Every year, governments spend large amounts
of resources on development programs that aim
to change poor households’ behaviors and attitudes
toward investment in the education, health, and
nutrition of their children as a way to end the cycle
of poverty. One key mechanism that can achieve this
is working to raise aspirations. But how do you do
that in practice?
In this project, together with Karen Macours of the
Paris School of Economics and the Ministry of Family
in Nicaragua, we find that beneficiary interactions
with female role models in very low-income settings of
Nicaragua had an enormous impact in raising the bar for
the rest of the community. By helping to increase the
aspirations of program beneficiaries, interactions with
leaders were key to improving and sustaining outcomes
for children in education and health two years after the
program ended.