IE Short Course at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM)
Prof Ashu Handa and Dr. Paul Sirma facilitating a session
P3 Africa in collaboration with University of Dar es Salaam School of Economics (UDSE) held a five day training on Impact Evaluation at the University of Dar es Salaam, New Library Auditorium Room from 25th September to 29th September 2023. The training was facilitiated by Prof Ashu Handa, Dr Paul Sirma and Dr. Marlous de Milliano from AIR
Dr. Beatrice Mkenda, Dean at the School of Economics, University of Dar es Salaam officiating the training
The training was officiated by Prof. Beatrice Mkenda, Dean School of Economics. During the officiating address, Prof. Mkenda expressed the gratitude and thanks from UDSE and called for more capacity building programs from the AIR.
“… the memorandum of understanding such as this, offers a big opportunity, not only to our postgraduate students, but also to the members of staff. Our students are receiving extracurricular training, which are outside the course outlines, but very essential when they are writing their dissertation. It is also a major contribution towards timely completing of their studies at the University of Dar es Salaam….. “ said Prof. Mkenda.
Prof. Mkenda added that in the future, it is important for similar training to be organized for the members of academic staff, as part of the retooling of analytical skills and research and consultancy enhancement.
Dr. Marlous de Milliano facilitating a session
The training was attended by sixty (60) participants, mostly postgraduate students and recently graduated PhDs from different higher learning institutions selected from over 100 applicants.
“… the training has been organized from the MOU that School of Economics has with AIR. Within the MOU, AIR is developing and delivering opportunities for graduate students in the aspect of education and training; mentoring and networking and paid internships…” says Dr Stephen Kirama, Coordinator of the AIR-UDSE Capacity Building project.
Dr Kirama mentioned that the MOU will run for one year and currently we already have seven (7) postgraduate students who have been allocated mentors from different universities in the world, apart from their supervisors in the home University
Prof. Ashu with some of the participants from the workshop
There have also been two webinar learnings on Building Presentation Skills: Effective Design and Delivery to Communicate your Research delivered by Shayna Trujillo, Learning and Development Specialist at AIR; and Wehmah Jones, Principal Researcher at AIR and on Technical Introduction to Evidence Synthesis: How to Find and Present Evidence for a Research Topic done by Hannah Ring, Principal Researcher at AIR, Andi Coombes, Senior Researcher at AIR, and Chinmaya Holla, Researcher at AIR.
“… we are expecting this initiative will speed up the writing of dissertations by our students, and they should be able to finish their PhDs on time and within the allocated time of five years for the program…. Not finishing on time has increasingly become a barrier for many students undertaking PhD in Economics by Coursework and Dissertation and we believe that this initiative will be quite an added advantage to our students..” says Dr Kirama.
Gift giving by one of the workshop participants Alphoncina Kagaigai to Dr. Marlous de Milliano
Students were overwhelmed by the training and could not hide to express their satisfaction at the end of the training by organizing an award giving ceremony to the trainers and the coordinator of the training.
The training covered the potential outcomes framework, threats to validity, difference in difference model and extensions, randomized control trials, discontinuity designs, propensity score matching and instrumental variables. Others were power analysis and sampling, natural experiments and interrupted time series, while the afternoons were dedicated to Stata hands on with a number of case studies from Ghana, Malawi and Zambia.
“… During the lifetime of our MOU with AIR, we are looking forward to an additional training on Panel Data Modelling. This training is crucial as it will help our graduate students to delve more on panel data analysis, which is highly relevant as Tanzania has four waves of a national panel data survey… “ concluded Dr. Kirama.