Birte Snilstveit

Birte Snilstveit
Designation: Director – Synthesis & Reviews and Head of 3ie London Office
Birte leads a dynamic team dedicated to the production and use of synthesised evidence to inform policy in low-and middle-income countries. She is the head of 3ie’s London office and as director, she is also part of 3ie’s senior management team.

Blogs by author

Securing and building peaceful societies: Where is the evidence and where is it missing?

It has been estimated that over 1.8 billion people, close to a quarter of the world’s population, live in fragile contexts (OECD, 2018). Given the current Covid-19 pandemic, it is likely that this number might rapidly increase, with unequal access to health services, decent jobs, and safe housing leading to growing mistrust and social unrest. Interventions that tackle the underlying causes of conflict and fragility – along with immediate responses to the pandemic – are therefore more relevant than ever.

How do electricity access interventions affect social outcomes? A forthcoming systematic review.

In 2017, around 89 per cent of the global population, predominantly based in high-income countries, were fortunate enough to have access to a reliable source of electricity and were able to go about their personal and professional lives without the risk of a power cut, let alone the prospect of having no electricity access at all.

Is it possible to combine capacity development with a rapid synthesis response to an evidence request?

Two of the most important and long standing challenges for evidence synthesis in international development are: 1) The need to provide timely (eg. rapid) responses to demands for evidence to inform decisions; 2) Developing capacity to do high-quality, policy-relevant syntheses, especially in L&MICs. At present these challenges are typically addressed in isolation.

Not missing the woods for the trees: mapping evidence gaps on land use and forestry programmes

Forest protection is among the most effective approaches we have to mitigate climate change. At the same time, agricultural land and forests provide food, livelihoods and fuel for billions of people globally, particularly in low and middle-income countries (L&MICs). At the same time there are concerns that large-scale forest protection programming will have negative knock-on effects on food security and other aspects of human well-being.

If you want your study included in a systematic review, this is what you should report

Impact evaluation evidence continues to accumulate, and policymakers need to understand the range of evidence, not just individual studies. Across all sectors of international development, systematic reviews and meta-analysis (the statistical analysis used in many systematic reviews) are increasingly used to synthesise the evidence on the effects of programmes.