Hi Everyone
Is it always possible to measure the impact of certain development interventions particularly development research initiatives? Kindly share your perspectives and experiences
Thank you
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Hi Aysha,
I am very unsure how to answer the 'always possible' question. However, I have shared some my opinion.
Any development intervention should be measurable or in other terms needs to be designed in a way it should be measured. So technically yes. To my understanding, the result/outcome or the effectiveness of a development intervention is measured to evalute the sucess or failure of an intervention. I consider it as a fundamental fault if it is not measurable. Also, sometimes, the statergies/evaluation methodologies we use to measure an intervention might fail, and in that case, we will have answers why that intervention has failed.
I believe that based on my experience, there is no specific or precise strategies to generalise,and every research has its uniqueness, although we have fundametal steps to be followed in any developmental research.
Thank you for sharing your perspective Usharani. But I believe it is hard to measure the impact of certain interventions. For instance, I recently came across some literature on an intervention in Ghana which is basically an action research project launched by University of Ghana which challenged the misogynistic and sexist representation of women in their popular music. As part of this project, some workshops were organised for artists, music contests which challenged these representations were also organized and many FGDS were conducted with the audience. The project sparked debate and also gained a lot of media attention. Undoubtedly, this project would have had a wider social impact. But is it possible to measure this impact? As far as my personal experience is concerned, I did a study on Right to Information Act (RTI) in India. The study explored the scope of RTI in promoting collective social actions in attaining entitlements on Right to food, Right to water and Right to housing. I basically documented the experiences of three social activists through case studies. The study was published by the organization and was widely disseminated, particularly among the Civil Society. I am definite that many social activists would have read my work and many would have got inspired to use RTI as a tool in demanding the entitlements for the marginalized. But is it really possible to measure the wider impact of this initiative?
Thanks Aysha for the reply. Interesting! Is it possible to share with me those two papers (if you don't have the papers please send me the references). I would like to go through the work breifly before engaging in discussion.
Women Empowerment:What works?,Andrea Cornwall:Journal of International Development J. Int. Dev. 28, 342–359 (2016), You can find the RTI paper on my linkedin account. I guess it is not possible to attach a pdf here
Ok. Thanks for this information. I will look at it.
We are connected over linkedin. right?
Hi Aysha, Hope everything is good. Yes we are connected in Linkedin. I will find out from there. Sorry for the delayed reply. I traveled out of Canada for sometime, and came back on Sunday.
Sure Usharani