Does information work?Lessons from two Twaweza cases in East Africa

Rakesh Rajani / twaweza.org / @rakeshrajani / 28 February 2014

Information Citizens AgencyImproved

Service Delivery Outcomes

private agency

publicagency

Case I – Daraja

Sources: Afrobarometer; WaterAid

% of rural Tanzanian citizens identifying selected issues among top three priorities for government to address

Addressing a real, felt need

Programme model

Citizens Database

Media

Local Government

SMS-based feedback mechanism

Media partnerships for accountability

Popularising information

In practice

District / CategoryNumber of texts

receivedNumber of texts

forwarded to DWEsNumber of actions

taken

Njombe 35 13 11

Morogoro Rural 41 17 4

Mbozi 60 23 5

Total 136 53 20Others (outside pilot area) 308 150 1

Unusable sms texts (unintelligible, wrong number, etc.)

631

Total 1072 208 21

Why did it fail?

Case II – Uwezo

A lot has been invested in education:

Source: Tanzania Ministry of Education

1 Primary School Leaving Examination; 2 Certification of Secondary Education Examination; 3 Grade A-C; 4 Division I-IV

Source: National Examinations Council of Tanzania (NECTA), Big Results Now

But these investments do not turn into results

Source: Uwezo

Percentage who can do the Std 2 level, Tanzania (2011)

On completion of primary schooling, many still cannot read Std 2

Communications

Average Treatment Effects: Citizens Actions (Public Agency)

Involved in improving education

If actions taken to improve school

Participated in education

groups

If meetings attended on

education

Contributed to education

groups

Villagers approached

officials

Villagers asked officials to improve

government

If actions taken to improve outcomes

Average Treatment Effects: Private Actions (Private Agency)

Do you help with reading

Did you read to child last

week

Do you help with writing

Do you help with math

Do you ask about teacher

presence

If possible consider switching schools

Causal chainFrom Liberman, Posner and Tsai

Concluding thoughts

• "Does information work?" is a very bad question

• People's experiences and bandwidth matter more than the merits of the issue

• Only a few will be the trigger actors among citizens and govts, and our antenna to know and work with them are clunky

• Don't underestimate the power of ideas and storytelling in shifting norms

• Since there are no guarantees, curiosity is as good as it gets