Blogs

Over the past year, 3ie and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a founding partner of 3ie’s Global Evidence Commitment, co-produced two interactive evidence gap maps (EGMs): one on policing and citizen security, and one on transportation. Both are now publicly available, and their influence is already visible in how IDB teams design evaluations. This blog describes how that happened and what we learned along the way.

In far too many evaluations, the end of data collection is the last time that community members hear from the research team. Research participants generally don’t find out the results of the studies they participate in, a disconnect which has been cited as an ethical issue.

3ie has updated its 2023 Evidence Gap Map (EGM) on interventions aiming to address the root causes and drivers of irregular migration. The updated map, released in early 2026, now covers 105 impact evaluations and seven systematic reviews (published till 2025) and tells a familiar story: a growing evidence base, but one that remains uneven and fragmented, with persistent gaps across key intervention areas. 

Aid has always been shaped by donor interests, but development cooperation is now becoming more overtly interest-driven. Can development outcomes survive inside that new framing? In this blog, I highlight three key points and two boldish ideas I covered in my remarks at the recently-held OECD Conference on the Future of Development Cooperation. 

In a world of tighter budgets, geopolitical competition, and mounting pressure to demonstrate results, evidence and learning become more important, not less. What changes is the urgency with which we must deploy them.

Generative AI is increasingly becoming a part of researchers’ and analysts’ toolkits and reshaping how we design and deliver our work. But what does this mean for the international development community, particularly evaluators?