This week we featured research on clean water, mental health, sewers, AI research and more...
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Historically, policy efforts to improve access to clean water have been directed towards piped water and point-of-use chlorine treatment; despite this, the market for privately-treated and home-delivered water is growing rapidly in developing countries. Fiona Burlig, Amir Jina, and Anant Sudarshan present evidence on an understudied approach to delivering clean water in rural India, finding high take-up and substantial health and welfare benefits.
In low-income countries, women's economic autonomy is often constrained by limited access to income-generating opportunities and formal financial services. In rural Malawi, Nina Buchmann, Pascaline Dupas, and Roberta Ziparo show that women's reputation concerns within households can lead to underinvestment in new technologies and persistence with bad ones. Instead, engaging both spouses and/or equipping women to effectively communicate the proven benefits of new technologies could help promote their adoption.
As AI rapidly evolves, it is crucial that researchers take a moment to understand how it can be used to potentially reduce global inequality. In this week’s episode of VoxDevTalks, David Yanagizawa-Drott explores the role of economists in shaping and evaluating AI, and whether AI will narrow—or deepen—the divide between the Global North and South.
Depression and anxiety related disorders are among the leading contributors to years lived with a disability for adolescents worldwide, and young women are especially at risk. In Uganda, Luca Parisotto, Sarah Baird, Berk Özler, Chiara Dell’Aira, and Danish Us-Salam find that a group therapy programme only reduced depression rates among adolescent girls in the short-term. Adding a cash transfer to the programme backfired, likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated stressors.
The urban share of population in the developing world tends to be lower than that of more developed countries. Sean McCulloch, Matthew Schaelling, Matthew Turner, and Toru Kitagawa examine whether improved access to residential sanitary sewers allows cities in the developing world to accommodate more people by making higher population densities more feasible.
The majority of households in rural Uganda are involved in agriculture but have no insurance against crop failure or price shocks. Aisha Nanyiti demonstrates that awareness programmes that help farmers understand potential negative outcomes—perhaps through simulations or testimonials from peers who have experienced losses—could increase formal insurance uptake.
Elsewhere in development:
- Rose M. Mutiso writes about rethinking how Africa captures value from its resources.
- On VoxEU, Sophie Hatte, Jordan Loper and Thomas Taylor write about digital access and gender representation in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Zainab Usman writes that USAID's demise is an opportunity to prioritise industrialisation over charity.
- Bloomberg have featured 25 African startups to watch in 2025.
- Duncan Green discussed the big choices facing UK aid.
- Dany Bahar writes on CGD that cost-effectiveness is not enough, aid must be transformational.
- And Kevin Starr sat down with Devex to discuss moving beyond performative philanthropy.