Systematic review on self-help groups informs the Gates Foundation’s strategy on gender equality

A recent systematic review by Brody and colleagues examined the effectiveness of economic self-help group programmes on women’s empowerment. The authors found that they had impacts on political, economic and social dimensions of empowerment, and no impacts on psychological empowerment. They did not find any evidence of adverse effects on the likelihood of domestic violence.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s gender equality strategy focuses on transforming the way poor women and girls participate in the economy. They have developed an empowerment model to guide their investments on women and girls’ empowerment, as well as implementation of strategic goals, and to measure progress. It defines agency, resources and institutional structures as key elements. Findings from the 3ie-funded review have been cited as critical elements in improving women’s agency, and for transforming power relations through collective action.

Impact evaluation reports: Hotspot interventions at scale: the effects of policing and city services on crime in Bogotá, Colombia; Impacts of Breakthrough’s school-based gender attitude change programme in Haryana, India; Impact of voice reminders to reinforce harvest aggregation services training for farmers in Mali; and Impacts of removing user fees for maternal health services on universal health coverage in Kenya

Impact evaluation briefs: Capacity building of smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya through extension services and market linkages,and Improving irrigation access in Madagascar

Replication papers: Mobile money and its impact on improving living conditions in Niger: a replication study; Impact of unconditional cash transfers: a replication study of the short-term effects in Kenya; and Cash and change: a replication study of a cash transfer experiment in Malawi

• From starting up to taking off: Howard White shares his vision on why 3ie’s largest office is in India, why we require substantive involvement of developing country researchers on teams we fund, and why our studies answer policy questions of interest to local decision makers. He also talks about 3ie’s contribution to the evidence architecture and in promoting research transparency.
• From take-off to cruising through an ever-changing world: Emmanuel Jimenez describes where we have adapted and expanded our work, including on measuring evidence use, promoting research transparency and ethics, and establishing partnerships for capacity development.

Where are the evidence gaps in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector? Hannah Chirgwin presents findings from the updated 3ie WASH evidence gap map. She highlights the growing body of evidence that exists in the sector, how the patterns in research have shifted over the last ten years, and where we still need new primary impact evaluations and synthesis work.

Field notes on latrine use promotion in Odisha, India Neeta Goel and Radhika Menon joined programme implementers from Emory University and Gram Vikas for a learning exchange to understand what works and what does not in sanitation behaviour change programmes. They outline key lessons that can inform improvements in sanitation policy.

Residential workshop on advances in social and behaviour science research, Gurugram, India, 4-8 March

In collaboration with other organisations, Sehgal Foundation is organising a five-day residential workshop on conducting and publishing empirical social and behavioural science research. The event is for social scientists, development researchers, faculty, research scholars and students from behaviour science disciplines. Neeta Goel and Francis Rathinam will facilitate a session on conducting evaluation research with secondary data.

Community matters: heterogeneous impacts of a sanitation intervention, London, UK, 6 March

Britta Augsburg (Institute of Fiscal Studies) will discuss the results of a study on the effectiveness of a community-level information intervention aimed at reducing open defecation and increasing sanitation investments in Nigeria. Register here.

9th African Evaluation Association Conference, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, 11-15 March

3ie staff will conduct a panel session on building evidence on agricultural innovations, as well as present initial findings from 3ie’s scoping study on evaluation capacity and opportunities in West Africa. We will also be co-hosting workshops on evidence use, on improving capacity development approaches and using adult learning principles in capacity development. We hope to see you there. Click here to register and sign up for workshops. Visit the official webpage for more information.

Save the date!
3ie and World Bank IEG’s conference on citizen engagement and accountable government, Washington DC, 8 April

This one-day conference marks the beginning of the 3ie Washington Evidence Week, which includes a series of internal and public events. Sign up to receive updates.

3ie evidence impact stories

3ie-funded impact evaluations and systematic reviews have generated useful evidence that have informed numerous changes to development policies and programmes, steered global discussions and strengthened the culture of evaluation. We compiled some of these stories into a short video, click here to watch.


 

Promoting evidence-informed decision-making in Uganda

3ie and Uganda’s Office of the Prime Minister have been working together to strengthen the national monitoring and evaluation system and develop capacities to produce and use evidence. Watch this video to see how evaluation findings have already informed changes in the design and implementation of major government programmes.


 

7th Uganda Evaluation Week, Kampala, 11-15 February

3ie staff participated in a five-day conference, organised in partnership with Uganda’s Office of the Prime Minister, 3ie, Campbell and Twende Mbele. It brought together policymakers, government officials, civil society members, development partners, monitoring and evaluation practitioners and researchers to share evaluation experiences. In his inaugural address, Ugandan Prime Minister, Ruhakana Rugunda, mentioned how the 3ie-funded evaluation of Uganda’s community-based public information programme has been successful in collating citizens’ feedback on the utilisation of public funds.

In opening ceremony remarks, Beryl Leach (3ie) called for greater collaboration among development partners to strengthen evaluation and evidence use. Howard White (Campbell Collaboration) announced the first-ever Uganda-focused evidence gap map, on which 3ie has collaborated. Later in the week, Marie Gaarder (3ie) delivered a keynote speech on entering an age of ‘evaluation for grown-ups’, and the need to be increasingly careful in our interpretation of evaluation findings.

3ie staff organised panel discussions on evaluating community engagement approaches on governance and livelihoods; emerging results from an evaluation of the youth livelihoods programme; capacity development for strengthening use of evidence in the Ugandan Government; and evaluating the impact of interventions targeted at children. 3ie also organised a well-attended workshop on promoting evidence use through stakeholder engagement and by producing effective policy briefs. Read highlights of the sessions here.