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October and December 2015   Making Evidence matter
New funding opportunities
New funding window: Development Priorities
3ie seeks expressions of interest for proposals for impact evaluations of interventions in environment, governance, infrastructure and public finance in low-and middle-income countries. The aim is to fill the evidence gaps in these sectors, while informing the delivery and effectiveness of programmes to achieve relevant Sustainable Development Goals. The deadline for the first phase of proposals is 18 January 2016. For more information, see here.
Grant award updates
Policy Window, Education in Rwanda
We have awarded a proposal preparation grant to Laterite Ltd to design an impact evaluation to measure the outcomes of a programme led by the Ministry of Education.

Policy Window, Access to sustainable domestic fuel in Senegal
We have awarded a proposal preparation grant to Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung for an impact evaluation of a programme on household access to domestic fuel implemented by the Ministry of Energy.

Philippines Country Policy Window, Peacebuilding
We have awarded a proposal preparation grant to the University of Mannheim for an impact evaluation of the government’s national programme and framework for peace and development (PAMANA). 3ie has also awarded an impact evaluation grant to Innovations for Poverty Action for the evaluation of the Department of Labor and Employment’s special programme for the employment of students.

Thematic Window, Agriculture innovation
We have awarded two impact evaluation grants, one to the International Food Policy Research Institute for testing innovative models of extension in Cambodia's Agriculture Services Programme for Innovation, Resilience and Extension programme and the second one to the University of Sydney for an impact assessment of the East Africa Market Development Associates’ banana initiative, which aims to increase technology adoption by smallholder farmers in Kenya.

Thematic Window, Transparency and accountability
We have awarded five impact evaluation grants:

  • Community monitoring of socio-environmental liabilities with advanced technologies in Ecuador and Peru: evidence from a randomised controlled trial using high-frequency dataawarded to the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University
  • On the mechanics of the political resource curse: information and local elite behaviour in Mozambique awarded to NOVAFRICA
  • An impact assessment of stakeholder engagement interventions in Ugandan oil extractives awarded to Business Community Synergies
  • Harnessing transparency initiatives to improve India’s environmental clearance process awarded to the Institute for Financial Management and Research
  • Behavioural responses to information on contaminated drinking water: randomised evidence from the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon awarded to International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University

 

Thematic Window, Improving adolescents’ lives in South Asia
We have awarded three proposal preparation grants to design impact evaluations of initiatives aimed at improving adolescents’ lives in South Asia. The grants to design impact evaluations for India and Pakistan go to the University of Mannheim, while Johns Hopkins University gets the grant for Afghanistan.

Systematic Reviews
3ie has contracted three teams to produce systematic reviews that will synthesise evidence on the following topics:

  • To what extent has the water supply, sanitation and hygiene sub-sector taken into account the lifecycle approach in the design, implementation, maintenance and use of programmes during the Millennium Development Goal period (2000-2015)? Contracted to the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India.
  • Behaviour change in sanitation and hygiene promotion programme, contracted to the Belgium Red Cross.
  • What is the comparative efficiency and effectiveness of providing humanitarian non-food item in-kind distributions versus cash and vouchers in the immediate aftermath and recovery period following natural disasters and political instability? Contracted to Kimetrica, Kenya.

 
3ie members and partners
New members: Ministry of Public Health, Government of Cameroon and National Economic and Development Authority, Government of the Philippines
New associate members: Novell Community Development Solutions, Canada and CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems, Jordan
New partners: African School of Economics, Benin and International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development,Nepal
Evidence uptake and use from 3ie-funded studies
Integrating successful experiments into programming
The graduation from ultra-poverty programme aims to improve the economic status of the very poor by enabling them to build businesses and move towards self-sufficiency. Adapted from BRAC’s targeting the ultra-poor programme, the 3ie-funded study looked at the impact of the programme in Ghana, as part of a larger six-country evaluation. The evaluation found that the programme increased consumption, assets and savings among participating households. There was an increase in basic entrepreneurial activities, which enabled the poor to work more evenly across the year. Unlike psychosocial well-being, these economic impacts were found to be lasting. Encouraged by the results, the Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Protection in Ghana is keen to integrate the graduation model into the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty programme as it expands it to new districts in 2015.
3ie at events
3ie Delhi Evidence Week
3ie launched its first evidence week in Delhi 5-8 October with a keynote lecture by Manny Jimenez, 3ie executive director, Learning for BRICS- or why countries like India can love impact evaluations. A number of public panel sessions followed. Doing and using impact evaluations: what does it take? brought together researchers and implementing agencies to talk about their work on 3ie-funded studies. Experts on the panel, Impact evaluations: are they ready to tackle development problems? discussed how impact evaluations can meet the needs of policymakers and the challenges and opportunities in ensuring that they are timely and useful. Researchers working with large quantities of open data discussed opportunities for using them in a panel, Data: Big, open and rapid. 3ie took up the challenge of going beyond rhetoric and calls for more gender-responsive evaluation and got eight expert evaluators and practitioners to share how they design and implement such evaluations and the challenges they face in the talk show session on Gender: New lenses for better evidence: experience sharing on how gender sensitivity can be designed and implemented in impact evaluations.

For more information on the Delhi Evidence Week, click here
New 3ie publications
3ie Replication Paper 8: Male circumcision and HIV acquisition: reinvestigating the evidence from young men in Kisumu, Kenya
The replication researchers, who used a pure replication, found very similar results to the original paper. That paper is one of the three publications used to support voluntary medical male circumcision scale-up in eastern and southern Africa. Read more here
3ie Replication Paper 9: The effects of land titling on the urban poor: a replication of property rights for the poor
The authors of this study replicated the results of an influential 2010 study on property rights. In the pure replication, the replication researchers reproduced the original authors’ statistical procedures. Confirmation of the robustness of these original results helps affirm the importance of the original study. Read more here
3ie Scoping Paper 4: The state of evidence on the impact of transferable skills programming on youth in low- and middle-income countries
This paper catalogues the body of impact evaluation evidence for transferable skills interventions for youth in low- and middle-income countries. Transferable skills, also referred to as soft or life skills, provide youth with critically needed tools to succeed in terms of employment, health and personal well-being. Read more here
3ie Evidence Gap Map Report 2: Youth and transferable skills: an evidence gap map
The evidence gap map report was presented at various summits, includingthe International Conference on Sustainable Development, the Global Youth and Economic Opportunities Summit and the Youth Employment Funders Group via webinar. Read more here
An interactive evidence gap map accompanies this report.
3ie Impact Evaluation Report 27: What happens once the intervention ends? The medium-term impacts of a cash transfer programme in Malawi
The study evaluates the impacts of the two-year long Zomba cash transfer programme and its lasting effects on education, marriage and fertility, health and nutrition, and sexual behaviour of school-going girls and young women. Read more here
3ie Impact Evaluation Report 20: Impacts of payments for ecosystem services programme in Mexico
The authors examined the environmental and socio-economic impacts of Mexico’s federal payments for a hydrological services programme. As part of the programme, payments were offered to landowners to maintain forest cover under five-year contracts. Read more here
3ie Impact Evaluation Report 24: The SASA! study: a cluster randomised trial to assess the impact of a violence and HIV prevention programme in Kampala, Uganda
The SASA! cluster randomised trial was conducted between 2008 and 2012 in two administrative divisions of Kampala. The results from this study showed that SASA! reduced the reported social acceptance of physical violence in relationships among both women and men. The intervention also increased the social acceptance of the belief that there are circumstances when a woman can refuse sex with her partner. Read more here
3ie Working Paper 24: Impact evaluation and policy decisions: where are we? A Latin American think tank perspective
This paper addresses questions that go to the heart of impact evaluation research. How much has the field achieved towards its goal of informing policies and programming? Which factors have been furthering or hindering this goal? Read more here
3ie Working Paper 25: Evaluations with impact: decision-focused impact evaluation as a practical policymaking tool
The authors suggest strategies for involving all stakeholders, increasing demand for and supply of decision-focused evaluations, effectually using knowledge-focused and decision-focused evaluation methods and incorporating other systems and considerations to maximise the social impact of impact evaluations. Read more here
Publications from 3ie-funded research
Daidone, S, Davis, B, Handa, S, Osei, R.D., Osei-Akoto, I and Park, M, 2015. Social Networks and Risk Management in Ghana’s Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme, Innocenti Working Papers 2015-06 from 3ie-funded study Livelihood empowerment against poverty program impact evaluation in Ghana
Useful resources
3ie has produced a video from the stakeholders’ roundtable on youth and transferable skills and another one on the youth and transferable skills evidence gap map.  
3ie in the news
3ie gap maps have been cited in this article in the international weekly journal Nature.

The Nigerian National Evaluation Conference, which took place in Abuja between 16-19 November in Abuja, culminated in the landmark Abuja Declaration on Evaluation The declaration recognises the importance of country-led monitoring and evaluation systems for the effective development of Nigeria. 3ie was one of the sponsors of the conference.

The 3ie-funded replication studies on deworming (here and here) along with responses from a systematic review team, the original authors, and the replication researchers, generated a significant amount of discussion in the development community around the research. Check out 3ie's blog about it here, and a general anthology of the various conversations here.

3ie has been cited in this article which looks at discussions that emerged from the Global Forum for Research and Innovation for Health, held in October in the Philippines. The article also appeared in SciDev.Net and MIT News.
New blog posts
Check out our latest blogs: Seven impact evaluations on demand creation for VMMC: how a focused thematic window can meet multiple evidence needs.
Visit the blog site to view all of our posts.
We regularly post announcements related to impact evaluations and systematic reviews of development programmes from other organisations, such as research grants, events, jobs and training programmes on our website and in our newsletter. Please email your announcements with a short blurb and web link to announcements@3ieimpact.org
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3ie is an international grant-making NGO promoting evidence-informed development policies and programmes. We are the global leader in funding and producing high-quality evidence of what works, how, why and at what cost. We believe that better and policy-relevant evidence will make development more effective and improve people’s lives.
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