Inayat Ullah

We leverage novel data extracted from weekly updated registers of Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) centres to examine the impact of early access to land record information through digitization on dispute resolution outcomes in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Employing a quasi-experimental design, we estimate the causal effect of early access to Punjab Land Record Management Information System (PLRMIS) on the registration and resolution process of land-related disputes. Our results reveal that ADR centres in districts with early treatment experience an average increase of approximately 50 cases compared to those in districts with late treatment. By utilizing generalized multi-level mixed effect and two-stage least square models, we find that early implementation of PLRMIS significantly increases successful mediation outcomes by 126 cases in the treatment region with no effect on mediation failure cases. These findings provide compelling evidence for the pivotal role of PLRMIS in facilitating effective alternate dispute resolution, indicating increased public utilization of the system. Our results underscore the effectiveness of digitization and e-governance systems in improving land administration, reducing information asymmetry, and expediting the dispute resolution process.

This paper examines the effect of a large-scale innovative monitoring program implemented in over 28000 government schools for improving teacher’s attendance and school performance in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Pakistan. In 2014, the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province introduced the Independent Monitoring Project aiming at increasing teacher attendance in primary and secondary public schools across the province. We find ideal conditions for a natural experiment by utilizing an annually conducted independent and systematically random survey to compare schools and children’s performance in the treated region with their counterparts in the controlled region that satisfies all conditions for a valid comparison. Our analysis is based on the difference-in-difference approach with district and village fixed models using pooled data from 2012 to 2018. Our findings suggest that the monitoring program has improved teacher’s attendance by nearly 8% in the year immediately following the program. However, this effect decreases by nearly half after two years of the program introduction. We also find the program’s direct effect on the enrolled children’s test performance at home. Enrolled children’s standardized Reading, Math and English ability in the monitored schools has improved significantly by 0.07, 0.13 and 0.11 standard deviations points respectively at the lower (0-5) grades. There is slight improvement in the standardized test performance of higher-grade children. The program also increases the probability of children enrollment into government schools. Our results are robust on different specifications and sub-samples of schools and districts clusters.

This paper adopts the Ansel & Gash (2008) model of collaborative governance to frame the structure of community-based trophy hunting (CBTH) programs as a form of collaborative governance that involves multiple stakeholders in the management of common pool resources. We conduct a meta-synthesis of 80 published studies on community-based conservation (CBC) and CBTH programs and develop contingency propositions that may help practitioners and governments to understand and implement programs that seek environmental conservation in collaboration with local communities. Regarding the initial conditions to engender CBTH in developing countries, we propose that the failure of conventional top-down conservation policies, perception of local communities about potential benefits from CBTH, and existence of facilitative leadership, such as local or international conservation NGOs will play critical roles in initiating CBTH, even under the prehistory of conflict, power imbalance, and lack of trust. We also propose organic and instrumental leadership from community and government and inclusive design that creates ground rules and basic protocols are important outside factors to induce stable and strong commitment from participants during the collaboration process. Inside collaborative process, constructive, trust-building face-to-face meetings and generation of intermediate outcomes are identified as crucial factors to building a momentum for successful CBTH outcomes.

We examine the effect of a technology-based monitoring of public schools on teachers’ attendance and learning outcomes. Our identification is based on a large-scale monitoring program implemented in over 28,000 primary and secondary public schools in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Pakistan. We find ideal conditions for a natural experiment and apply difference-in-difference, event study and instrumental variable approaches to causally attribute changes in the learning outcomes of enrolled children to the monitoring program. We utilize seven rounds of a nationally representative annually conducted independent and systematically random survey called ASER-Pakistan. Our findings suggest that technology-based monitoring has increased teachers’ attendance by nearly 8 percentage points in the first year after the program. Despite a slight decrease in the second year after the intervention, the long-run effect of the program strongly persists with significant impact on learning outcomes of enrolled children. We find that enrolled children’s standardized Reading, Math and English test score in the monitored schools has improved significantly by 0.08, 0.09 and 0.10 standard deviations points respectively at the lower (0 5) grades. Using exogenous program effect (obtained through diff-in-diff) as an instrument, we use observed variation in teachers’ attendance to predict changes in the standardized test score of children. The 2SLS results are strikingly (nearly two-times) larger than fixed-effect OLS estimates. More specifically, on average, standardized Reading, Math and English test score in the monitored region has improved significantly by .33, .22 and .62 SD points respectively at the lower (0 5) grades. We also utilize the post-merger (of two regions) data to test the difference in observed outcomes when the monitoring program was extended to the comparison region. We also examine the program’s effect on enrollment and school participation. Our results are robust on a number of alternate specifications, sub-samples, and falsification tests.