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One of the things I love the most about the stories here on the Terms of Reference Podcast is listening to the always incredible, but retrospectively obvious, paths which have lead all of our Aidpreneurs to their current passions. In fact, as I’ve documented in the eBook “Making It,” this is one of the factors that defines those who have created a sustainable and satisfying career in development and humanitarian aid. My guest for the 131st episode of the Terms of Reference Podcast, Noam Angrist, is no exception to this rule. Noam is the Executive Director of Young1ove, an organization that finds health-related messages that have been shown to create change, through a pile of evidence, and then finds creative, culturally appropriate ways to deliver these messages for youth, by youth. While this model, on the surface, may not seem ground breaking, as you’ll hear in just a minute, the results that Noam and the Young1love team are achieving in Botswana through their “No Sugar” program are. You can connect with Noam here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noam-angrist-38151a17 https://twitter.com/angrist_noam
IN TOR 131 YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT
- How a research paper documenting a randomized trial on the effect of education intervention on socioeconomic practices related to sex and relationships both substantially diminished the incidence of HIV and set Noam on his path
- The pace of intervention and the need to keep reassessing the approach and the research, given the ever-changing economic, social and behavioral landscapes
- The challenges of evidence-based research, particularly the difference between ‘promising’ and ‘actually useful’, generalizable and scalable results
- On the relationships (and tensions) with African governments to keep it all going
OUR CONVERSATION FEATURES THE FOLLOWING
Organizations:
- World Bank
- University of Botswana
- Poverty Action Lab
- mothers2mothers
- One Acre Fund
- ProFam Uganda
- Youth First
Topics:
- HIV risk
- “Sugar daddies“, HIV incidence and contagion risk
- Antiretroviral medication
- Education and Health
- Research-based intervention
- Scaling of interventions
- Sex Education
- Male circumcision
- “Freakonomics”, Behavioral economics
- Innovation and learning
Places
- Gaborone, Botswana
- Zimbabwe
- South Africa
- Zambia
- Kenya
EPISODE CRIB NOTES
02:25 Young 1ove founding storyNoam used to work in development
World Bank, U of Botswana
Noam stumbles on a paper by Poverty Action Lab
A 1-hour, ‘HIV risk by unprotected sex with sugar daddy’ class diminishes risk by 1/3
Randomized trials, the works
Noam was working on ‘interesting things’, about education
Freakonomics, kids entering a bit older at school end up having better lives
Noam was running regressions on this, his friends talked to him about sugar daddies
They would see girls on heels around the university waiting for dudes in fancy cars
“This is the ‘urban version’. The rural is much different”
45% of Botswanan men in their 40s have HIV, at 2015
The paper was 2009. “It showed a promising intervention but it had never been scaled”
Noam’s partner is like “let’s do it”
Let’s research stop collecting dust
09:05 All too uncommon leapsStephen: research often stays collecting dust on the shelf
Before, “Just because something worked 6 years ago does not mean it will now”
Then, business, project, program: which way is best
Also, the team
“It started working by going on the field with the help of experts”
People who knew how to talk to girls shone
11:55 Like no other wanaGirls do want healthy partners, but they do also want the 10 year older guys
They do know about condoms, what works to take care
In Botswana girls allow him to realize the “power of education in health to save lives”
This principle would be the basis for Young 1ove
Young 1ove scales proven innovations that focus on education
Girls (any subject really) should be able to internalize risks and measures to counter HIV (any threat really)
1ove is constantly working on identifying good programs that look scalable
Lots of partnership with public schools
Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia
16:58 To the next initiative and country and beyondA research based intervention in Kenya about education equipments and learning paths
Stephen: Befuddlingly simple
HIV awareness at school works best
A lot of models and iterations on members and collaborations
“There is a tension in academia between interesting and accurate”
Randomized trials in social and economic research tend to find ‘quirks’ that fail to prove themselves common across representative units
So, not all research is generalizable
Research that work across countries are gems
21:07 Presenting gems to noble fundersGovernments and partners
“We pay attention to the global donors scene”
There is growing interest with scaling proven research, with variations between the national and global interests
Global players invest in certifiable interventions, less experimental
Not many organizations are devoted to “rigorous learning”
Young 1ove needs to custom-fit their approach to the donor, sometimes “toning down” their innovation edge
A powerful learning is that there are economic incentives that effect education, sometimes negatively
In the HIV case, the arrival of antiretroviral medication “made having HIV less costly”
So education approaches tweak to highlight other costs (pregnancy, for example)
“Are we investing in rigorous learning?”
25:17 Will Young 1ove grow old into standard?The government of Botswana invests in ongoing intervention
It allows for learning
The ‘sugar daddy’ campaign keeps growing
The situation keeps changing, age difference remain but ages themselves are decreasing
Keeping the standing with the Botswanan government takes copious efforts
There is always a tension at the time of growing up
Believing in something versus the evidence to protect it
System development is very important, it involves large global institutions
Technical structures “in addition to people”
30:19 Noam pays attention to“The young people I work with. See what’s on the kids minds”. Many educational approaches are the result of ‘kids’ feedback
NGO with startup growth rates, going from nothing to something really big quickly: Mothers to Mothers, One Acre Fund, ProFam.
Above all, Youth First
Male circumcision research “is promising”
Behavioral change
