Working Group on New Evidence Tools for Policy Impact

June 01, 2021

The final report of the working group is available at www.CGDev.org/evidence-to-impact.

Following the release of the Center for Global Development report, When Will We Ever Learn: Improving Lives Through Impact Evaluation, and building on the rigorous impact evaluations of cash transfer programs in the 2000s, there has been over a decade of progress and action on implementing and using impact measurement for public policy decision-making. Alongside a steady increase in the number of published impact evaluations of programs and policies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), there is also a growing community of researchers and organizations from LMICs conducting these studies. There have also been a range of methodological developments, some of which have expanded the applications to new domains and some of which have increased the ability to derive inferences that make impact evaluation more policy-relevant. Further, the COVID-19 crisis has underscored the need for high-quality, timely, and context-specific evidence—for both effectiveness and political credibility.

Yet, impact evaluations—which are part of a knowledge system that captures relevant and timely information for decision-making—have gained variable traction overall. There are persistent challenges that limit the use of evidence by policymakers within LMIC governments, aid agencies, MDBs, and NGOs. For example, evaluation evidence is not always timely or generalizable; evaluations may lack relevance to public policy decisions and may not always align with decisionmakers’ priorities; and ways of working can lack context-specificity and immersion in the local policy process, among other challenges.

In response to these challenges and building on progress to date, CGD launched a working group to consider how the next generation of investments in impact evaluations—as part of the broader evidence and data ecosystem—can enhance their usefulness, responsiveness, and relevance for public policy decision-making. A renewed agenda is needed to help increase the efficiency of investments in impact evaluations so that they have the greatest chance of increasing the social and economic returns of public policies and programs.

Throughout the working group process from 2020 to 2022, CGD sought to highlight the perspectives and experiences of policymakers and leaders from LMICs, aid agencies, MDBs, and NGOs, among other evidence users and experts from the broader development research and evaluation communities. In parallel, CGD conducted and comissioned a set of background research to inform the group’s deliberations. The process culminated in a final report that offers practical recommendations for a renewed agenda for impact evaluations to move toward more and better funding and improved ways of working over the next decade.

Working Group Chairs

Amanda Glassman, Center for Global Development
Ruth Levine, IDinsight

Working Group Members

Tania Alfonso, US Agency for International Development
Norma Altshuler, Open Philanthropy and formerly William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Jeannie Annan, International Rescue Committee
Essaïd Azzouzi, Millennium Challenge Account-Morocco
Kelly Bidwell, Office of Evaluation Sciences, US General Services Administration
Cynthia Bosumtwi-Sam, Innovations for Poverty Action
Baboucarr Bouy, Effective Intervention
Annie Chumpitaz, formerly Ministry of Education, Peru
Cláudia Costin, Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education Policies, Getulio Vargas Foundation
Iqbal Dhaliwal, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab
Casey Dunning, Millennium Challenge Corporation
Peter Evans, U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre
Marie Gaarder, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie)
Seth Garz, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Ashu Handa, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the Transfer Project
Daniel Handel, 3ie
Gonzalo Hernández Licona, Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network
Michael Hiscox, Harvard University
Prudence Kaoma, Ministry of Finance and National Planning, Zambia
Andrew Karlyn, formerly Living Goods
Janeen Madan Keller, Center for Global Development
Megan Kennedy-Chouane, Development Cooperation Directorate, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
Catherine Kyobutungi, African Population and Health Research Center
Arianna Legovini, Development Impact Evaluation, World Bank
Ida Lindkvist, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
Timothy Lubanga, Office of the Prime Minister, Uganda
Laurenz Mahlanza-Langer, Africa Centre for Evidence, University of Johannesburg
Santhosh Mathew, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundatio
Mushfiq Mobarak, Yale University
Nompumelelo Mohohlwane, South African Department of Basic Education
Gulzar Natarajan, Government of Andhra Pradesh, India Paul Niehaus, University of California, San Diego
Amos Njuguna, Network of Impact Evaluation Researchers in Africa
Radha Rajkotia, Innovations for Poverty Action Ferdinando Regalia, Inter-American Development Bank
Mauricio Santamaría, Asociación Nacional de Instituciones Financieras—Centro de Estudios Económicos
Neil Buddy Shah, Clinton Health Access Initiative
Russell Siegelman, Stanford Business School