NORC at the University of Chicago designed two related impact evaluations of USAID Tanzania's Strengthening Media and Informational Environment Initiative, which was established to improve the quality of journalism, especially regarding women and youth voices and issues. Both assessments aim to improve the state of journalism training and media reporting in Tanzania and to create robust information flows. The two-part impact evaluation design builds on the preliminary design concepts developed in the 2017 DRG IE Clinic following a scoping trip to Tanzania by an impact evaluation team with expertise in democracy and governance issues. 

Following independence, Tanzania had few local journalists, and the reporting environment was highly restricted under a one-party regime. Since the election of the recent government in 2016, the media environment has been closing again. A rich, professional, and independent media environment is a widely recognized ingredient of a functioning democracy. The media can only fulfill such a function if it does not systematically exclude portions of the population--historically women, youth, the poor, and rural villagers. 

The first planned impact evaluation comprised training university students in practical investigative journalism for audio production and gender sensitivity to strengthen their ability to produce higher quality, more diverse, and attractive content regarding rural, youth, and women's issues. 

The second planned impact evaluation comprised an experimental evaluation of how viewers respond to investigative journalistic content when delivered in different formats (including "edutainment" and investigative journalism).

The full program implementation was scheduled for the summer of 2019 and endline research was planned for the beginning of 2020 but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.