Beyond Numbers: Uncovering the "Why?"

Balancing quantitative and qualitative research to help understand why certain development programs succeed (or fail)

The CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program is partnering with local organizations in eight countries to help the very poorest stabilize their lives and map new pathways to self-sufficiency, adapting a method successfully pioneered by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC).

Since 2006, the Graduation Program has been operating 10 pilot projects in Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, India Pakistan, Peru, and Yemen.

The model is based on five core elements:

1. accurate targeting of the poorest people in select communities
2. consumption support through the temporary provision of stipends
3. an emphasis on savings
4. an asset transfer to give participants a base for producing new income
5. skills training to build sustainable livelihoods and regular coaching to foster self-confidence

As a pilot initiative, the Graduation Program is characterized by its emphasis on a thorough learning agenda. The Program makes use of randomized control trials as well as a qualitative research approach by BRAC Development Institute (BDI) and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)¹. The combined research approach is designed to bring out the stories behind the data.

Throughout September 2011, results of the qualitative research were published in a blog series on the Graduation Program’s web site. This effort to uncover the “life histories” of beneficiaries is giving voice to the very poorest people who are participating in the pilots, helping project managers better understand results and adjust their activities. The blog series discusses the methodologies undertaken by the pilots, and how the research results are influencing program design.

For Janet Heisey, of the Trickle Up Ultra Poor Program in India’s West Bengal, the use of qualitative research allows project managers to understand changes in the lives of the people they are seeking to help, while also helping the organization improve the program itself. For example, data shows that 86 percent of Trickle Up Ultra Poor Program participants “graduated” by the end of the pilot phase, meaning they were active in savings groups, had maintained or grown their assets, and met other benchmarks.

“But why did they graduate?” Heisey ponders in a blog post. “How did the components of the program combine with their efforts to create a positive outcome?” The qualitative research conducted by BDI pointed to the particular importance of fieldworker performance in helping the project participants succeed. As a result, Trickle Up increased training and support of fieldworkers and gave them clearly-defined goals to meet.

The “life histories” that emerge from qualitative research provide nuance, context, and meaning to the data that is compiled during quantitative reviews, such as randomized control trials. While there is debate as to which approach yields the most meaningful information, Anne Hastings of Fonkoze’s Graduation Pilot in Haiti believes these approaches should not be seen as mutually exclusive.

In Haiti, Fonkoze conducted a ‘mixed methodology’ evaluation that has boosted understanding of the project’s impacts at the household level and paved the way for a randomized control trial to gauge the project’s broader impact.“The qualitative methodology in its own right was rich, but mixing quantitative and qualitative methodologies was the evaluation’s key strength,” Hastings blogged. Lessons learned about the most effective components of the program will help Fonkoze minimize the cost of broadening the program without compromising quality or impact.

IPA also sees the value in combining the two research approaches, taking a similar dual track to its assessment of Graduation Program pilots in Honduras and Peru. By putting local social scientists into the project communities for three weeks each month, IPA aims to assess the effects of pilot activities not only on the lives of the poor, but on the communities more broadly. “The fieldworkers have been in the communities since the beginning of the implementation of the pilots, and therefore have developed a deep perspective on the large and small ways that participation in the project has had an impact on the project families and the wider community,” writes Dr. Catherine Timura.

Assessing why some participants in the Graduation Pilots are more successful than others takes time. But by better understanding the changes in participants’ lives, qualitative research is helping the poor drive improvements in the projects themselves and affording them the rare opportunity to have a say in their development.

¹ The research in India, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Haiti is led by Karishma Huda at BDI. Dr. Catherine Timura, at IPA directs the research in Honduras and Peru. The qualitative research has been done in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation.

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For more information please visit: http://graduation.cgap.org

Qualitative research blog series: http://graduation.cgap.org/topics/2-qualitative-research/

Contributed by Aude de Montesquiou, CGAP

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Posted: 12 Oct 2011

Related Documents:

Reaching the Poorest: Lessons from the Graduation Model
Lessons from ten pilot projects in eight countries

Measuring Changes in Client Lives through Microfinance: Contributions of Different Approaches
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‘And Who Listens to the Poor?’ Shocks, Stresses and Safety Nets in India and Pakistan
Assessing the impact of Targeting the Ultra Poor program in India and Pakistan

Graduating Out of Extreme Poverty: Who Succeeds?
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