The evidence-to-policy conundrum and how to solve it

David de Ferranti 09 April 2024 blog  
Does better evidence lead to better policies and programs? Massive amounts of reliable evidence, drawing on scientifically strong methods, including randomized controlled trials, mixed-methods approaches, and more, have been generated and disseminated in recent decades. A Nobel Prize has been awarded for that pathbreaking work. Yet the impact of that evidence – on what policymakers and program implementers think and do – has been far below expectations, even pitifully tiny according to some accounts. billion people.

Assessing the impact of policy and institutional reforms in international development

Carolyn Huang, Zeba Siddiqui, Douglas Glandon, Sayak Khatua, Aayush Malik 13 January 2022 blog  
For decades, development actors have recognized that good governance and solid country systems are essential for the effective delivery of well-designed, evidence-based interventions. A number of development organizations and initiatives have, therefore, emerged with explicit missions to strengthen the capacity and performance of publicly-mandated political and administrative institutional structures (for e.g., World Bank’s Global Governance practice and USAID Center for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance)

What is desirable vs. what is feasible: Producing evidence on peacebuilding programming

Tilman Brück, Andrea Cook, Björn Gehrmann, Kyle Jacques, Håvard Mokleiv Nygård, Marie Gaarder 21 October 2021 blog  
Measuring the impact of peacebuilding is different than measuring the impact of other types of programs. We should aim for a more evidence-based foreign policy and multilateral interventions, which might be able to propel us to new levels of global peace.

WACIE Helpdesk: A new source of support for evidence-informed decision-making in West Africa

Paul Thissen 24 May 2021 blog  
In the countries where the West Africa Capacity-building and Impact Evaluation (WACIE) program works, the gaps in evaluation experience are stark, as the program's scoping study found. Accordingly, the use of evidence in policymaking is limited. But the barrier is capacity, not interest – the same study found that the desire among policymakers and evaluation professionals for support and capacity building was nearly-universal.

Addressing the need for timely and reliable evidence in the time of COVID-19

Birte Snilstveit, Laurenz Langer, Tamara Lotfi 18 May 2020 blog  
The COVID-19 pandemic brings the importance of high-quality, timely and relevant evidence to the fore. Governments all over the world justify radical policies to control and manage the pandemic with reference to evidence.

Be careful what you wish for: cautionary tales on using single studies to inform policymaking

Emmanuel Jimenez 21 May 2019 blog  

For a development evaluator, the holy grail is to have evidence from one’s study be taken up and used in policy or programming decisions that improve people’s lives. It’s not easy. Decisions are based on many factors. The availability of evidence is just one of them. And of course, even when evidence is taken up, it does not mean that it will lead to the right decision.

Learning power lessons: verifying the viability of impact evaluations

Anna Heard, Benjamin DK Wood 11 June 2018 blog  

Learning from one’s past mistakes is a sign of maturity. Given that metric, 3ie is growing up. We now require pilot research before funding most full impact evaluation studies. Our pilot studies requirement was developed to address a number of issues, including assessing whether there is sufficient intervention uptake, identifying or verifying whether the expected or detectable effect is reasonable and determining the similarity of participants within clusters.

Implementing impact evaluations: trade-offs and compromises

Diana Milena Lopez Avila 03 August 2016 blog  

In June this year, 3ie and the International Fund for Agricultural Development organised a workshop where we had several productive discussions around two key questions: Are impact evaluations answering policy-relevant questions and generating useful evidence? What are the challenges faced in designing and implementing impact evaluations of cash transfers and agricultural innovation programmes?

Impact Evaluation: How the Wonkiest Subject in the World Got Traction

Ruth Levine 17 March 2016 blog  
Creating 3ie was the outcome of the Evaluation Gap Working Groupthat we led along with Nancy Birdsall to address the limited number of rigorous impact evaluation of public policies in developing countries. As CGD celebrates its 15th year, it is worth considering what made that working group so successful, the obstacles we confronted, and the work that still remains to be done.

Toward evidence-informed policies for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Howard White 04 August 2015 blog  

So, 2015 has arrived and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are to be replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But shouldn’t we stop and ask how we have done on the MDGs first? “How we have done” can be seen an outcome monitoring question: have the targets been reached? But since we have fallen far short on some targets, such as access to improved sanitation, we need to dig deeper and ask which policies have been successful in helping achieve the targets.