Many agricultural and environmental technologies require upfront investments. This may deter adoption, particularly in settings characterized by information, liquidity, and credit constraints. We test for these barriers to the adoption of an agricultural technique that helps address land degradation in Niger. We find little evidence that liquidity or credit constraints deter adoption: instead, providing farmers with training increases the share of adopters by over 90 percentage points. Conditional or unconditional cash transfers have no additional effect. Adoption increases agricultural output and reduces land turnover in the longer term. In our setting, training provides both specific technical knowledge and addresses behavioral constraints.

African elections often reveal low levels of political accountability. We assess different forms of voter education during an election in Mozambique. Three interventions providing information to voters and calling for their participation were randomized: an information campaign using SMS, an SMS hotline for electoral misconduct, and the distribution of a free newspaper. To measure impact, we look at official electoral results, reports by electoral observers, and behavioral and survey data. We find positive effects of all treatments on voter turnout. However, only the distribution of the free newspaper led to more accountability-based participation and to a decrease in electoral problems.