Monthly Archives: March 2015

Something to Ponder: Cataloging The Evaluations Undertaken in a Country

Working my way through “Demand for and supply of evaluations in selected Sub-Saharan African countries,” which is a good read. there are several great points to note and consider but just one that i want to highlight here: In no country was there a comprehensive library of evaluations that had been undertaken [there]. This seemsContinue reading “Something to Ponder: Cataloging The Evaluations Undertaken in a Country”

Gem From the Anti-Politics Machine: They Only Seek the Kind of Advice They Can Take

I am starting to re-read the Anti-Politics Machine after some time… and, of course, started with the epilogue — the closest Ferguson comes to giving advice from his vivisection. here’s a gem that remains relevant ten-plus years later, in spite of major political changes in southern Africa: Certainly, national and international ‘development’ agencies do constituteContinue reading “Gem From the Anti-Politics Machine: They Only Seek the Kind of Advice They Can Take”

What Does It Mean To Do Policy Relevant Evaluation?

A different version of this post appears here. For several months, I have intended to write a post about what it actually means to do research that is ‘policy relevant,’ as it seems to be a term that researchers can self-ascribe* to their work without stating clearly what this entails or if it is anContinue reading “What Does It Mean To Do Policy Relevant Evaluation?”

Some Nuggets From the Amber: Keshavjee’s ‘Blind Spot’

Just finished Salmaan‘s Blind Spot: How Neoliberalism Infiltrated Global Health. Below, a few tidbits of his weaving of the local and personal with the global, ideological, and ideal. everything below represents a direct quote and the page numbers are marked in parentheses. This book is intended to add to the conversation about how to moreContinue reading “Some Nuggets From the Amber: Keshavjee’s ‘Blind Spot’”

“Politically Robust” Experimental Design in Democracies and a Plea For More Experience Sharing

Sometimes I re-read a paper and remember how nice a sentence or paragraph was (especially when thinking that a benevolent or benign dictator might make research so much easier, as though easy was the main goal of research). So it is with the paper by Gary King and colleagues (2007) on “a ‘politically robust’ experimentalContinue reading ““Politically Robust” Experimental Design in Democracies and a Plea For More Experience Sharing”

Thinking About Stakeholder Risk and Accountability in Pilot Experiments

This post is also cross-posted here in slightly modified form. Since I keep circling around issues related to my dissertation in this blog, I decided it was time to start writing about some of that work. As anyone who has stood or sat near to me for more than 5 minutes over the past 4.25Continue reading “Thinking About Stakeholder Risk and Accountability in Pilot Experiments”