The blog
Reflections from
the practice.
Medium-length reflective pieces on measurement, field practice, parenting, and the questions that stay after the project report is filed. Longer evidence-based policy writing on current issues lives at Policy Grounds Press. The bi-monthly research curation lives in the Research Rundown.
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School vouchers in Old Delhi: India's first education RCT for girls
In 2010, we gave families in Old Delhi vouchers for private school fees. The question was whether cost was the barrier to girls' enrolment. The answer was more complicated than the voucher.
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Before climate had a budget line
In 2014, we built media programming to prepare coastal communities for cyclones. We called it disaster response. Now we would call it climate adaptation. The communities already knew.
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When the phone rings at the right week
An automated phone call service delivered stage-appropriate health information to millions of pregnant women — timed to gestational week, in their language, across Indian states.
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The district as a unit of change
States are too large for programme managers to act on. Villages are too small for funders to fund. The district is where governance actually happens — and where health programmes should be designed to land.
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Measuring joy in a classroom
When you put art in a government school, how do you evaluate what it does to the children? The standard instruments fail. We tried anyway.
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A bus ticket as a financial instrument
In rural Bangladesh and India, seasonal poverty persists because families cannot afford the bus fare to a city where work exists. An RCT showed that a small travel subsidy changes everything.
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What counts as impact in edtech?
When every edtech product defines 'impact' differently, how do funders and schools compare them? A note on building a common framework for a sector that resists one.
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The card in her hand
A deck of illustrated cards and a phone number changed what millions of frontline health workers said to new mothers in Bihar. The mechanism was trust, not technology.
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Notes on why the book is about measurement
A short explanation of why we are spending the next few years writing The Measurement Trap.
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When district data is all you have
In a country where the census has not been updated since 2011, how do you estimate what is happening at the block level? A note on small-area estimation and the politics of granularity.
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What a girls' collective taught us about agency
In 2009, a school-based girls' collective in rural India started delaying child marriages. The mechanism was simpler and more radical than anyone expected.
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