Advancing Impact: How DA Partnered with Five Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge Winning Cities in Latin America to Enhance Delivery

Developing Innovative Solutions for Problems at Hand

The Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge “is a competition designed to spark innovative, replicable ideas for improving cities, and the lives of people living in them, by encouraging leaders to think outside the box about how to confront their most difficult challenges.” In 2017, DA began partnering with five of the Program’s winning cities in Latin America to develop and sustain urban innovative projects in a range of sectors. The cities and their associated projects included:‍

• São Paulo, Brazil: supporting family farmers to boost income and control urban sprawl
• Santiago, Chile: developing a school-based program to decrease childhood obesity rates
• Medellín, Colombia: providing community-based loans and financial education to reduce illegal lending and promote financial inclusion
• Bogotá, Colombia: establishing walking groups to improve children’s safety on commutes to school
• Guadalajara, Mexico: creating Visor Urbano, an online platform designed to increase transparency of land use and expedite license application processing times

To Overcome Delivery Challenges, DA and Cities Partnered to Design Comprehensive Evaluations

Because these projects were the first of their kind in their respective regions, there was a lack of previous data and evidence regarding impact. Therefore, city teams initially relied on user perceptions and small-scale data collected in the field to improve design and solve implementation challenges. 

However, cities needed a more robust evaluation system to answer key questions about projects' effectiveness and user outcomes, and to provide compelling evidence in favor of projects’ long-term sustainability.

Bloomberg Philanthropies and DA partnered with city teams to introduce our signature methodology, Deliverology®, which provides tools and techniques for improved delivery. Specifically, DA worked with teams to:

• Build skills to define performance indicators and targets
• Prioritize actions
• Solve problems early
• Drive results

In 2019, after two years of design, DA and cities implemented quantitative analyses to assess project outcomes and inform future decision-making. By leveraging local partners’ expertise to execute the evaluations, we could focus on designing the evaluation strategy, recommending the best evaluation method, supporting operationalization in the field, and converting results into actionable recommendations. 

These progress measurements turned out to be a key component in guaranteeing projects’ sustainability and the effective use of public resources. Additionally, we considered local context, timing, and specific research questions for each project in order to propose a fit-for-purpose quantitative analysis.

Early Project Outcomes Highlighted Successes and Set the Stage for Delivery to Come

Evaluations showed the following results:

• São Paulo: This quasi-experimental approach revealed a 58% increase in participants’ adoption of sustainable agricultural practices.
• Santiago: One of the world’s largest interventions in childhood obesity, this randomized controlled trial included more than 2,000 students. It was found to prevent an average two pounds of weight gain among individual participants. 
• ‍Medellín: The propensity-score matching analysis included more than 600 microcredit project users; results showed a 58% decrease in the use of illegal loans. 
• Bogotá: An evaluation surveyed more than 400 walking group participants. Results demonstrated a 7% increase in childrens’ safety perception after participating in the flagship program.
• ‍Guadalajara: Before-and-after surveys identified a 74% reduction in corruption practices with the use of the urban licenses platform.

Quantifying results was essential for identifying drivers of success, discovering opportunities to improve project design, and building project momentum and scalability. Evaluation results helped support:

• Replication. Based on results, Guadalajara immediately adjusted its methodology and confidently expanded the project. Now, over 50 municipalities across the States of Jalisco and Hidalgo are replicating the Visor Urbano platform, which simplifies the application process for construction and business licenses, impacting roughly 11.3 million residents. In addition, +18,000 businesses have received permits through Visor Urbano, saving time and money.

• Optimization. Bogotá quickly fine-tuned walking groups’ operation and training methodology after adopting learnings from the evaluation. Children’s transportation walking groups are now a permanent city service.

• Scaling up. Medellín was able to guarantee resources and expand the microcredit project to reach new, vulnerable groups such as women, victims of violence, and farmers. Results also helped increase legitimacy and political buy-in. To learn more about the project, click here.

The Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge program and winning cities are delivering impact that counts for people all over the world. We at DA were excited to partner with Latin American cities to share our delivery expertise and support the important work already underway. 

DA has worked with governments, philanthropies, and multilaterals across the globe to drive results in health, education, climate change, and more. If you’re interested in partnering with us to reach your organization’s ambitious goals, start the conversation here.