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The Role of Information, Accountability, and Resource Gaps in Explaining Poor Urban Services Quality in Addis Ababa and Its Rapidly Urbanizing Surroundings

Last registered on March 21, 2017
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Role of Information, Accountability, and Resource Gaps in Explaining Poor Urban Services Quality in Addis Ababa and Its Rapidly Urbanizing Surroundings
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002114
Initial registration date
March 21, 2017

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
March 21, 2017, 10:54 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Ethiopia
Region
Addis Ababa, Oromia

Primary Investigator

Name
Daniel Agness
Affiliation
Stanford University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Tigabu Getahun
PI Affiliation
Ethiopian Development Research Institute
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Girum Abebe
PI Affiliation
Ethiopian Development Research Institute
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Pascaline Dupas
PI Affiliation
Stanford University
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2017-06-01
End date
2018-02-28
Keywords
Governance
Additional Keywords
Public Services, Infrastructure
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
We aim to explore the role of three potential, non-mutually exclusive, reasons for why the responsiveness of local officials to the needs of dwellers in rapidly growing urban areas at the outskirt of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is low: (1) they lack information on the citizen’s priorities; (2) they lack the incentives to respond to citizen’s priorities because they are not held accountable for citizen’s well-being; (3) they lack the autonomy (i.e. the power to access the resources) to respond to citizen’s priorities.

We propose to explore these issues by (1) surveying local officials (both elected officials and bureaucrats) to gauge the extent to which there is a mismatch between what they perceive as the local community’s priorities and the actual priorities, as well as between their stated priorities and what they think are the community’s priorities; and (2) piloting a “report card” treatment intervention in which we will report summary information on citizen’s concerns and needs. The report cards will be shared with officials at different levels of both the political and bureaucratic hierarchy. We will then trace the extent to which the report card intervention affects budget allocations and policy choices, and how this depends on who is targeted by the intervention.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Abebe, Girum et al. 2017. "The Role of Information, Accountability, and Resource Gaps in Explaining Poor Urban Services Quality in Addis Ababa and Its Rapidly Urbanizing Surroundings." AEA RCT Registry. March 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2114-1.0
Former Citation
Abebe, Girum et al. 2017. "The Role of Information, Accountability, and Resource Gaps in Explaining Poor Urban Services Quality in Addis Ababa and Its Rapidly Urbanizing Surroundings." AEA RCT Registry. March 21. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2114/history/15254
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The goal of our proposed pilot project is to explore the role of three potential, non-mutually exclusive, reasons for why the responsiveness of local officials to local needs is low: (1) they lack information on the citizen’s priorities; (2) they lack the incentives to respond to citizen’s priorities because they are not held accountable for citizen’s well-being; (3) they lack the autonomy (i.e. the power to access the resources) to respond to citizen’s priorities.

We propose to explore these issues by (1) surveying local officials (both elected officials and bureaucrats) to gauge the extent to which there is a mismatch between what they perceive as the local community’s priorities and the actual priorities, as well as between their stated priorities and what they think are the community’s priorities; and (2) piloting a “report card” treatment intervention in which we will report summary information on citizen’s concerns and needs. The report cards will be shared with officials at different levels of both the political and bureaucratic hierarchy. We will then trace the extent to which the report card intervention affects budget allocations and policy choices, and how this depends on who is targeted by the intervention.
Intervention Start Date
2017-06-01
Intervention End Date
2017-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Changes in officials' awareness of citizens' concerns, documented policy changes, administrative relative budget shares, public satisfaction and priorities, community engagement statistics
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Official awareness will be measured by matching citizen priorities with local administrative office priorities or in the case where office priorities cannot be changed, citizen priorities predicted by the official. Community engagement will be measured by measuring administrative outreach through public meetings, announcements, and changes in responsiveness to citizen complaints.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will produce report cards at the woreda and woreda-sector levels. Woreda-sector report cards will be created for each sector in each woreda. We will aggregate citizen reporting and satisfaction scores within a given woreda to create global sector report cards showing satisfaction levels across all sectors for the woreda and compared to those found in neighboring woredas.

We will then randomize which woreda officials will receive global or sector-specific report cards both across and within woredas. This design allows for identification of treatment effects by comparing outcomes across sectors within a woreda, while controlling for sector fixed effects; and across woredas within a sector, while controlling for woreda fixed effects. E.g. we can test whether we see a relative improvement in the responsiveness of the electricity sector compared to other sectors in woredas where electricity was selected for the intervention. We can further test whether this relative improvement is more pronounced when the elected woreda manager was also informed, and whether it was further pronounced when the appointed woreda-level manager was informed.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Woreda, woreda-sector
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
100 woredas, 800 woreda-sectors
Sample size: planned number of observations
Around 500 administrative officials relying on survey data from 3600 individuals and 1000 firms
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
8-10
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Stanford University IRB2 - Non-Medical Human Subjects
IRB Approval Date
2017-02-28
IRB Approval Number
34490
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials