What works to improve vaccination rates in low- and middle-income countries?

Paul Thissen 14 April 2020 blog  
Each year, hundreds of thousands of people are sickened from diseases from which they could have been protected if they had been vaccinated. In some low-income countries, less than half of children receive even the most widely-distributed vaccines, like the one for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. So what strategies are effective at raising vaccination rates in low- and middle-income countries?

How to get people to wash their hands

Paul Thissen 26 March 2020 blog  
If you've been following international news recently, you've likely been inundated with the message: ‘Wash your hands!’ But not everyone is tuned in to public health messages, nor is such information always effectively communicated to vulnerable communities.

Empowering women through National Rural Livelihoods Mission

Ritwik Sarkar, Zeba Siddiqui 08 March 2020 blog  
Neelima Devi*, a 35-year-old Self Help Group (SHG) member, aspires to start an eatery with her husband in their village. She was one the many women we had met during our field visits to Jharkhand and Maharashtra in 2019.

Empowering women through Self-Help Groups: Evidence of effectiveness, questions of scale

Thomas de Hoop, Stuti Tripathi 08 March 2020 blog  
Since the 1980s, India has invested significantly in Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and other women’s groups to improve gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Vocational training helps women find better employment

Paul Thissen 05 March 2020 blog  

Women face countless extra hurdles in the working world. They earn less than men, are more likely to be unemployed, are over-represented in vulnerable employment situations, and have extra challenges when starting their own businesses, according to the United Nations.

What works to get firms hiring? Support small businesses — but not the smallest ones

Paul Thissen 19 February 2020 blog  
In the last two weeks, we've talked about how to train youth for existing jobs and how to push young people to start new businesses. But those strategies only touch parts of the world's employment problem. So what strategies create jobs by encouraging existing firms to hire more workers?

Entrepreneurship promotion gets people working in low- and middle-income countries

Paul Thissen 13 February 2020 blog  
The challenges of youth unemployment and underemployment are concentrated in low- and middle-income countries. They're home to 87 per cent of the world's unemployed youth — 62 million young people, according to the International Labor Organization.

What gets youths into jobs around the world? Train them in a skill

Paul Thissen 04 February 2020 blog  
Worldwide, young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults, according to data from the International Labor Organization (ILO). Even among employed youth, many work bad jobs for painfully low wages.

How to read a systematic review: A quick guide for policy practitioners

Paul Thissen 28 January 2020 blog  
Here at 3ie, we're big supporters of systematic reviews, which combine evidence from multiple different studies addressing the same type of research question. This strategy provides stronger evidence than relying on a single case, where idiosyncratic issues can affect program outcomes.

What works to help students learn? Teach the teachers. Feed the students

Paul Thissen 21 January 2020 blog  

More than half of kids in the world are not meeting minimum proficiency levels in reading or math, even though a majority of them of them are already in school, according to UNESCO. This data shows that the issue discussed in last week's blog post—how to get kids into classrooms— is only one part of the problem.