2-167 - Developing and Evaluating Contextually Meaningful Interventions for Children in Low-Income and Conflict-Affected Countries

Session Type: Conversation Roundtable

Integrative Statement

This round-table brings together a panel of early career scholars, from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and experience with international and domestic research and policy institutions. All have been collaborating on developing scalable, evidence-based solutions to improve children’s development in the majority world.
A global rise in the demand for rigorous evidence on the causal mechanisms and the comparative cost-effectiveness of programs and policies is contrasted by the need for more developmentally and contextually appropriate and meaningful approaches. Local NGOs and researchers deeply embedded in country contexts have made great progress in this area; however, many of these initiatives lack rigorous evidence on their cost-effectiveness, and/or have yet to be implemented at scale. While such evidence can enable governments to justify large scale investments, the socio-political process may stand in conflict with the time needed to carefully develop and validate evidence based approaches.
Bringing their perspectives to bear from Malawi, Lebanon, Ghana, and Uganda, the panelists will reflect on the process from identification and inception to implementation of the project; negotiations and collaboration with local and national governments, funders, implementing partners, researchers, and communities; the role of (developmental) researchers from the minority and majority world; questions of timing; selection of methods and measures; ensuring research and intervention implementation capacity and fidelity; and how to ensure contextual relevance, and related, post-program sustainability and scalability. The panelists draw from scoping and pilot studies, other publicly available data sets and reflect on ways best to balance the varying demands from a range of stakeholders.

Sub Unit

• Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Moderator

• Kofi Marfo, Aga Khan University

Panelists

• Alice Wuermli, University of California, Davis

• Sharon Wolf, Univ of Wisc-Madison

• Carly Tubbs, New York University

• Sharon Kim, New York University