Completed Projects

Resilience in the Midst of Pandemic in Nepal

In Nepal, an MRR Innovation Lab research team is expanding its partnership with Heifer International to explore how rural families are coping, whether its programming increases resilience, and the challenges and opportunities for improving household resilience in the midst of a global crisis.

Smoothing Seasonal Hunger through Planning in Zambia

This expansion of an ongoing project in Zambia expansion tests whether a low-cost planning intervention improves savings, shifts how families distribute household resources and whether the intervention changes how families make decisions at the next harvest.

Building Trust in Index Insurance with Picture-based Crop Audits in Ethiopia

In a new feasibility study, MRR Innovation Lab researchers are testing whether smartphone pictures of crops before and after damage can help implement fail-safe audits in Ethiopia. This picture-based insurance (PBI) audit may dramatically improve contract responsiveness while keeping costs low.

Developing Advanced Index-Insurance Products for Ghanaian Smallholder Farmers

This project will develop improved index insurance policies for small-scale farmers to create stronger demand and impact for index insurance in Ghana, with a particular focus on improving the accuracy of how well products predict actual crop losses.

Pathways for Ensuring Access to Assets: Land Tenure Reform and Beyond in Liberia and Uganda

This project will analyze the social, economic and institutional barriers that women face in accessing and controlling assets, including land, in Liberia and Uganda.

Understanding the Impact of Idiosyncratic Shocks on Farm Productivity and Household Asset Building and Protection in Ethiopia, Ghana and Bangladesh

Risk and poverty are key, inextricable concerns in Bangladesh, Ghana and Ethiopia. The research will focus on the impact of idiosyncratic risk on asset poverty and the mechanism available to redress it.

Natural Capital and Poverty Reduction in Malawi and Uganda

This project will document the ways in which natural capital serves as informal insurance and a safety net against income variability and transitory shocks.

Tailoring Contract Farming to Smallholders: Experimental Evidence on Enrollment Impact, Insurance Provision, and Communication Technologies in Kenya

The research proposes three field experiments in Kenya to evaluate the potential of contract farming schemes to increase smallholder welfare.

Demand and Supply Constraints to Improved Sorghum Technology Adoption and their Gender-Differentiated Effects in Burkina Faso

In this project, researchers are working with sorghum breeders and agro-input suppliers in Burkina Faso to compare alternative mechanisms to encourage adoption of improved seed and fertilizer micro-packs.

Complementarities of Training, Technology, and Credit in Smallholder Agriculture in Senegal and Uganda

This project includes field studies of short- and long-term impacts of two innovative agricultural development programs based on this model that target smallholder, mainly women farmers, in Uganda and Senegal.

A Multiple Interventions Approach to Increasing Technology Adoption with a View Towards Scaling-Up in Mexico

This project implements an experimental evaluation of the Trust Funds for Rural Development’s (FIRA’s) Technological Guarantee Program (TGP) targeted a Mexican maize smallholders and extends the project design to farmers in Kenya.

Savings, Subsidies and Sustainable Food Security: A Field Experiment in Mozambique

This research explores the short- and long-run impacts of fertilizer subsidies on smallholder farmers in Mozambique.

Evaluating the Effect of Site-Specific Soil Information on Farmer Input Choices and the Relationship Between Poverty and Soil Quality in Tanzania

This project evaluates the impact of a rapid on-farm soil diagnostic kit developed by researchers and collaborators at Columbia University’s Agriculture and Food Security Center.

Rural Livelihoods and Institutional Reform in Small-Scale Fisheries in Tanzania

This project tests a novel approach to improving institutional performance by playing repeated experimental games, which may then alter patterns of coordination and cooperation for managing fisheries in Tanzania.