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The development sector has never had access to more evidence. Decades of impact evaluations, systematic reviews, evidence gap maps, and data systems have produced a substantial body of knowledge (see 3ie’s Development Evidence Portal) about what works, for whom, how, and under what conditions. And yet this evidence often fails to reach the decisions that matter most. Why?

At the height of uncertainty, many families arriving in Colombia faced a daily question: Will we eat today?

For Marisol, a mother of three, food was never just about hunger. It was about responsibility. In the early months after migrating, stretching the household budget required constant calculation. “Sometimes I reduced my own portions so my children could eat,” she recalls.

India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has emerged as a powerful driver of financial inclusion, transforming how people send and receive money and accounting for nearly 85% of all digital payments in 2025. Yet this rapid expansion has not benefited everyone equally. For many low-income women—especially those with limited digital access and literacy—bank accounts remain underused, savings stay informal, and digital payments feel out of reach, underscoring the gap between the availability of digital infrastructure and meaningful financial inclusion.

Policymakers, researchers and practitioners now have access to the most up-to-date rigorous evidence base on interventions addressing root causes and drivers of irregular migration, a field in which research continues to grow. The evidence base is available in our evidence gap map (EGM), first published in 2023, now updated with support from the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.