Economic evaluation of an agricultural sector investment program: A case study for Peru

An evaluation of a sector-wide investment program differs in important respects from an evaluation of an individual project. First, the program as a whole is likely to have more than a marginal effect on production and trade levels and other variables, and so the returns to any one project depend on which other projects are included in the program. Therefore the evaluation of all projects in the program must be carried out jointly. Second in many cases Policy makers may judge alternative program designs according to a multiplicity of criteria, explicitly or implicity. Hence the project identification stage of work is more useful if it takes into account the multiple criteria. This paper reports an experience in constructing and applying a model for the design and evaluation of a sector-wide agricultural investment program. Emphasis is placed on the ways in which such a model may be used. In the course of the applications discussed here, policy makers' preference weights among alternative goals were elicited, but even without such information a model-based exercise can be helpful in the design of a sector investment program.     

Lessons Learned From the First-Year Evaluation of a Small-Scale Home Visitation Program

ABSTRACT

Home visitation programs to prevent child maltreatment are offered in many communities. Agencies in these communities want to help families in need while under increased pressure to provide effective services. Funding is limited and competitive; some agencies might choose to limit funds spent on supervision, training, and evaluation as a way to provide more direct service. In this article, we use an implementation science framework and the results of an evaluation of a small home visitation program to underscore the importance of ongoing training and supervision, attention to fidelity, and program evaluation. The evaluation included 17 families entering the program during 21 months. Evaluators visited families in their homes at the beginning of the program and again 10 months later. Like many other well-intended, small-scale programs, this one “borrowed” from evidence-based models and expanded enrollment criteria in an attempt to better serve families. Findings from the evaluation suggest that the program, as it was carried out, was not effective at reducing parenting behaviors known to be associated with child maltreatment. We offer advice to funding and community agencies based on these findings and implementation science. Future evaluation research must pay greater attention to fidelity and implementation.     

Transition of Handicapped Students from School to Work: An Evaluation of the NEAT Paid Work Experience Program for Handicapped Secondary Students

The NEAT Work Experience Program for Handicapped Secondary Students is one in which Students are paid award wages for their work and employers receive a subsidy for training them. An evaluation of the program suggested that the program had improved the employment prospects of its participants, had assisted their adjustment to work and had made them more independent with respect to financial management, use of transport and selection of appropriate clothing. Employers became more favourable to the employment of handicapped people as a result of participation in the scheme. Moreover the scheme has enabled schools to make their programs more relevant to the working world.     

Elements of a quality assurance program for pharmaceutical research & development 1

The four major considerations for a pharmaceutical R&D quality program are discussed—protection of resources, compliance, documentation, fitness for use. Viewing R&D as an enterprise necessitates that R&D be seen as making products—data, analysis and interpretation. The applicability of the quality program to these products is discussed.     

“Keeping It Real”: An Evaluation Audit of Five Years of Youth-Led Program Evaluation

Youth are increasingly seen as competent in participating in research and program evaluation, two activities previously reserved for adults. This article is a report of the findings from an evaluation audit of Stand Up! Help Out!, a participatory action after-school youth leadership development program for disadvantaged urban youth that utilized youth evaluations to develop a best practices service model. The youths' feedback assisted providers in improving services so that youth engagement in the program was 99% (by comparison with national highs of 79%). Here, the authors describe an important aspect of the process of youth-led program evaluation leading to such high youth engagement: how youth interviewed each other so as to optimize the authenticity of their program evaluations and contributions to program design. Drawing from over 5 years of program evaluation data collected by youth, the authors report on the youths' experiences as informants and coresearchers, consider strategies used to help youth best describe their experiences in the program, and describe implications for other settings looking to incorporate youth-led program evaluation. Youth-led program evaluation has considerable promise for helping service providers make programs more meaningful for disadvantaged youth.     

社会项目评估研究发展趋势与启示

本文在文献回顾的基础上总结归纳了当代西方社会项目评估呈现的注重评估价值取向、强调弱势群体发展、关注项目过程机制和重视评估过程影响等发展趋向,对这种发展蕴含的方法论转变作出评论,就借鉴西方评估研究实践、促进评估研究专业化发展和提高项目服务水平提出了初步的看法。     

Developing a Community-Based Social Service Program for the Elderly

This article describes the development and implementation of a community-based social service program for the elderly. The problems encountered as a new professional unit within the municipality are analyzed and the role of the social worker in resolving those problems is described. The local community is the primary focus of change and strategies of intervention include reaching out and involving members from all levels of the community in the social service program, from members of the client group to individuals with political influence in the governmental system. Planning considerations for social work practice are posed including the relationship of the private, nonprofit sector to the public sector, the demands for service and difficulties establishing program stability.     

‘WORK FOR THE DOLE’ – A CHEAP LABOUR MARKET PROGRAM? AN ECONOMIST'S PERSPECTIVE

From an economists perspective, this paper explores some of the issues associated with the design of an effective labour market program, and evaluation processes which are required to determine the merits of a scheme. This analysis comes at the time when pilot projects under the federal Government's ‘Work for the Dole’ scheme are being implemented. The paper concludes that if the ‘Work for the Dole’ scheme is to be viewed as a labour market program, then an evaluation mechanism should have been determined prior to the implementation of such a scheme.     

Energy Conservation—A Case Study in Campaign Evaluation

This study demonstrates the considerations involved in evaluation research into the effectiveness of campaigns designed to influence social change. It is an examination of the results of applying aspects of the attitude change studies to the subject of environmental issues. A case study was made of the Smallternatives energy conservation campaign which originated in 1976 in Brisbane, at a time of little recognition of an energy 'crisis' for Australia or the need for energy conservation. Results indicated that levels of concern for environmental issues were present throughout the sample; that one group (who requested Smallternatives information) were more concerned about energy and environmental issues than groups who had not requested it; and that the booklet, when issued without request, had little or no effect on desired attitudes towards energy conservation. These results are discussed with respect to the dilemma of attitude-behaviour consistency, and the impact of information input when it is sent to, rather than requested by, the individual.     

Foster Parents Who Stay Licensed and the Role of Training

A two-year follow-up evaluation was conducted for a foster parent training program. Data were collected from 105 families with 267 foster children. A substantial positive effect of training on licensing outcomes is observed even after controlling for the foster parents' personal qualities of assertiveness and activism, and childrens' risk characteristics. The process by which training brought about its benefits is illuminated in terms of foster parent program participation. Licensing rates for various combinations of foster parents' characteristics, childrens' risk characteristics, and foster parent training are examined to pinpoint where training helped the most and the least. The discussion concludes with an argument for the mandatory training of foster parents.     

Interpreting Null Findings of Evaluative Studies

When an evaluator comes to interpret negative or null findings of a service program, he sometimes acts like a politician instead of a scientist. Far from dwelling in an ivory tower, an evaluator is surrounded by the hurly-burly of everyday life. Unless strucrural mechanisms are introduced to protect him, his judgment can be unduly swayed by nonscientific considerations. Six suggestions are offered that may grant him some needed protection.     

Challenging the exclusion of people with mental illness: the Mental Health Housing and Accommodation Support Initiative (HASI)

Without appropriate support, people with mental illness can be excluded from stable housing and social and community participation. Transitional models of support for people with acute mental illness have addressed clinical symptoms and hospitalisation, but they have not facilitated stable housing and community integration. In contrast, individualised housing models aim to improve mental health, housing and community outcomes. These programs are costly and require collaboration between agencies. This article discusses the evaluation findings of one such program – the NSW Mental Health Housing and Accommodation Support Initiative (HASI). The longitudinal mixed‐method evaluation assessed whether HASI supported people with high levels of psychiatric disability to improve housing, mental health and community participation. We discuss the challenges clients within the program faced prior to joining HASI and the changes experienced while in HASI. We conclude by drawing policy implications for programs supporting people with mental illness to live in the community.     

A Mutual Aid Group Program for Women Who Use Violence

This article presents the development of a group program for women who use violence. A review of the North American literature and research into Quebec practices led the authors to adopt an intersectional feminist analysis of women’s violence and to choose the mutual aid group model. The program’s main objective is to help women find alternatives to the use of violence by working on three main themes: (1) violence, (2) socialization, and (3) life conditions. The program also aims to increase women’s empowerment through concrete experiences of group solidarity, such as by helping one another. Challenges that were encountered in its development and that are anticipated in its evaluation are discussed.     

Challenges in Evaluating Community-Based Health and Social Intervention

Prenatal care outreach is receiving growing attention as one component of multi-faceted strategies necessary to reduce infant mortality and low birth weight. This paper examines challenges in evaluating community-based prenatal care outreach programs, describes two studies that have successfully addressed such challenges, and offers recommendations to community agency administrators and program staff regarding reasonable approaches to integrating evaluation into program activities.     

An evaluation study of a dementia screening program in taiwan: an application of the theory of planned behaviors

A challenge facing dementia service providers is how to detect dementia early to facilitate timely intervention. This article reports findings of an evaluation study of a dementia-screening program in Taiwan utilizing the Theory of Planned Behaviors. We present the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ) program rationale and examine the effects of this important health and social service intervention. Follow-up telephone interviews were completed by 108 respondents. Findings indicate that the SPMSQ program was successful in identifying suspected dementia. Results also show that the dementia-screening program contributed to an increase in medical service utilization and in unpaid informal care.     

Chorus for Community Integration and Recovery for Men with Psychiatric Disabilities in a Supportive Housing Community

This study reports the findings from a mixed-methods evaluation of the effectiveness of a choral program for 34 homeless men with substance abuse and mental illnesses. The evaluation focused on the chorus experience as one way to promote community integration and recovery. Fifteen residents (44.1%) were chorus members (CMs), and their responses were compared with those of 19 nonmembers (NCMs). When examining the quantitative data only, significant differences were not found between CMs and NCMs. However, narrative data and participant observation revealed that the choral program may have helped CMs improve their subjective experience of community integration by enhancing psychosocial components.     

Preferred allocations with uncertain implementation

In generating preferred courses of action based on benefit-cost analyses, policy scientists usually take implementation for granted. This should clearly not be the case, for rarely is implementation certain. Implementation considerations should become an integral part of any benefit-cost analysis. Various viewpoint concerning implementation are possible: not all of them can be modelled. This paper incorporates some facets of implementation into a multiple-objective, multiple-program resource allocation model. Implementation is introduced in terms of the likelihood of program acceptability. An outline of a more general approach is also presented. The implementation-allocation model developed is applied to a small-scale example which illustrates the types of insights obtainable. The impact of uncertain implementation is seen to be significant.     

On arguments from self-interest for the Nash solution and the Kalai egalitarian solution to the bargaining problem

I argue in this paper that there are two considerations which govern the dynamics of a two-person bargaining game, viz. relative proportionate utility loss from conceding to one's opponent's proposal and relative non-proportionate utility loss from not conceding to one's opponent's proposal, if she were not to concede as well. The first consideration can adequately be captured by the information contained in vNM utilities. The second requires measures of utility which allow for an interpersonal comparison of utility differences. These considerations respectively provide for a justification of the Nash solution and the Kalai egalitarian solution. However, none of these solutions taken by themselves can provide for a full story of bargaining, since, if within a context of bargaining one such consideration is overriding, the solution which does not match this consideration will yield unreasonable results. I systematically present arguments to the effect that each justification from self-interest for respectively the Nash and the Kalai egalitarian solution is vulnerable to this kind of objection. I suggest that the search for an integrative model may be a promising line of research.I am grateful to Jon Elster, A. Hylland, F. Spinnewijn, J. Verhoeven and the members of the research group for theoretical sociology in the K.U.L. for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. I also thank the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Norway) for its financial support and the members of the department of sociology in the University of Oslo for their hospitality and interest in my work.     

Social Worker Assessed Vulnerable Income Management

Despite the small size of the sub program, Social Worker Assessed Vulnerable Welfare Payment Recipients Income Management is often cited as a preferred approach to this type of initiative, being tightly targeted at a group of people with identified high needs, and demonstrated poor outcomes. Although the program was considered in the two recent major evaluations of income management, specific findings relating to it have tended to be overshadowed by the more general finding of an absence of positive outcomes, and indeed potentially negative effects, from compulsory income management. While the size of the sub program has made evaluation difficult, the two major evaluations of income management have nevertheless made specific findings which suggest that the program has had some positive outcomes for a highly marginal participant group. These findings, along with aspects of the operation of the program, including the role played by social workers, and a proposal to abolish the program, are discussed.