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HIV testing coverage in sub-Saharan Africa is lower among men than women. We investigated the impact of a peer-delivered U = U (undetectable equals untransmittable) message on men’s HIV testing uptake through a cluster randomised trial with individual mobile clinic days as unit of randomisation. On standard of care (SOC) days, peer promoters informed men about the availability of HIV testing at the mobile clinic. On intervention days, peer promoters delivered U = U messages. We used logistic regression adjusting for mobile clinic location, clustering by study day, to determine the percentage of invited men who tested for HIV at the mobile clinic. Peer promoters delivered 1048 invitations over 12 days. In the SOC group, 68 (13%) of 544 men invited tested for HIV (3, 4.4% HIV-positive). In the U = U group, 112 (22%) of 504 men invited tested for HIV (7, 6.3% HIV-positive). Men in the U = U group had greater odds of testing for HIV (adjusted odds ratio = 1.89, 95% CI 1.21–2.95; p = 0.01). Tailored, peer-delivered messages that explain the benefits of HIV treatment in reducing HIV transmission can increase men’s HIV testing uptake.

The authors thank the World Food Programme and the World Bank Research Committee for financial support. We acknowledge the Government of Lao PDR and the Ministry of Education for their support of this research. We particularly thank Ms. Yangxia Lee of the Ministry of Education. The Department of Statistics provided crucial fieldwork and data management services, under the expert guidance of Dr. Samayachan Boupha, Mr. Thipsavanh Intharack, and Mr. Khamphanh Chaleunphonh. The World Food Programme Country Office in Vientiane provided support and technical expertise throughout the study. We are also indebted to our Survey Director, Robert McLaughlin. All findings, interpretation, and conclusions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not represent the view of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent, nor do they reflect the view of the World Food Programme. Despite the popularity and widespread implementation of school feeding programs, evidence of their impact on school participation and nutritional status is mixed. In this study we evaluate feeding programs in three districts of the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Feeding modalities included on-site feeding, take-home rations, and a combined modality. District-level implementation of the intervention sites and selective take-up presented considerable evaluation challenges. To address these, we use difference-indifference estimators with propensity-score weighting to construct plausible counterfactuals. We find minimal evidence that school feeding increased enrolment or improved nutritional status. Several robustness checks and possible explanations for null findings are presented.

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There is growing interest in impact evaluation in the humanitarian and development sectors. Several recent reports have identified post-disaster impact evaluation (PDIE) as a particular challenge and galvanised interest in pushing the field forward. This paper reviews existing work, synthesises a set of guiding principles and analytic frameworks for PDIE, and applies those to a design for the evaluation of recovery programmes following the 2005 Pakistan earthquake. The paper contributes to ongoing discussions of impact assessment within the humanitarian sector while also introducing impact evaluation practitioners to the challenges of conducting quality impact evaluations in post-disaster settings.impact evaluation, Pakistan, earthquake, disaster, relief, recovery,