Throughout my professional life I have been asking myself whether what I am doing matters – how can I make a difference? Not once a year, not once every two months – but frequently. Having worked in the development research and evaluation field for most of my career, you can imagine that what follows such a question is not a straight answer but rather a long string of arguments around the meaning of ‘matters’ – matters for whom? By how much? How directly? And what if it matters immensely but I don’t know about it? Or what about if I contribute to global public goods that only get recognized after I am gone – can what I do matter ex-ante? This was my internal debate during the first day of a summer road trip, that prompted me to enquire about what motivates my fellow evaluators and development researchers and what makes them stay in the field.

So, I took to social media to conduct a survey. I did not do an anonymous survey, partly because it would still be subject to self-identification and self-selection biases, and partly because I hoped that more people would participate if they saw others doing so. I was also interested in seeing how respondents engaged with others’ answers. The options were based either on my own reasons at some point during my career or reasons I know have been common among my colleagues.
 

To date there have been 95 responses and around 13K impressions, more than expected. Given the public nature of the survey, I expected most people to identify one of the socially desirable reasons: those that relate to the skillsets (option 5 on methods), insights (option 8 on understanding the world) or impacts (option 6 on improved development effectiveness).

And many did. With respondents often choosing two or three of these in combination. What was more surprising was the many respondents who volunteered the more ‘mundane ’ reasons relating to having good and flexible employment (options 1, 2, 3, 4, 7) as additional or main reasons. I think as a community and one of the employers in the field we expect to see evaluation and research as a passion and a calling but undersell the more practical benefits of our work, including being flexible about where you work from.

The most frequent response was number 6: I want to help others do good, better (i.e. improve development effectiveness). While other reasons have changed over time for me, this one has remained constant. I know that it is what drives me to engage with research and advocate for its use, and to invest time and effort to better understand and influence institutional cultures of evidence use and critical thinking. It is what led to the development of 3ie’s TRIPS framework and how we are trying to push the agenda forward through the Global Evidence Commitment.

So, for those respondents who showed some disillusionment or doubt as to how our field can make a difference on the ground, I hope you will engage with us in our efforts to change institutional cultures.  
I added an additional reason in a later post. This one did not get any traction. I do want to highlight it, though, as I realized that this continues to be one of my main motivators, especially on days when I wonder about the bigger effects of what we do, namely, that evaluators and development researchers tend to be wonderful and passionate colleagues to work with!

I wrote this note on the last day of the summer road trip, hoping that the net positive impact of my blog can count as a carbon offset…

Marie Gaarder
Executive Director, 3ie

Featured 
Latest evidence on the effects of food systems interventions on women’s empowerment 



Our latest rapid synthesis helps understand the impact of food systems and nutrition interventions on women's empowerment by analysing available high-quality evidence in this area. In the analysis, covering 42 programs in 19 countries, we find that the most examined interventions relate to the food supply chain, followed by consumer behaviour and food environment interventions.

Our meta-analyses reveal a small yet statistically significant positive effect of several food systems and nutrition interventions on some women's empowerment outcomes. For example, food supply chain interventions, demonstrated moderate effects on collective action, leadership, empowerment indices, and access to economic resources. Consumer behaviour interventions also showed positive impacts on economic resource access and decision-making.

Read blog | Read policy brief | Read summary report 

300 new studies added to 3ie’s Living Food Systems and Nutrition E&GM

This rapid synthesis analyses evaluations identified in 3ie’s first living food systems and nutrition evidence gap map (E&GM)—supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)—and has allowed us to fill some of the key evidence gaps identified over the last three years.
In our eighth and final update of the E&GM, we have included studies that evaluate some areas previously identified as gaps, including gender-transformative interventions and food loss outcomes. It now contains a total of 3,218 studies.

Read blog | Read update #8 | Read webpage

Interested in learning more about the evidence on nutrition? Check out our Development Evidence Portal (DEP), which is one of the largest repositories of high-quality studies that can be filtered by interventions, outcomes, methods, and in many other ways. You can find more than 2,700 impact evaluations, 200+ systematic reviews and four evidence gap maps related to nutrition!

Coming soon | Upcoming research opportunities at the FCDO Research Commissioning Centre

UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has announced an upcoming opportunity through the Research Commissioning Centre (RCC) to study the effects of climate change and climate variability on water resources in Uruguay.

The research seeks to expand the body of evidence on water resource degradation and the impact of climate change on surface and groundwater resources. The project also seeks to formulate policy recommendations for a sustainable water management strategy for the region.

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The RCC is managed by 3ie and the University of Birmingham. You can learn more about it here or sign up to receive updates here

Featured
Understanding the evidence on sexual and reproductive health and rights interventions 


There is a significant and growing evidence base on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) that decision-makers can draw from. To make this more accessible and identify gaps where more research is needed, we mapped more than 1,000 studies looking at a broad range of SRHR interventions and outcomes across multiple populations in low- and middle-income countries and regions. We found:

• Over half of impact evaluations (IEs) focused on maternal and newborn care.
• Few studies focused on people who experience vulnerability and marginalization—a critical gap in understanding whether SRHR programs help enable universal access or choice.
• There are 249 studies with interventions or outcomes related to contraception and family planning.

Read findings blog | Read EGM brief | Read EGM report | View webpage

Featured
Capacity strengthening training initiative across the globe 


As an organization leading evidence generation for development effectiveness and promoting its access and use globally, one of the 3ie priorities is to share capacity with partners in low- and middle-income countries. We design and conduct capacity development workshops for implementing partners, policymakers, and researchers that incorporate a mix of theory and real-world application.

• For evaluators and researchers: We deliver intermediate and advanced courses to expand their knowledge of evaluation and synthesis methods and their applications, including cost-effectiveness analysis, transparency and reproducibility, as well as using remote-sensing data.
• For other stakeholders: We provide introductory courses on impact evaluation and evidence synthesis and how these tools can be incorporated into their work.

 We adapt and customize our training services to meet our partners' learning goals and develop new curricula based on their needs. Reach out to us at info@3ieimpact.org to know more about our modules and how we can deliver these to best fit your learning requirements.

Read more about our training initiative work.

Featured
Enabling policy evolution and innovation to enhance livelihoods in rural India 


Policymakers interact with and adapt to the changing ground realities to ensure policies remain relevant and effective—and the vital role played by evidence-informed decisions in this process cannot be overemphasized. The National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), one of India’s largest social welfare programs—which 3ie is evaluating—and its transformation is a case in point. The program has embraced innovation and transformation with the aim to address constraints and enable an environment for income generation and empowerment.

3ie, in partnership with Vrutti Livelihood Partners, undertook the first large-scale evaluation of NRLM in 2019 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We are now engaged in a second-round evaluation that will provide evidence on World Bank-funded National Rural Economic Transformation Project (NRETP) implemented under the NRLM.

Read blog | Read working paper | View webpage

Latest issue | Journal of Development Effectiveness 



This year’s second issue as part of Volume 16 includes articles focusing on studies that look at under-age marriage prevention, pandemic control and its relation with economic development, content knowledge level of teachers, labour force participation and adolescent girls, effects of participatory learning interventions on women’s health, sanitation and nutrition outcomes, technology gaps in the tea industry and machine learning techniques.

Articles in this issue:

• Edutainment and the prevention of under-age marriages: The evaluation of a television series designed to promote positive role models in Bangladesh
• The trade-off between economic development and pandemic control: strategy identification and effect analysis
• Inadequate teacher content knowledge and what could be done about it: evidence from El Salvador
• Adolescent girls’ agency and their labour force participation: experimental evidence from rural Bangladesh
• Effects of a large-scale participatory learning and action programme in women’s groups on health, nutrition, water, sanitation, and hygiene: a cluster-randomised controlled trial in Bihar, India
• Technical efficiency and technology gap in Kenya’s tea industry: accounting for farm heterogeneity
• Grow the pie, or have it? Using machine learning to impact heterogeneity in the ultra-poor graduation model

 To submit an article to the journal, please read the guidance here.