Benjamin DK Wood

Blogs by author

Making replication research relevant for international organizations: A 3ie-IFAD post-event conversation

After 6 years, 3ie’s replication programme is finishing its fourth round of 3ie-funded replication studies. In recognition of this round’s completion, 3ie and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) recently hosted a joint engagement event, Financial services for the poor programmes – verifying evidence for policymaking. Ben (3ie) and Michael (IFAD) co-hosted the event. At the event, 3ie’s current replication researchers presented their draft results.

Learning power lessons: verifying the viability of impact evaluations

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.

The role of replication in revising WHO guidelines: the case of TB and HIV co-infection

The World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on the timing of treatments for Tuberculosis (TB) and HIV co-infection have not been revised since 2011. New research findings suggest that they are due for an update.

Strengthening impact evaluation ecosystems by supporting local research teams

Building a culture of evidence is a tall order, one that demands the engagement of different stakeholders committed to evidence-informed policy. While we embed capacity-building activities in our grant programmes, we continue to explore alternative approaches beyond our grants to increase local researchers’ familiarity with impact evaluation, so the pool of research centers able to provide impact evaluation services in a given country expands.

What’s first for replication studies is what’s next for 3ie’s replication programme

Many consider pure replication, where the replication researcher starts with the original data set and writes code to recreate the published results according to the methods described in the publication, to be the second step in replication analysis. So, what is the first?