Development Aid, Information Campaigns, and Social Cohesion in Mali and Niger 

Summary

Beneficiaries of foreign aid interventions often lack basic information on development projects in their communities. Lack of credible information can increase the risk that misinformation and rumors nurture perceptions of unfair and clientelist aid distribution. This, in turn, can have adverse consequences on inter-group and state-society relations. This project investigates if targeted aid information campaigns can improve state-society relations and intergroup relations via two causal channels: political efficacy and distributional fairness. Our analyses rely on a randomized controlled trial among 10,000 respondents of a three-wave panel survey in 200 villages of Mali and Niger. Members of the treatment group will receive customized information on ongoing aid projects in their community (e.g., type, volume, and formal rules of project selection). In the mid-line, we repeat this information. In addition, half of the treatment group will have the opportunity to provide anonymous feedback on the project to the government and responsible aid agency. In the end line, we estimate the effects of these interventions on people’s local political engagement and social trust towards outgroups.

Pre-Analysis Plans

The Effects of Information on the Impact of Development Interventions in Fragile States
https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/9818

Follow-up study: Updating People’s Beliefs in the State’s Rule Adherence
https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/versions/215400/docs/version/document

Publications

De Juan, Alexander, Paul Hofman, and Carlo Koos. “More Information, Better Knowledge? The Effects of Information Campaigns on Aid beneficiaries’ Knowledge of Aid Projects”, WIDER Working Paper 2023/57 Helsinki: UNU-WIDER, 2023. https://doi.org/10.35188/UNU-WIDER/2023/365-9.