Four European partner organizations were brought into PopPov to increase the global visibility of the initiative. A grant was made to the World Bank because it was thought that this would increase the salience of PopPov topics at the World Bank and that economic policymakers in developing countries would be especially likely to listen to economists at the World Bank. Bringing in these partner organizations also enabled leveraging Hewlett Foundation funding because these organizations contributed some of their own funds to the initiative. In this sec- tion, we assess the contributions of these partners’ involvement.
Each of the partner institutions has had a somewhat different focus. The SOPP report (Lee and Belohlav, 2013) summarizes these differences as follows:
The World Bank and PRB funded-projects emphasized economic analyses at the macro- and micro-levels, with several projects implementing experimental designs, including ran- domized controlled trials. The IRD-funded projects focused exclusively on researching demographic issues in Africa, involving a cadre of West African partners in the PopPov endeavor. The projects funded by the ESRC, NWO/WOTRO, and RCN included strong components of capacity building, with African master’s, Ph.D. candidates, and postdoc- toral trainees playing significant roles in these research programs. (p. 11)
Along many dimensions, aspects of the projects funded by the European partners have been very consistent with PopPov goals—in some respects, more so than those funded by PRB or the World Bank. Almost all (20 of 22 = 91 percent) of the projects funded by the European donors are on SSA, compared with only 41 percent for those funded by Hewlett, PRB, or the World Bank (see Table IV.12); we also saw this earlier, in Table IV.7, in terms of papers. In
addition, many of the projects funded by the European partners have included developing- country collaborators and trainees. For example, WOTRO grants have included ample fund- ing for Ph.D. students and postdocs, including several in a developing country. WOTRO requests submission of proposal and management of the project by a senior PI and co-PI from the Netherlands and a developing country (and an SSA researcher can be the PI). The French require a developing-country co-PI. ESRC requires a developing-country collaborator. In Sec- tion IV.A.2, we noted the capacity-building aspect of the ESRC-supported project in Burkina Faso. All of the RCN projects involve developing-country collaborators. In its evaluations of proposals that made it through the first round of review, WOTRO included the requirement of stakeholder meetings and later brought this idea to the joint call. Furthermore, in general, there has been more attention to policy issues and policy outreach in some of the European- funded projects, as can be seen from some of the examples in Section IV.C.2.
However, in other respects, some of the projects funded by the European donors are less consistent with PopPov goals than those funded by other donors. For example, some IRD proj- ects focus on migration, which is not a PopPov priority topic, and many of the RCN projects look at the influences on, rather than of, demographics and RH. As we saw in Section IV.B.4, the research funded by some of the European partners has been less likely to use the types of data and methods recommended by the CGD working group. And fewer of the European PIs are economists (42 percent) than those funded by other donors (75 percent). As we discuss in the next subsection, this has led to some interdiscipline frustration at the PopPov conferences. Sara Seims of the Hewlett Foundation commented,
[T]he Hewlett Foundation had little control over all of the research topics funded by our European partners and it is true that many of them were off the original themes, but we considered that there was sufficient overlap of interest to go forward with the joint funding.
Table IV.12
Number of Research Projects and Number on Sub-Saharan Africa, by Funder
Funder Number of Projects Funded Number and Percentage of Projects on SSAa
U.S. donor 29 12 (41%)
Hewlett/PRB 11 5 (45%)
World Bank 18 7 (39%)
European donor 22 20 (91%)
ESRC 6 5 (83%)
AFD and IRD 7 7 (100%)
nWo-WotRo 3 3 (100%)
RCn 6 5 (83%)
total 51 32 (63%)
SoURCE: Lee and Belohlav (2013, Appendix A).
The fact that each European partner has used a different name for its part of PopPov has led to some confusion about the relationship among the parts and therefore to some lack of understanding and appreciation of the entirety of the effort. This has limited the opportunity for brand-name recognition.22
The European partner organizations feel that they have benefited considerably from their involvement with PopPov. For example, Lyndy Griffin, who is with the ESRC Research, Part- nerships and International Directorate, commented,
ESRC has benefitted greatly from this excellent collaboration with the Hewlett Founda- tion. ESRC is keen to foster on-going linkages with international development actors in the US and the PopPov initiative is a flagship example of such collaboration. Our involve- ment in PopPov has leveraged significant funds to focus on research in the area of popula- tion and reproduction health. The recent multi-lateral call has forged links with the other PopPov EU partners with the promise of further collaboration in the future. Involvement in PopPov conferences has allowed ESRC to expand its engagement with PopPov networks. In contrast to the research supported by the European donors, more of the PIs for the World Bank research were economists (88 percent) than the PopPov average (67 percent), but less of the research was on SSA (39 percent). Furthermore, much of the World Bank research on SSA has been on the effects of AIDS, not a direct PopPov priority. In addition, very little of the World Bank research for PopPov included developing-country collaborators.
IV.D.4. The Design and Implementation of the Annual PopPov Conferences and Associated