A year after 3ie and our partners launched the Global Evidence Commitment, we regrouped under the same roof in October to discuss each of our journeys on this critical path so far. It was an opportunity to appraise each other and take stock of the promise and progress of the pledge. We saw ‘in action’ the strong value of in-person information sharing among similar-minded organizations and heard descriptions of promising reforms as well as challenges, including inter alia:

• The adoption of new requirements on cost evidence
• New interfaces and tools to access databases of existing evaluation evidence
• Significant new resources for cost evidence in some cases, but significant challenges to access resources for evidence generation in others
• Examples of assessments and independent evaluations of organizational measures to improve the use of evidence with helpful insights
• An agreement among the organizations that among the levers in the TRIPS framework, measures that address the incentives of individual staff to care for and use evidence are the most difficult to tackle

The opening remarks by USAID Chief Economist Dr Dean Karlan provided great insight into the Agency’s approach to institutionalizing evidence use. We heard about the touchstones for our keynote reformer’s efforts:

• Maintain a clear North Star: recall the moral imperative that if this work is not done as cost competitively as possible, the impacts to improve people’s lives will be less than they could be
• Imbue staff with “cost-effectiveness as a way of thinking”
• Always challenge ourselves and others to consider the cost of not using evidence
• Appreciate the importance of developing networks of evidence champions

When we started the Global Evidence Commitment last year, we didn’t know how much traction it would get. We are extremely pleased to see the strong commitment, the sense of urgency among many partner organizations, and look forward to welcoming more organizations as we learn how to function well as a movement and network!

Marie Gaarder
Executive Director, 3ie

Read about the GEC | Watch GEC partners talk about their use of TRIPS

The GEC signatories include the Inter-American Development Bank, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Germany’s KfW Development Bank, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Evidence Dialogues | Doing the right thing right: how to ensure development research complies with transparency, reproducibility, and ethical standards



Our upcoming Evidence Dialogues on the special issue of 3ie’s Journal of Development Effectiveness is part of our objective to ensure transparency and ethics in impact evaluations. The authors of the special issue will present their papers and discuss key challenges and takeaways for transparency and ethics in evidence generation. The speakers will also talk about the new measures taken by the Journal to ensure these aspects are prioritized in the research we publish.

14 November | 8.30 am EDT

Register here | Read more here

Read about the special issue in this blog

3ie’s Transparency, Reproducibility, and Ethical Evidence (TREE) initiative promotes generation of credible evidence that is aligned with ethical practices. As part of this effort, our TREE Review Framework—a public good designed to complement the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process—helps research teams evaluate and document the ethical considerations inherent in social science research. Read more about it here. 

Featured
Evidence on reintegration programs for ex-detainees



Ex-detainees face challenges in securing stable jobs and economic security, especially as conflicts in African regions increase their numbers. Effective reintegration programs are essential, as seen in Côte d'Ivoire’s Civic Service of Action for Employment and Development initiative, which aimed to support ex-combatants and ex-detainees. A recent review by 3ie’s WACIE team sheds light on evidence gaps in these interventions and offers key recommendations for better policymaking.

Read the brief.

This rapid response brief is part of 3ie’s West Africa Capacity-building and Impact Evaluation (WACIE) program that supports and promotes the culture of evidence-informed decision-making among high-level policymakers across eight countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). 

Featured
Key insights on enhancing viability and impact of women’s collective enterprises 



3ie’s Swashakt program, supported by Gates Foundation, has provided valuable insights into setting up and scaling women’s collective enterprises across different regions and industries. Under the Swashakt program, our projects focused on women’s collectives across India—some tested innovative enterprise models, others tested new interventions with existing enterprise models, while a few aimed to scale up successful models.

The innovative enterprise models included five pilot projects implemented in the states of Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, and West Bengal and focused on retail and the production of farm-based inputs, farm-based value-added products, and non-farm products. It was an opportunity to better understand factors influencing the set-up of women’s collective enterprise support models across different geographic contexts and business areas. In collaboration with LEAD at Krea University, 3ie monitored the projects to assess their viability and gathered learnings on successful models for empowering women entrepreneurs in diverse contexts. 
 
Read working paper | Read brief | Read about Swashakt

3ie in the News | Financial Times spotlights underfunding in key research areas

In a recent opinion piece titled ‘‘Known unknowns’, or how to plug the gaps in public research’, economic journalist Tim Harford emphasizes the need to address lack of funding in key research areas and to ensure greater support for publicly-available resources and repositories that offer evidence.

He shines a light on 3ie and our Development Evidence Portal and says: “The Portal is very much in the spirit of Archie Cochrane’s organised critical summary of all relevant trials — but it struggles for steady funding.” He quotes 3ie’s Executive Director Marie Gaarder to highlight that the entire portal can be run for a year at a cost of less than a typical impact evaluation. The piece stresses the advantages of evidence synthesis, especially because “By bringing together relevant research in the right way, systematic reviews can help to answer policymakers’ questions.”

Read the full piece here

Visit the Development Evidence Portal

Short survey | Help us make our website better for you 



At 3ie, we are constantly striving to improve our website to offer you the best possible experience. To help us achieve this, we would greatly appreciate your feedback. We have created a short survey that should take no more than 6-8 minutes of your time.

Your insights and suggestions are invaluable to us and will directly contribute towards:

• Identifying areas of improvement to make our website more user-friendly.
• Understanding your needs and preferences better, allowing us to tailor our content and features to serve you better.
• Prioritizing new features and updates based on your feedback, ensuring we focus on what matters most to you.