Journal of Development Policy and Practice

The evidence-based-policy ecosystem, and its arsenal of approaches and techniques need course-correction to adequately respond to complex and practical policymaking contexts. Experimental findings do not resonate in scale implementation, particularly in large and diverse contexts like India’s. Causal empiricism leaves out investigation of complex pathways and impact mechanisms, while ‘evidence’ often disengages political economy considerations. Surmounting the methodological constrictions—which limit the utility and uptake of such evidence for a decisionmaker—requires being able to sufficiently account for institutional factors, social norms, politics, and stakeholder incentives among other related influences in policymaking. This may be possible through robust use of qualitative nuances, and integration of political economy analysis towards adopting a realist approach in evidence generation. It is important to acknowledge that measurement alone should qualify as neither evaluation or research. The state of research, its guiding principles, approaches and methods are often directed by current influences and preferences of stakeholders who are in a position to shape discourse. Interjections by more stakeholders are urgently needed to orient evidence generation to ‘real world’ realities and respond to the non-linear complexities of developmental change pathways.

Empowerment is often a goal of community development projects aimed at poverty reduction; yet, ascertaining whether empowerment occurs can be elusive. This case study research examined the empowerment process. Thirty community partners participated in a three-year community-led initiative to improve public education in a rural northwest Tanzanian village. The initiative included capacity-building activities to enhance personal and collective agency. The findings from the analytic framework of self-determination theory indicated that the initiative simultaneously nurtured and satisfied community partners’ innate basic psychological needs of relatedness, competence and autonomy: hence affirmed their feelings of empowerment. Implications for the theory and practice are presented.

Bangladesh has experimented with e-governance since the early 2000s and currently ranks among the top 10 least developed countries. The deployment of e-governance at the local level has provided benefits to the rural people, with local councils increasingly using information and communications technology (ICT) to expand community-based delivery systems and augment rural service delivery. One-stop cyber centres provide a range of services that are user-friendly, cost-effective and less time-consuming. This study focuses on five sub-districts to inquire about the range of services provided by the e-service centres there. It has recorded citizen perceptions and the level of their satisfaction and the observations of service providers about the e-service mechanism. It also identifies key challenges in service delivery. Citizen satisfaction was measured using 12 indicators, while the service provider observations focused on social issues, governance, resource and technical issues. The study found several issues requiring attention to consolidate the e-governance system in the country.

This study made an attempt to answer the question: Do the heterogeneous determinants of repayment affect the borrowers of diverse credit sources differently? The study is based on data collected from 240 households from three districts in the lower Brahmaputra valley of Assam through a carefully designed primary survey. Besides, the study uses the double hurdle approach and the instrumental variable probit model to reduce possible selection bias. It observes better repayment performance among formal borrowers, followed by semiformal borrowers, while occupation wise it is prominent among organised employees. It has been found that in general, the household characteristics, loan characteristics and location-specific characteristics significantly affect repayment performance of borrowers. However, the nature of impact of the factors influencing repayment performance is remarkably different across credit sources. It ignores the role of traditional community-based organisations in rural Assam while analysing the determinants of repayment performance. The study also recommends for ensuring productive opportunities and efficient market linkages in rural areas of Assam. The study is based on an original data set that has specially been collected to examine question that—do the heterogeneous determinants of repayment affect the borrowers of diverse credit sources differently in the lower Brahmaputra valley of Assam—which has not been studied before.

The article explores the micro-level factors (social, economic and demographic) that determine the utilisation of antenatal care (ANC) services in India using the Bayesian count data regression model. The primary purpose is to rectify the methodological loopholes in the existing literature using a count data regression model that overcomes the problems of overdispersion in the data. Using data from ‘National Family Health Survey’ (NFHS) data on women of reproductive age (15–49 years), we find that about 33% of pregnant women have not availed ANC during their pregnancy. The factors such as women’s education and partner/husband’s education, children’s birth order, household income, availability of basic amenities, like clean drinking water, media exposure, holding of bank accounts and use of mobile phones are statistically significant and positively affect ANC utilisation. Therefore, the study calls for prioritisation of and special attention to uneducated or less educated rural pregnant women. They should be incentivised adequately to utilise ANC services, which may drastically reduce inadequacy in ANC utilisation and improve mothers’ health before and after delivery. Awareness camps should be organised in every village in rural areas about pregnancy-related complications and the benefits of ANC check-ups. Massive infrastructure in the form of primary health centres or community health centres is the need of the hour in rural India.

The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme is the world’s biggest and unique programme for nutrition and childcare, launched way back on 2 October 1975 by the Government of India. It is a centrally subsidised scheme implemented by states across the country for the benefit of children, especially for vulnerable groups. The scheme’s main objective is to improve the health and nutritional condition of children below six years of age, along with pregnant women and lactating mothers. The objective of the study is to critically analyse functions of the ICDS Scheme in the state of Odisha about implementation and monitoring. The analysis was done with the help of secondary literature and available data from government documents. The opinion and experience of various stakeholders like Anganwadi workers, supervisors and other government staff have been analysed for this purpose. This article describes existing policies and procedures of food procurement, storing, supply, cooking, production and serving cycle under ICDS Scheme in Odisha. The recommendations of the study may help for future improvement of various thrust areas of the ICDS Scheme. The article brings out critical factors accountable for the efficient implementation of the ICDS programme. Further, the study evaluates the ICDS Scheme based on existing government guidelines to reach out to the masses in Odisha.

The Indian central government is pursuing state governments to replace free power supply to agriculture with the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). This article examined the free power policy from the perspective of various stakeholders and suggested alternate policies based on a field survey in the state of united Andhra Pradesh (AP), India, in the year 2018. The team interviewed all stakeholders: farmers, economists, policy experts, power distribution companies and administrators. The study team also visited four villages in AP and conducted focus group discussions with farmers to record their perceptions and alternative policy choices. The opinions are substantiated and cross-checked with the published sources. Free electricity for agriculture is seen as a lifeline in drought-prone areas as it helped them to expand the area under irrigation and increase incomes. However, many experienced huge capital expenditures in drilling-failed borewells. Other stakeholders opine that free power leads to overexploitation of groundwater, lowering groundwater levels, rising cost of drilling deep and piling up of power subsidies, and expanding water-guzzling crops like paddy even in water scarce areas, failure of borewells leading to farmer’s distress. The study suggests that replacing free power with DBT to farmers will help them maintain their incomes without overexploiting water resources.