Projects

Revamping the innovative spirit of microfinance

In this project, we analyze via a lab-in-the field experiment in Bolivia how microfinance loan contracts can be improved to decrease loan defaults and operational costs. In collaboration with the local microfinance instituion IDEPRO IFD and the Instituto de Estudios Avanzados en Desarrollo (INESAD), we will test novel loan instruments to derive causal evidence on their effectiveness. 

PreVio - School-based prevention of teacher violence against children

More than 1.7 billion children worldwide experience violence in their upbringing. Prevalence rates are particularly high in Africa. Toxic stress associated with violence impacts the developing brain. This affects behavioural, social, and emotional functioning of children. The project tests an intervention that simultaneously aims at reducing violence against children at home and at school. Specifically, the project tests (1) the feasibility and acceptability of the Intervention and (2) the initial effectiveness of reducing parental and teacher violence. To this end, we conduct a mixed-methods two-arm school-based pilot cluster-randomised controlled trial (CRCT) in Tanzania.

SUNI-SEA (Scaling-up non-communicable disease interventions in Southeast Asia)

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are major cause of deaths globally and the burden of NCDs is rising disproportionately among lower income countries and populations. Three quarters of all NCDs deaths are in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).

The increasing concerns on NCDs and their burden has led to a research project entitled “Scaling-Up NCD Interventions in South-East Asia (SUNI-SEA)” which is being delivered through a collaboration of nine consortium members from Europe and South-East Asia. This 4-year research project started in 2019 and is taking place in Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The overall aim of the SUNI-SEA project is to evaluate and validate effective and cost-effective scaling-up strategies of evidence-based diabetes and hypertension prevention and management programmes, and apply results to enhance sustainable action for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), based on experiences in South-East Asia.

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INDorganic - Sustainable adoption of organic farming practices

In this project, we aim to analyze the current state and potential of organic farming to improve food sustainability in Indonesia in the long run. We propose organic farming as a necessary transition of the food system, which we see as a subsystem of the ecosystem. Organic farming might be a possible answer to the eminent societal changes after energy supplies will get increasingly costly. Proposing organic farming as way to achieve sustainable food production implies transformation processes touching upon distributive questions, conflicts about values and which demands institutional change. 

This project analyzes organic farming as an alternative to contested conventional agriculture from an anthropological, social and economic perspective in an inter- and transdisciplinary approach. For this end we integrate the analysis of belief systems motivating human behavior, of gendered institutions regulating the organic sector and evaluate the favorable conditions for converting to organic farming by local farmers.

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Formal Insurance and Productive Effects Study (FIDES).

The purpose of the Formal Insurance & Productive Effects Study (FIdES) was to analyze the direct effects of community based health insurance (CBHI) on health care utilization and health, as well as the indirect effects of such insurance on transfer networks, investment in productive farm and non-farm capital in Burkina Faso. The data collected within FIdES showed that in Burkina Faso health shocks were the most important risk to households.

We analyzed the determinants of uptake of CBHI and how uptake could be enhanced and sustained. Further, we investigated the impacts of the insurance on health care utilization and health.

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