James Copestake

James Copestake
University of Bath | UB · Department of Social and Policy Sciences

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135
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Publications

Publications (135)
Article
Full-text available
Evaluators are interested in capturing how things causally influence one another. They are also interested in capturing how stakeholders think things causally influence one another. Causal mapping – the collection, coding and visualisation of interconnected causal claims – has been used widely for several decades across many disciplines for this pu...
Preprint
Full-text available
p> Evaluators are interested in capturing how things causally influence one another. They are also interested in capturing how stakeholders think things causally influence one another. Causal mapping, the collection, coding and visualisation of interconnected causal claims, has been used widely for several decades across many disciplines for this...
Preprint
Full-text available
p> Evaluators are interested in capturing how things causally influence one another. They are also interested in capturing how stakeholders think things causally influence one another. Causal mapping, the collection, coding and visualisation of interconnected causal claims, has been used widely for several decades across many disciplines for this...
Chapter
Full-text available
What do the intended beneficiaries of international development programmes think about the causal drivers of change in their livelihoods and lives? Do their perceptions match up with the theories of change constructed by organizations trying to support them? This case study looks at an entrepreneurship programme aiming to economically empower rural...
Preprint
Full-text available
O presente documento é uma versão comentada da versão integral das Diretrizes, disponível no livro "Attributing Development Impact" (consulte www.bathsdr.org para ter acesso à versão integral). Esta versão mais curta foi concebida para ser mais acessível aos colaboradores da MEL cujo idioma materno não é o inglês, e está disponível em vários idioma...
Chapter
Full-text available
Le présent document est une version annotée des directives complètes publiées dans le livre Attributing Development Impact (Attribuer l'impact du développement, voir www.bathsdr.org pour une version complète). Cette version abrégée est destinée à être plus accessible pour les personnels de suivi, d'évaluation et d'apprentissage dont l'anglais n'est...
Chapter
Full-text available
O presente documento é uma versão anotada da versão integral das Directrizes, disponível no livro "Attributing Development Impact" (consulte www.bathsdr.org para ter acesso à versão integral). Esta versão mais curta foi concebida para ser mais acessível aos colaboradores da MEL cujo idioma materno não é o inglês, e está disponível em vários idiomas...
Chapter
Full-text available
Este documento es una versión resumida de las Directrices completas disponibles en el libro, Attributing Development Impact (véase www.bathsdr.org para la versión completa). Esta versión más corta está diseñada para ser más accesible al personal de MEL (Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning-supervisión, evaluación y aprendizaje) que no habla inglés. El...
Article
Full-text available
The article examines the institutions governing relations between grant using national NGOs and grant giving international donors in three regions of Ghana (Upper West, Northern and Greater Accra Region). Formal procedural rules and professional norms can be viewed as necessary to minimise opportunities for informal patronage, rent-seeking and corr...
Article
What wider lessons can be drawn from a single impact evaluation study? This article examines how case study and source selection contribute to useful generalisation. Practical suggestions for making these decisions are drawn from a set of qualitative impact studies. Generalising about impact is a deliberative process of building, testing and refini...
Article
Full-text available
The article examines the institutions governing relations between grant using national NGOs and grant giving international donors in three regions of Ghana (Upper West, Northern and Greater Accra Region). Formal procedural rules and professional norms can be viewed as necessary to minimise opportunities for informal patronage, rent-seeking and corr...
Article
Motivation To “leave nobody behind” a state must maintain a comprehensive database of individuals and households within its jurisdiction. Such a database can also assist in overcoming silo‐based fragmentation in government anti‐poverty programmes and services. We explore the process of establishing such a database through a case study of the Samagr...
Article
Full-text available
If it is ‘to leave nobody behind’ in pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 (SDGs), then a state requires a comprehensive and continuously updated database of individuals and households within its jurisdiction. Consolidation of this data can also assist in overcoming silo-based fragmentation in government delivery of anti-poverty program...
Article
Objective: to investigate how recent graduates from a combined work/study midwifery degree programme in Uganda viewed its effects on their wellbeing and work prospects. Design: Using an adapted version of the Qualitative Impact Protocol (QuIP), a phenomenological approach was applied to thematic analysis to examine semi-structured interviews and...
Chapter
The status of microfinance in international development will remain an important area of research and debate for as long as relatively poor people continue to struggle with access and effective use of financial services. This paper reflects on the evolution of microfinance and financial inclusion as arenas of research, focusing on its scope and on...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The paper reflects on action research into the use of a qualitative impact protocol (the QuIP) to conduct commissioned evaluations of the social impact of development interventions in complex contexts. Unusually, the QuIP unbundles the tasks of data collection and analysis. This can enhance the transparency and auditability of the evaluative proces...
Book
Full-text available
The Centre for Development Studies and Bath SDR have authored a book with Practical Action Publishing presenting the experiences of designing and executing eight different QuIP studies, from the perspective of both the independent evaluators and the commissioners. Attributing Development Impact is based on studies undertaken by Bath SDR in the firs...
Article
Full-text available
Impact and process evaluations are increasingly used in international development; however they are generally retrospective in outlook. A more timely approach to evaluation aims to identify necessary, feasible and effective changes during a programme or intervention’s lifetime. This paper aims to identify, categorise, describe and critically apprai...
Article
This article discusses the spectrum of synthesis methods available to generate, explore and text theory, their value to the field of international development and innovations required to make better use of the primary research available. It argues for clearer distinctions between syntheses produced as public goods and those tailored to specific cir...
Article
Full-text available
Who does what and when during an impact evaluation has an important influence on the credibility and usefulness of the evidence generated. We explore such choreography from technical, political and ethical perspectives by reflecting on a case study that entailed collaborative design of a qualitative impact evaluation protocol (‘the QuIP’) and its p...
Article
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This article reviews different ways of telling the history of microfinance. We first contrast a mainstream and mostly positive narrative with a radical critique, illustrating differences with reference to India. We then argue for a more inductive and plural account, drawing on a set of doctoral research studies to illustrate variation in microfinan...
Article
We review government funding of small NGOs as a mechanism to promote international development, taking the UK Civil Society Challenge Fund (CSCF) as a case study. Within a broad institutional economics perspective, we contrast two possible justifications for such support – evidence of positive impact and political expedience. Qualitative research s...
Chapter
Full-text available
This chapter reports on pilot testing of a qualitative impact protocol — referred to as the QUIP — that aims to provide credible, timely and cost-effective evidence of impact based on the testimonies of intended beneficiaries of rural livelihood interventions without the need for a control group. The QUIP aims to address the perennial question of h...
Article
Full-text available
This paper contributes to an ongoing conversation between development studies (DS) and social policy (SP) as academic fields, particularly in the UK. Using Andrew Abbott’s analysis of the social sciences as an evolving system of knowledge lineages (KLs), it reflects on the status of DS and its relationship with SP. Defining DS as a distinctive KL c...
Article
We theoretically discuss the potential macroeconomic influences on microfinance institutions' (MFIs') depth of outreach and provide empirical evidence, using panel analysis, to investigate determinants of average loan balance (ALB) per borrower as a percentage of gross national income per capita, as a proxy indicator for poverty focus or depth of o...
Article
The use of challenge funds to promote economic and social development continues to grow but has been the subject of relatively little research. This article draws on institutional economics (particularly principal-agent theory) to define challenge funds and review how they differ from other development funding mechanisms, taking into account their...
Article
Full-text available
Debate continues over how best international development agencies can evaluate the impact of actions intended to reduce poverty, insecurity and vulnerability in diverse and complex contexts. There are strong ethical grounds for simply asking those intended to benefit what happened to them, but it is not obvious how to do so in a way that is suffici...
Data
Full-text available
Article
Recognising that aid effectiveness critically depends upon the quality of host-country institutions and policies, international aid agencies have sought to inform their activities through more systematic political-economy analysis (PEA). In this article, three analytical frameworks for PEA are compared, contrasted and critically appraised in the li...
Article
Full-text available
Microfinance (MF) has grown over the last two decades into an important sub-field of development studies. This special issue of Oxford Development Studies explores the contributions of MF, drawing particularly on research conducted in India. After a brief overview of the emergence of MF as a research field, this introduction develops three themes....
Article
Microfinance can be researched narrowly as an instrument for promoting development or more broadly as an endogenous component of development. This paper sets out a simple well-being regime model incorporating both views and uses it to review the dynamics of rural microfinance in India. Four potential drivers of change in the role of microfinance in...
Article
International aid is often analysed as if it was a homogeneous product exclusively distributed between a relatively small numbers of public agencies. In contrast, this paper contributes to thinking about aid as a quasi-market with many different suppliers, users, channels, products and brands. More specifically, it suggests drawing a stronger disti...
Article
What do randomized control trials (RCTs) tell us about the impact of microfinance? This article reports on presentations at a three-day conference in New York in October 2010, 'Microfinance Impact and Innovation Conference', which provided evidence from RCTs on the impact of micro-insurance, asset-transfer programmes, savings and other aspects of m...
Article
Disagreements over development arise in part from different ways of thinking about human well-being, an issue explored here with reference to two pieces of empirical research in Peru. The first is an analysis of ontological assumptions underpinning secondary literature on development policy at the national level. The second is the pilot testing of...
Article
This article links primary research into the way subjective well-being among poor people can be defined and measured to the growing literature on poverty as a failure of capacity to aspire. Data from Bangladesh, Thailand and Peru are used to illustrate a measurement strategy based on defining well-being as a function of the gap between individuals'...
Article
This paper draws upon the five other papers presented in this volume, along with other presentations made at the 2009 Development Studies Association Conference, to reflect on the relationship between development studies and the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. It first analyses antecedents to the crisis by relating the papers presented by Gore (...
Article
Full-text available
This paper appraises options for research relating to microfinance in India, doing so in the broad context of rival macro pressures to accelerate economic growth, maintain political order, reduce poverty and adapt to climate change. This paper first set out a general well-being regime framework that can be used for this analysis and sketch the role...
Article
Full-text available
In our regular debate between experts, Crossfire invites Dean Karlan, Nathanael Goldberg and James Copestake to argue the case surrounding: 'Randomized control trials are the best way to measure impact of microfinance programmes and improve microfinance product designs.'
Article
Previous studies in Peru have identified apparent mismatches between people’s perceptions of their wellbeing and indicators of their material welfare. This paper draws on primary data from relatively poor localities in Central Peru to investigate these further. We first present estimates of respondents’ household income, expenditure and poverty sta...
Article
Full-text available
Taking Peru as a case study, the paper examines how contrasting global designs of development can be interrogated using local data on subjective wellbeing. Four examples of the former are presented in the form of shared mental models of Peru as a welfare regime (Section 2). These are then contrasted with a local model -based on data collected from...
Article
Full-text available
The paper sets out an approach to assessing people's wellbeing that focuses on their perceived attainment of life goals. Section 1 explains the motivation for seeking new ways of measuring subjective wellbeing in developing countries. Section 2 briefly reviews relevant literature and process of designing the data collection instrument (referred to...
Article
What does talk of wellbeing offer international development? Four possible answers are explored. First, it offers discursive space for analysing conflicting policy priorities to the extent that they are based on different assumptions about what it means for a person to 'be well' and about how this can be changed. Second, it draws on positive psycho...
Article
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Social assistance has attracted renewed interest in countries where economic growth is doing too little on its own to address high levels of income inequality and poverty. Research into the material effects of such programmes is important but can be misleading if it fails to capture their full meaning to intended beneficiaries and other stakeholder...
Article
Full-text available
Quantitative analysis indicates that variation in use of regulated and unregulated financial services in a low-income area of Mexico City can only partially be attributed to differences in socio-economic variables including gender, employment, education and housing status. Qualitative evidence suggests cognitive resources (including financial knowl...
Chapter
Full-text available
The main objective of this chapter is to explore empirically the relationship between wellbeing and institutions. This first section explores the concepts employed, the Peru context, and the methodology used. Section 6.2 builds on chapter 3 by developing an analysis of the relationship between life goals and institutions. Section 6.3 continues this...
Chapter
From the outset of the WeD research, we were acutely aware of the importance of migration to the lives of people in our research area, particularly the shared experience and folklore of movement from highland villages to Lima and other urban areas. This is reflected in contemporary music in compositions such as Soy Provinciano (“I’m from the provin...
Chapter
Full-text available
The main purpose of this chapter is to present an analysis of the wider institutional landscape within which poor and marginalized people in Peru have to negotiate their livelihoods and forge some sense of wellbeing. The chapter thereby aims to provide a country-level counterpoint to the richer but more microanalysis presented in the other chapters...
Chapter
This chapter explores empirically the relationship between indicators of economic wellbeing (principally household income) and subjective wellbeing (SWB). Past research indicates that at low levels of income the relationship between economic and subjective indicators of wellbeing is positive and strong (e.g., Veenhoven, 1991; Diener et al., 1999; H...
Chapter
Our relationship with physical things, other people, and ideas (hence material, social, and symbolic dimensions of our wellbeing) are profoundly affected by where we live as well as the “place” of different localities in history. Here we concur with Long and Roberts (1984:3) that local and regional analysis of development is an important complement...
Chapter
The concept of development—local, national, and international—remains a preoccupation of people and politicians across the world. For some it signifies a general belief in human progress, linked particularly to the spread of market liberalism and the struggle for more democratic government. For others, this vision is soured by daily experiences of...
Chapter
The opening chapter of this book suggested that international development policies often fail to connect or resonate sufficiently with the ideas and experiences of those intended to benefit from them. It hinted that part of the problem was political and bureaucratic pressure to come up with policies based on a universal (often Western) view of deve...
Article
Tourism has been, and still is, a very profitable industry in Spain. But the Spanish model of tourism development, following a pattern set in the 1950s, is now in crisis. The crisis is apparent in the widespread overdevelopment of tourist resorts and residential facilities in coastal areas, generating high environmental, social and economic costs....
Article
Full-text available
Debates about development hinge in no small measure on the importance people attach to material resources versus social relationships, both as ends and as means. These are particularly evident when one person or group seeks to help another. A food transfer, for example, can be condemned as patronage or applauded as social protection, depending upon...
Chapter
While theoretical economists are beginning to analyze opportunistic behavior within the aid industry, development practitioners themselves are preoccupied with how to combine sustainable poverty reduction with transfer of ownership over aid management. The starting point of this chapter is the general problem of helping: namely how help (including...
Article
Incl. tables, abstract and bibl. references Many microfinance institutions claim to be oriented to a double bottom line, but while methods of financial performance assessment are widely agreed the same cannot be said about social performance. Monitoring social performance is most useful when it reveals variation in both outreach and impact over tim...
Chapter
The previous chapter explored the many factors that influence the social performance of MFIs, whereas in this chapter we focus on just one of them - social performance assessment. This refers to any activity intended to clarify how far an organization is achieving social goals, such as widening access to financial services and strengthening clients...
Chapter
In Chapter 1 we noted three concerns about the microfinance industry during the 1990s: excessive donor control over impact assessment, social mission drift and a lack of clarity over how far microfinance was contributing to poverty reduction. The subsequent chapters sought to address these concerns, drawing on findings from action-research under th...
Article
The purpose of this survey of the literature on poverty in Peru is to contribute to universal and interdisciplinary understanding, while at the same time giving due weight to discipline-specific contributions. The first three sections review relevant literature on Peru by economists, social anthropologists and sociologists. The strict positivism of...
Article
After the positive experience of one of their members in pilot testing the SEEP/AIMS client assessment tools, the Covelo Network, an association of microfinance institutions in Honduras, sought funding to be trained in the use of these tools. A series of workshops was held between 2001 and 2004 covering the use of: exit surveys; client satisfaction...
Article
This article and the other articles in this edition originating from the ImpAct programme ask the question: is it cost-effective for MFIs (microfinance institutions) to measure the outreach and impact of their services upon their clients? Apart from fulfilling the social impact obligations of their mission statements, the case studies indicate that...
Article
Section 1 sets the context in which a qualitative impact protocol (QUIP) was created by distinguishing between demand from within microfinance organizations (MFOs) for organizational development and from donors and regulators for public policy purposes. On the supply side, it is argued that there is a case for using rigorous qualitative methods tha...
Article
What sort of standards or benchmarks (if any) could help to improve the social performance of microfinance organisations (MFOs)? I argue in favour of establishing a single universal standard for social performance, but one that is very simple and flexible. In brief it would stipulate that all MFOs should develop a clear policy that addresses the fo...

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