NK’s impact in the dairy sector as part of an integrated livelihood diversification strategy. This dairy program began in Migori county in 2017, and has since expanded to neighboring Homabay, the second county of operation for NK. This report focuses on the Migori county dairy program after 7 years of impact.
To track data and report on successes, NK’s monitoring, evaluation, and learning team works with Nuru International support, in partnership with the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) at the University of Texas, Austin. Working as a group, Nuru Kenya leads on the collection and cleaning of data, and Nuru International and RMC report on the relevant findings. This the 6th annual report on the dairy program of Nuru Kenya since its inception in 2017. The primary metrics of success for the dairy program encompass improved yields and incomes for farmers, along with improved practices for taking care of the health and production of animals. Additional programs include fodder production, and artificial insemination. The households who are members of the NK dairy program are often also members of farmers cooperatives supported by NK, which assist in training and aggregation activities with the farmers over the course of the year.
Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) Plan for Nuru Nigeria
Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) Plan for Nuru Nigeria
Author: Ray Marshall Center
Date: November 2018
Publication Type: Report, 33pp.
This report is commissioned by Nuru International.
OVERVIEW
Nuru International’s mission is to eradicate extreme poverty in fragile rural areas to build communities resilient to violent extremism. Nuru International considers fragile states to continue to be a source of instability and relative deprivation in the world. Vulnerabilities in marginalized communities are ripe for exploitation by violent extremist groups and ideologies. Nuru International envisions a world in which all people live in an enabled environment with lasting, meaningful choices. Free of the burdens of vulnerabilities that threaten the stability and resilience of households and communities, people will be able to thrive and to exercise their agency.
Nuru International believes that building resilient communities is best done by local leaders who produce and manage programs locally and nationally, combining and leveraging their knowledge, innovation and experience with international and expatriate expertise, support and resources. Nuru International is committed to eliminating extreme poverty through investments in self-sustaining and scalable interventions.
Nuru’s integrated development model takes a holistic approach to address the most prevalent and fundamental challenges of extreme poverty through an intentional and co-creative design process. By addressing vulnerabilities in an integrated way, Nuru enables individuals not just to improve their own well-being and climb out of the poverty trap, but also to avoid falling back into poverty. Without a holistic approach to development, well-intentioned reforms and investment in one sector risk being squandered because they are not supported by measures in other sectors.
The Ray Marshall Center (RMC), an organized research unit in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas, is providing technical assistance to support Nuru’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) efforts. The RMC’s experience and expertise supports Nuru’s work by demonstrating the effectiveness and robustness of its integrated approach to addressing poverty.
Nuru Nigeria 2023 Endline Impact Report
Nuru Nigeria 2023 Endline Impact Report
Authors: Heath Prince, Thomas Boswell, and Ashweeta Patnaik (Ray Marshall Center); Bless Jima, Olayinka Orefunwa, and Amos Emmanuel (Nuru Nigeria); Matt Lineal, Casey Harrison, and Ian Schwenke (Nuru International); and Dena Bunnel (Doctoral Candidate, Kansas State University)
Date: December 2023
Publication Type: Report, 77pp.
This report is commissioned by Nuru International.
INTRODUCTION
This endline report shares the outcomes from the 4-year randomized control trial impact evaluation of Nuru Nigeria’s interventions, from 2019 to 2023 in northeastern Nigeria. Nuru Nigeria’s vision is to cultivate lasting, meaningful choices in the most vulnerable and marginalized communities in the world. By 2030, Nuru Nigeria intends to build resilient corridors of functioning locally-owned farmer cooperatives and profitable rural livelihoods in 12 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of northern Nigeria proximate to conflict-vulnerable areas. In implementing interventions, Nuru Nigeria aims to equip rural, vulnerable households to improve livelihoods and build resilience capacities to cope with conflict, environmental, economic, and social shocks and stressors for stability and prosperity within the program implementation period. This study focuses exclusively on Nuru Nigeria’s work in Adamawa State, the first LGA in which Nuru Nigeria began implementation.
This study tracks a number of indicators for the groups of farmers involved, including various short-term and long-term outcomes. The primary objective for this study however is to measure resilience capacities and how Nuru Nigeria may affect them using the Nuru model of agricultural intervention. This study aims to answer the question: “do Nuru Nigeria programs have a positive and statistically significant impact on adaptive, absorptive, and/or transformative resilience?”.
ADDITIONAL PUBLICATIONS
Evaluation Plan
Baseline Report
Midline Report
REPRODUCIBILITY
The authors of this study were committed to ensuring that the findings are reproducible. To uphold this principle, meticulous strategies were implemented at every stage of the evaluation:
- Methodology Selection: The study adopted the REAL Consortium methodology.
- Resilience Index Modules: Modules for inclusion in the resilience index were predetermined before the baseline. These modules were consistently used during the midline and endline evaluations.
- Survey Translation: Questions were translated into Hausa to cater to the local audience. A double-blind translation process ensured the accuracy and consistency of understanding, with the same translated text applied at each study time point.
- Data Accessibility: The data, scrubbed of any personally identifiable information, are made available upon request to interested parties. They can be accessed through a gated system, with users agreeing to adhere to usage terms. This data is stored on a secure server, adhering to rigorous physical and data security standards.
- Open Access: The initial evaluation plan, including methodological descriptions as well as a dataset to reproduce results and explore additional relationships can be requested here.
Ray Marshall featured on Orley Ashenfelter’s podcast “The Work Goes On”
Dr. Ray Marshall was recently featured on Episode 18 of the podcast series “The Work Goes On: An Oral History of Industrial Relations and Labor Economics” hosted by Princeton University’s Orley Ashenfelter that aired on October 23, 2023. The podcast, part of the Princeton Industrial Relations Section celebration of 100 years of research and public history, consists of a series of conversations with leading thinkers and practitioners and aims to create an oral history of industrial relations and labor economics. Marshall discusses his childhood as an orphan in Mississippi, becoming an economist with the help of the GI bill, and his time as the Carter administration’s Secretary of Labor. You can listen to the podcast or download the transcript here. You can also learn more about the Industrial Relations Section’s celebration here.
RMC’s Thomas Boswell presents at AEA’s Evaluation 2023 with Nuru International
Ray Marshall Center’s Social Science Research Associate Thomas Boswell was part of a trio presenting findings from Nuru International‘s 2022 Nuru Nigeria Resilience Report at the American Evaluation Association‘s Evaluation 2023 conference in Indianapolis October 9-14, 2023. Boswell joined Nuru’s Ian Schwenke and Dena Bunnel of Kansas State University in the October 14th presentation. The report marks the end of a five-year evaluation conducted in partnership with the Center. The randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluated communities in northeast Nigeria and seeks to understand how Nuru interventions impact community resilience. You can read Nuru’s October 5th press release here and view the presentation here. You can also read more about our partnership here.
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