Can Communities Take Charge? An RCT on School Administration in Afghanistan

• In Event: Experiments on Communities and State Capacity

Abstract

In war-affected countries, governments often struggle in extending basic services throughout their territory. In Afghanistan, for example, past research showed that only 23% of rural primary schools started by NGOs could be sustained for more than three years after NGOs withdraw. A possible solution is to do more in working with local communities to co-manage service provision. We study a strategy that leverages community members' intrinsic interest in access to education by decentralizing local administrative responsibilities to community members and parents themselves. We test this strategy using a randomized controlled trial in 194 villages. The trial compares this "community sustainability model" to a performance benchmark set by centralized administration by a non-governmental organization. We find that the community sustainability model delivers results that meet the NGO benchmark and does so at half the cost. We draw out implications for service provision in war affected contexts.

Authors

• Cyrus Samii, New York University

• Dana Burde, New York University

• Joel A. Middleton, UC Berkeley