Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Does participation in project decision-making affect how intended beneficiaries report project outcomes?

改善获得安全饮水和卫生设施、教育和保健等社会服务的机会，取决于能够了解哪些办法比其他办法更有效、何时更有效、为什么更有效。对预期受益人的家庭调查是了解方案有效性的重要信息来源。然而，最近的证据表明，这些调查数据可能不可靠，因为项目受益人可能会因为项目而改变他们报告自己行为的方式。例如，如果一项计划扩大了获得安全饮用水的机会，那么生活在该计划覆盖地区的人们可能更有可能报告说他们正在饮用安全的水，即使他们没有。这种报告偏差可能会扭曲对社会项目影响的估计，或不同项目之间的比较，从而导致误导性的政策建议。本研究在最近的一项实验中测量了报告偏差的大小和流行程度，该实验调查了计划受益人参与计划实施期间的决策是否会改善计划结果。最近在孟加拉国进行的一项随机对照试验首次提供了实验证据，证明受益人参与决策如何影响提供安全饮用水的社会项目的结果。根据所报告的行为变化得出的初步结果表明，让受益人参与决策可以改善获得安全饮用水的机会，但前提是决策结构必须包含保护性措施，以避免有影响力的个人或群体获取方案利益。然而，参与决策不仅可能影响方案结果，还可能影响方案受益人在住户调查中报告结果的方式。研究人员直接观察安装的水源使用者的行为和特征，并将这些观察结果与家庭调查中报告的用水情况进行比较，以确定报告偏差的大小和程度。特别是，研究人员测量了报告偏差如何根据社区参与决策过程的程度而变化。由于最初的项目随机分配了决策结构，因此在不同决策结构下实施该计划的社区在所有其他特征方面具有可比性。这使研究人员能够衡量社区参与项目决策对报告偏差的大小和程度的直接影响。该研究将进一步了解使用自我报告的调查数据来衡量社会项目有效性的局限性。它还将作出两个进一步的贡献：第一个直接的实验证据，证明社区参与决策与精英或有影响力的社区成员获得项目利益的可能性之间的联系。这项研究将提供实验证据，证明社区参与决策是否可以改善项目的可持续性，以已安装的水源的维护来衡量。

Improving access to social services such as safe water and sanitation, education and health care depends on being able to learn what approaches work better than others, when and why. Household surveys of intended beneficiaries are an essential source of information about program effectiveness. Recent evidence, however, suggests that these survey data may be unreliable because program beneficiaries may change the way they report their behavior as a result of the program. For example, if a program expands access to safe drinking water, people living in areas covered by the program may become more likely to report that they are drinking safe water, even if they are not. Such reporting bias could distort estimates of the impact of social programs, or comparisons between different programs, resulting in misleading policy recommendations. This research measures the size and prevalence of reporting bias in the context of a recent experiment that investigates whether participation by intended beneficiaries in decisions made during program implementation improves program outcomes. A recent randomized controlled trial in Bangladesh has provided the first experimental evidence that documents how beneficiary participation in decision making affects outcomes of a social program to provide access to safe drinking water. Preliminary results, based on reported changes in behavior, suggest that involving beneficiaries in decision making results in improved access to safe drinking water, but only when the decision-making structure incorporates protective measures to avoid the capture of program benefits by influential individuals or groups. Participation in decision making, however, may influence not only program outcomes, but also the way in which program beneficiaries report outcomes in household surveys. The researchers directly observe the behvior and characteristics of users of the water sources installed, and compare these observations to water use reported in household surveys in order to determine the size and extent of reporting bias. In particular, the researchers measure how reporting bias varies depending on the degree of community participation in the decision-making process. Because the original project randomly assigned the decision-making structure, communities that implemented the program under different decision-making structures were comparable in terms of all other characteristics. This enables the researchers to measure the direct effect of community participation in program decision making on the size and extent of reporting bias. The study will further understanding of the limitations of using self-reported survey data to measure the effectiveness of social programs. It will also make two further contributions: the first direct, experimental evidence on the connection between community participation in decision making and the likelihood of capture of program benefits by elite or influential community members. The research will provide experimental evidence on whether community participation in decision making improves project sustainability, as measured by maintenance of the installed water sources.