Combating Poverty Through Development Research Methods - Essay Example

Combating Poverty through Development Research Methods: The Case of the World Bank Introduction Research is the most analytically, methodically, andcarefully reviewed investigative and consultative unit in the World Bank. Research assignments are meticulously reviewed by outside professionals who evaluate the objectives, framework, methodology, management, findings or outcomes, and research dissemination, making judgments about the value, quality, execution, neutrality, resources used, and dissemination of outcomes, giving suggestions for improvement. In addition, the assessments evaluate the impact of the World Bank’s research project on stakeholders, such as development organisations, scholars, researchers, and policymakers (Hulme 2010). For every research programme chosen, according to Hulme (2010), analysts review the match between the series of programmes and the comparative advantage of the World Bank and on how the outcomes have influenced the policy direction and activities of the organisation. Thus, research is one of the World Bank’s most critical tasks. To effectively address the issues of poverty and development, the World Bank should merge the rule of knowledge and insights with financial aspects. Producing information about the outcome of certain programmes in a given situation is fundamental to promoting progress and attaining the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations (UN) in the Third World (Dethier 2007, 469). This essay critically examines the development research methods used by the World Bank. Data produced by research projects play a crucial role in the operations and lending activities of the World Bank. These research findings are utilised in the organisation’s advisory activities, which involve technical support, analytical accounts, and discussion with governments. Development experts also require the availability of accurate and reliable comparative and country-specific information (Hulme & Mosley 1996). This should be merged with reliable forecasts and effective global supervision to allow policymakers to match development policies with fast evolving external circumstances. The World Bank affects the global setting wherein development programmes are carried out by generating and making research and findings available that raise awareness of international development (Hulme & Mosley 1996). Research projects of the World Bank cater to different client needs, including matters and topics key to learning the process of development itself. According to Rao and Woolcock (2007), research dissemination improves the access of less developed nations to investigative potential and information and bolsters their capacity to take part in the global arena. Development Research Methods of the World Bank Several aspects reinforced the considerable attention given by the World Bank to the combination of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. The central factor is the organisation’s concern over the growing incidence of poverty. Most of the earlier poverty research was noticeably quantitative in nature: the prevalence rate of poverty, how this prevalence rate changes during political or economic events, and others (Bamberger 2000, ix). Nevertheless, according to Stein (2008), it became more and more apparent that though figures or statistics are important for policymaking, supervision, and monitoring activities, it is also crucial to gain knowledge of people’s attitude towards poverty and their ways of dealing with severe economic hardships. An overview of recent progress in the application of quantitative and qualitative methods in the World Bank’s attempt to analyse and alleviate poverty is found in Poverty Reduction and the World Bank: Progress in Fiscal 1998 (Bamberger 2000, ix). Although most poverty assessments (PAs) of the World Bank depend heavily on information gathered through surveys, many are now merging this with information gathered through the methods and investigations of participatory poverty assessment (PPA) conducted by and with people experiencing actual economic hardships. The article illustrates that although previous PPAs helped improve the explanation of poverty and rarely used an integrated model, later studies reveal three major developments: greater involvement, greater focus on identifying the roots of poverty, and stronger combination of methods (Bamberger 2000, ix). The article makes a distinction between data, which could be either qualitative or quantitative, and methods of data gathering, analysis, and interpretation, which could be either contextual—“attempt to understand human behaviour within the social, cultural, economic, and political environment of a locality, usually a village or neighbourhood or social group” (Bamberger 2000, 5)—or, non-contextual—“abstract from the particularities of a locality to gauge general trends” (Bamberger 2000, 5). According to Brock and McGee (2002), PAs in recent times try to further raise awareness of poverty via the combination of non-contextual and contextual techniques. Brock and McGee (2002), claims that it is useful to consider two scales: (1) data collected are relatively quantitative, and (2) methods employed are relatively contextual. Several recent studies confirm improvement in formulating subjective PA methods, numerous of which are especially created to be applied alongside traditional survey methods. Recent evidence on the application of subjective PA methods was reported by Pradhan and Ravallion (World Bank 2008, 156-157). According to them, in general, subjective PA methods match strongly with objective PA methods, even though there are prominent variations when demographic and local data are created (Bamberger 2000, 5). Mangahas illustrates another PA method used in the Philippines by the Social Weather Stations project, which has applied a few qualitative techniques to identify variations in the country’s poverty level for more than two decades. Such self-rating measures constantly approximate a greater percentage of families or households within or below the poverty line than do the officially recognised poverty measures. Mangahas claims that these measures give a more accurate picture of the effect of immediate political and economic changes on populations experiencing poverty (Bamberger 2000, 5-6). According to Addison and colleagues (2009), the World Bank’s relocation project has also been focused on integrated research approaches. The organisation has had a serious objective to learn the relocation processes. Nevertheless, a quantitative approach is needed in the assessment of the effect of an extensive resettlement project that calls for the relocation of massive numbers of people. While the World Bank has increasingly participated in discourses with the civil society, it has become evident that various organisations use various methods to deal with important matters like family arrangements or gender. Consequently, there have been several key attempts to create a general paradigm for evaluating whether economic developments alleviated or merely exacerbated poverty (Rao & Woolcock 2007). Case in point is the Structural Adjustment Participatory Research Initiative (SAPRI), wherein World Bank researchers and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) are attempting to produce a more comprehensive, and more integrated method of assessing the outcomes of structural adjustment (Brock & McGee 2002, 109). According to Gacitua-Mario and colleagues (2001), while the World Bank has advanced into the social development arena, there has been a heightened emphasis on qualitative research methods, such as participatory assessment. This has raised several methodological issues about how to disseminate or report findings from a qualitative research in order to gain the confidence of quantitative researchers and policymakers who want to determine whether the outcomes of particular studies can be representative of broader populations. The World Bank’s social assessment project, where in researchers are employing various qualitative and quantitative instruments to formulate and supervise development programmes, is another potential field for the application of an integrated research method. The goal of these investigations is to learn change mechanisms, identify the populations involved, and determine politically and culturally feasible alternatives for interventions, like industry privatisation, proposing new infrastructures, and others (Bamberger 2000, 6). Integrating quantitative techniques of data gathering, analysis, and interpretation into formerly qualitatively oriented components is becoming crucial, particularly, to enhance the credibility of qualitative findings and in the World Bank’s operational activities. For instance, policymakers usually prefer qualitative data to be reported through established statistical rules, so as to make the data more credible in the eyes of other groups (Gacitua-Mario et al. 2001). Nevertheless, the importance of strengthening the credibility of qualitative research outcomes through the application of suitable statistical methods is generally essential to guarantee the satisfactoriness and application of findings. The importance of an alternative research design has been found as well in the field of gender studies. Traditional survey techniques are frequently insufficient for understanding women’s perceptions and attitudes in patriarchal cultures where only the men give details or facts to observers, strangers, or foreigners, or where women are hesitant to take part in research as respondents (Mikkelsen 2005). The increasing popularity of participatory research has highlighted the reality that women’s perceptions are often not adequately represented unless gender-neutral approaches are developed to give them an opportunity to express themselves (Brock & McGee 2002). As stated by Brock and McGee (2002), there has been much debate about the appropriate methods of combining economic research with gender research so as to effectively create opportunities for women to voice their concerns and to determine how development impacts male and female populations. Thus, in view of the above discussion, it is evident that World Bank’s development research methods are dictated by importance or ‘value’. The primary basis for embarking on a project is whether it has the potential to generate reliable and compelling solutions to problems of development that, consequently, are expected to affect planning, policymaking and outcomes. As a result, almost all of the World Bank’s research projects are empirical. In a broader sense, development research methods are formulated or chosen in accordance to the World Bank’s twofold development agenda (Dethier 2007, 469): (1) focusing on people experiencing poverty to encourage them to take part in development; and (2) opening up opportunities for sustainable development, improved efficiency, greater employment prospects, and investment. Researchers, in evaluating value, take consideration of the demands, needs, and main concerns of development agencies and the World Bank’s operational activities. For instance, as cited in Dethier (2007), they may decide that inadequate data or support is present on a particular subject matter—for example, on the possible consequences of epidemics like bird flu and mad cow disease—and choose to focus on those issues. As regards to content, the focus of World Bank research has evolved in a number of ways recently. Primarily, in country-specific research, there has been a shift from macroeconomic issues to country-level micro-components of development and progress (Mikkelsen 2005). The goal is to gain greater knowledge of weak markets and market collapses, how forces emerge to deal with these collapses, and the repercussions for policymaking. Research projects on processes of providing public services and on the investment setting are central parts of this arena (Mullen et al. 1996). In addition, there has been an upward emphasis on the influence of institutions on the structure of governance. Research puts emphasis on assistance policies and outcomes to accomplish the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (Mikkelsen 2005, 222). According to Weaver and Park (2007), this arena concentrates on the linkage between development objectives and public expenditure plans, on development aid’s political economy, and on expanding aid to attain the MDGs. Furthermore, the World Bank has been conducting studies on major global events, such as the removal of textile quotas, the outcomes of regional trade agreements and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and changes in trade policy. Also, an important research project on the influence of fund transfers and global migration on development began in 2004 (Dethier 2007, 470). Ultimately, a large-scale project of impact assessment has been instigated, acting in response to the growing need to boost development success and evaluate outcomes directly. New assessment instruments, generally derived from randomised tests, are becoming obtainable and usable for assessing the development outcomes of programmes in health, education, public service, and so on (Dethier 2007). There is a rigorous attempt all over the World Bank to strengthen and consolidate these assessments of projects subsidized by the organisation for various forms of development programmes. According to the World Bank (2002a), the Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) project examines project outcomes and recognises strengths and weaknesses. The Development Economics Research Group (DECRG), the internal research specialist of the World Bank, is almost unequalled with regard to the scale, quality, and influence of its efforts on the development arena (Rao & Woolcock 2007, 479). Primarily, its personnel disseminate research findings through the most esteemed peer-reviewed academic journals; they contribute to the production, analysis, and circulation of household studies applied to identify whether poverty across the globe is dropping or worsening; they collaborate with different groups, individuals, and populations across the globe to assist in the formation of databases allowing policies to be formulated and projects to be instituted based on a wide-ranging empirical datasets; and they develop thorough evaluations to identify the outcomes of development interventions (Rao & Woolcock 2007, 479). Yet, in spite of these major achievements and inputs, DECRG does not maximise its capability. By endorsing economics as the exclusive framework by which to make sense of and act in response to the process of development, it limits what is explored, restricts how such topics are studied, and thus generates unreasonably limited set of policy methods and alternatives. In other words, according to Rao and Woolcock (2007), it has dominated development research, with almost all of the associated misrepresentations that economists, paradoxically, relates to monopolies. Just like in the field of trade and commerce, the field of development research should be distinguished by fair competition, equitable trade, and inclusiveness (Mefalopulos & World Bank 2008). Development issues seldom fall exactly or easily into a particular discipline; therefore, the multiplicity of the research arm of the World Bank should be translated to ingenious and productive solutions to development issues. Conclusions and Recommendations Evidently, there is a need to concentrate the World Bank’s research programmes on current and emerging economy concerns. A broader development research methodology would integrate the following components (World Bank Group 2002b, 25): (1) building datasets that give a general idea of infrastructure and capacities in poor countries to offer groundwork for indicators/scales and recognising new investment goals; (2) widening and modernising fairly limited content in the living standard measurement surveys (LSMS) of the World Bank; and (3) conducting a thorough quantitative evaluation of the pros and cons of development programmes through household surveys and assessment activities. The appeal of mixed-method approaches in development research is broadly recognised, but the effective use of integrated methods in this area has been generally indefinable. Nevertheless, there is at present mounting evidence in the development arena showing the advantages of integrated research approaches. Nevertheless, in spite of considerable success in endorsing mixed-method research methods, a large number of researchers from both qualitative and quantitative disciplines remain averse to a total application of the methods of data gathering, analysis, and interpretation from the other discipline (Bamberger 2000). Several quantitatively oriented researchers may experience difficulty in fully applying PRA results, interviews, and case studies. They also object to the fact that their crucial findings on the prevalence and contributing factors for major development aspects like health provisions, starvation, and consumption indicators of poverty are regarded by various qualitative researchers as unreasonably large-scale (Mikkelsen 2005). In contrast, qualitative researchers frequently object to the fact that their data may be regarded by quantitative researchers as inadequately representative or accurate. Furthermore, according to Bamberger (2000, 5), qualitative researchers claim that regardless of the use of integrated research approaches, quantitative researchers will still fail to make sense of the actual context of a complicated fact like poverty. The proposition is that there is now an emerging agreement on the benefits of mixed-method research, but that more efforts are required to build courses of action from the successful application of multi-method research. Researchers should improve gradually. They have to be focused but also to be careful and precise. Every hypothesis or assumption has to be thoroughly tested, and it is important to acquire reliable and relevant data prior to the implementation of any policy proposal. Research is naturally a difficult task and disappointments are usual. However, development researchers of the World Bank can adopt strategies that have the potential to reduce possible failures. They may focus on a wide array of issues within which the organisation currently puts emphasis on, which is vital if the organisation is to sustain its task of identifying and promoting more appropriate and useful intervention strategies for global poverty reduction. Due to the value and merit of its development research methodologies, the World Bank has been successful up to now in preserving its status as the most important development body in the world. References Adams, M. (1999) The World Bank: New Agendas in a Changing World. London: Routledge. Addison, T., Hulme, D., & Kanbur, S.M. (2009) Poverty dynamics: interdisciplinary perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bamberger, M. (2000) Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Research in Development Projects. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. Brock, K. & McGee, R. (2002) Knowing Poverty: Critical Reflections on Participatory Research and Policy. UK: Earthscan. Dethier, J. (2007) “Producing Knowledge for Development: Research at the World Bank” Global Governance, 13(4), 469+ Gacitua-Mario, E., Wodon, Q., & World Bank (2001) Measurement and Meaning: Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Methods for the Analysis of Poverty and Social Extension in Latin America, Volumes 23-518. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. Hulme, D. (2010) Global poverty: how global governance is failing the poor. London: Routledge. Hulme, D. & Mosley, P. (1996) Finance against Poverty, Volume 1. London: Routledge. Mefalopulos, P. & World Bank (2008) Development Communication Sourcebook: Broadening the Boundaries of Communication. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. Mikkelsen, B. (2005) Methods for Development Work and Research: A New Guide for Practitioners. London: SAGE. Mullen, J., Hulme, D., & Commonwealth Secretariat (1996) Practical Mechanisms for Poverty Reduction. London: Commonwealth Secretariat. Rao, V. & Woolcock, M. (2007) “The Disciplinary Monopoly in Development Research at the World Bank” Global Governance, 13(4), 479+ Stein, H. (2008) Beyond the World Bank Agenda: An Institutional Approach to Development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Weaver, C. & Park, S. (2007) “The Role of the World Bank in Poverty Alleviation and Human Development in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction” Global Governance, 13(4), 461+ World Bank (2002a) Poverty Reduction and the World Bank: Progress in Operationalising. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. World Bank Group (2002b) Information and Communication Technologies: A World Bank Group Strategy. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. World Bank (2008) The World Bank Research Program, 2005-2007: Abstracts of Current Studies. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. Read More