RESUMO
What is COVID-19's impact on development? What lessons can be drawn from development studies regarding the effects of and recovery from COVID-19? The unprecedented scale and scope of government interventions carry implications at all levels: global, national, and local. In this introduction, our team of Editors underline the importance of systematic substantive study to further knowledge acquisition, and rigorous global-, national-, or context-specific evaluation to inform evidence-based policymaking. The 12 articles summarised here capture these values and sense of "high quality". In particular, despite early considerations in the first year of the pandemic, they illuminate the need for diverse responses beyond business-as-usual, attention to the multiplicity of impact of policies formulated, and progressive strategies to counteract the impacts of this disaster around the world. The path of future research is clear: studies need to consider and give voice to marginalised groups to counteract the short- and long-term impacts of the pandemic.
Quel est l'impact de la COVID-19 sur le développement international ? Quelles leçons pouvons-nous tirer des études de développement concernant les effets de la COVID-19, et du redressement après son passage ? L'ampleur et la portée sans precedent des interventions gouvernementales comportent des conséquences à tous niveaux: mondial, national, et local. Dans cette introduction, notre équipe éditoriale souligne l'importance des études à la fois systématiques et substantielles, afin d'élargir l'acquisition de connaissances; ainsi que des évaluations rigoureuses au niveau mondial, national, ou spécifiques au contexte, ayant pour but d'informer une politique des décisions basée sur l'évidence. Les 12 articles résumés ici présentent ces valeurs et ce sentiment de « haute qualité¼. En particulier, malgré des considérations précoces pendant la première année de cette pandémie, les articles soulèvent la nécessité de réponses diversifiées, bien au-delà des démarches jusqu' ici habituelles (en anglais, « business as usual¼), l'importance de prêter attention à la multiplicité d'impacts des politiques formulées, et le besoin de stratégies progressistes, pour faire face aux impacts de cette catastrophe partout dans le monde. Le chemin à prendre pour les recherches futures est clair: les études doivent considérer et donner une voix aux groupes marginalisés, pour faire face aux impacts à court et longue terme de la pandémie.
RESUMO
Rigorous impact evaluations on agricultural interventions in the developing world have proliferated in research of recent years. Whereas increased care in causal identification in such analyses is beneficial and has improved the quality of research in this field, much of the literature still fails to investigate the costs needed to achieve any benefits identified. Such understanding, however, would be crucial for drawing policy and programmatic conclusions from the research and for informing the allocation of public investments. Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) subjects both the cost side and the effects side of agricultural and rural interventions to technical scrutiny and unifies both sides in order to compare the relative cost-effectiveness of different modalities of a programme, of efforts to reach different target groups, or of efforts to achieve different outcomes. CEAs, while present in the health and education sectors, remain rare in agricultural and rural development research. This study contributes to filling the knowledge gap by conducting CEAs in a particular type of programmatic work in the agricultural sector-namely, interventions conducted as field experiments that bring a gender lens to community-based advisory services in African rural areas. Specifically, we consider two such programmes-one in Mozambique in which such advisory services aim to improve sustainable land management (SLM) practices in agricultural production, and the other in Tanzania to advise farmers on their land rights. Using CEA methods combined with econometric analysis based on randomised controlled trials, we find that the gendered modality is consistently more cost-effective than the basic modality when considering varied outcomes and target groups. However, for any given modality, it is more cost-effective to improve outcomes for men than for women. The structure of costs in the agricultural extension programme further allowed for a simulation of how cost-effectiveness would change if the programme were scaled up geographically. The results show that expansion of the basic modality of the SLM programme leads to improvements in cost-effectiveness, while the gendered modality displays nonlinear changes in cost-effectiveness along the expansion path, first worsening with initial scale-up and subsequently improving with further expansion.
