Parenting interventions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) often rely on intensive training and close supervision of Community Health Workers (CHWs), making them challenging to scale. At the same time, cash transfers can ease financial constraints but may not be sufficient to shift parenting behaviors on their own. It remains unclear how to cost-effectively combine these approaches to support holistic child development.  We conducted a large-scale Randomized Controlled Trial in Dodoma, Tanzania, to evaluate the relative effectiveness of three Early Childhood Development (ECD) intervention packages delivered during the child’s first 1,000 days—from conception to age two. The interventions included: (i) a parenting program delivered by CHWs supported by a digital app; (ii) an unconditional cash transfer (UCT) program; and (iii) a combination of both. This study addresses that gap by testing the individual and joint impacts of parenting support and cash transfers, helping identify scalable solutions for early childhood development in resource-limited settings.

Information interventions show mixed effects on citizen participation, sometimes increasing engagement but other times leading to disengagement. We argue that prior beliefs about government performance serve as key mechanism in driving how citizens react to negative news about public service delivery. Through a randomized controlled trial with 2,100 participants in India’s Aspirational Districts Program (ADP), we test this by informing citizens about their district’s ranking in various development dimensions relative to neighbouring 'aspirational' districts. Our findings show that a light-touch information intervention significantly increases participation, even one month after the intervention. The effects are explained by citizens holding optimistic views at baseline about their district's performance. This effect operates through two psychological mechanisms: efficacy and hopelessness. Optimists engage, believing participation can drive change, while pessimists disengage or do not engage, seeing it as futile. Our findings are supported by a theoretical model to explain the mixed results of information interventions—whether they succeed depends on citizens’ prior beliefs.

We present evidence from a randomized controlled trial in Uganda where by married women were randomized into five groups. Two treatment groups received cash transfers, while the remaining two received mobile money transfers. Within each transfer modality, information about the cash transfers was either privately provided to the beneficiary, or shared with both the beneficiary and her spouse. We find that using mobile money for cash transfers is more effective in improving women’s economic independence and decision-making power. In particular, women in the mobile money treatments have higher individual labor income that is independent from their spouse and they experience a 0.17 SD increase in their control over household decisions. On the other hand, cash-based transfers are more effective in reducing intimate partner violence, especially when both partners are informed about them. This highlights a trade-off between improving effectiveness of cash transfers on women’s economic empowerment versus intimate partner violence (IPV) reduction. While providing cash transfers digitally is more effective in improving women’s control over resources, this may lead to a male backlash, lowering their effectiveness in reducing IPV.

Public service delivery in low- and middle-income countries is often constrained by weak state capacity and limited accountability. This study evaluates the Aspirational Districts Programme in India—one of the largest policy-monitoring initiatives globally—to examine whether improved administrative data systems and performance tracking can enhance governance outcomes. Leveraging administrative and satellite data, the study estimates the program’s impact on level of public service delivery. The study will shed light on whether better information systems about government performance can accelerate delivery, curb corruption, and close persistent development gaps across lagging regions.