Conference in Cairo Day 3
by Dr Jess Dart
Today I chaired a session in which Martin Ravallion spoke. He is the Director of the Development Research Group at the World Bank and an economist. I was a little nervous chairing his session, as he was using fairly full on economists lingo. I just kept smiling and nodding! But by the end I was totally gripped. He made a great argument about the need to look beyond different methods and instead really focus on the questions that policy makers want answered. Many policy makers do not want the counterfactual question answered eg: what would have happened if we had not invested. Because they have no intention of not investing, instead, they often want to know what kind of intervention is most successful etc.
I should explain that there is a little bit of a war going on at this conference, between the people who are promoting the randomized control trials and the people who think this is not viable in development. Interestingly it’s the qualitative/ mixed methods people who are most nervous and war-like. The randomizers seem quite content to accept that there are many instances where you cannot and shouldn’t use experimental approaches. I am doing my hardest not to buy into this debate, as I believe like Martin Ravaliion that we should start with the questions and work out what the best methodology is - and sometimes experimental design might be the most appropriate. What do our readers think about all this? - it might not be long before these approaches become in more demand in Australian contexts too.
Tony Ghaye , August 31st, 2009 at 4:22 am
Hi Jess and everyone,
I absolutely agree that we try to invest as much time as we can in getting the question ‘right’. Sometimes we are a bit too impatient. We are so focused on the need for answers. For others, the natural default position is to advocate a method. Nothing wrong with broadening our toolboxes. But each method has something to offer and also limitations. I feel the question needs to drive everything. All questions are value-laden. Maybe a recognition of this allows us to make wise decisions about what method/s might best help us explore (or even answer) the question. The question might also give us a good reason to be inventive in our design of method/s. As an advocate of strengths-based approaches to improvement, there might be some real benefit in trying to invest in formulating a ‘positive’ question’….and take it from there.
Tony