With just five years left to 2030, progress on the SDGs is lagging, making high-quality, accessible evidence critical for informed decision-making. 3ie’s Development Evidence Portal (DEP)—with 19,000+ studies—is a continuously updated repository of impact evaluations and systematic reviews that help identify effective policies in low- and middle-income countries. This 3ie Evidence Dialogues webinar will present key findings from a recent SDG evidence analysis by 3ie and DEval, followed by a panel discussion featuring experts from global agencies like UNICEF and national evidence brokers like ACED and PACE. The session will explore how global public goods like the DEP can better support policymakers and practitioners in leveraging evidence for sustainable development.
Fréjus Thoto, Executive Director, ACED
Fréjus Thoto is the Executive Director of the African Center for Equitable Development (ACED), a Think-and-Do Tank dedicated to strengthening evidence production and use in decision-making for effective development policies. Under his leadership, ACED collaborates with governments and development partners across West Africa to address key challenges in food systems, the nature economy, the digital economy, and human development. Fréjus holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics.’
Birte Snilstveit, Director – Synthesis and Reviews and Head of London office
Birte leads a team focused on synthesizing evidence to inform policy in low- and middle-income countries. She has authored major systematic reviews on education, WASH, social cohesion, and forestry, and pioneered 3ie’s evidence gap maps and Development Evidence Portal. An editor for the Campbell Collaboration, she researches agriculture, education, environment, and evidence synthesis methods. Birte holds a BSc in Politics with Sociology (Aston University), an MA in Political Economy of Development (University of Birmingham), and is pursuing a PhD in Global Public Health Policy (LSHTM).
Martin Bruder, Head of Department Civil Society, Human Rights, DEval
Martin Bruder is the Head, Department Civil Society, Human Rights, DEval. He studied Psychology in Freiburg, Germany, and Cambridge, UK and holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Cambridge, UK. He has also served as the Scientific Project Manager at the evaluation department of the head office of the German Council of Science and Humanities including participation in institutional and strategic evaluations; Fellow and Junior Research Group Leader at the Zukunftskolleg of the University of Konstanz (2010-2012); Head of Section “Monitoring, Evaluation, Research” at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) including commissioning and management of project and program evaluations as well as facilitating the development of a results-based management.
Mark Engelbert, Senior Evaluation Specialist & Leader, Development Evidence Portal, 3ie
Mark manages 3ie’s Development Evidence Portal and supports the production of systematic reviews and evidence gap maps in a variety of topics, with emphasis on agriculture and immunisation. Before joining 3ie, Mark was a consultant for a number of development organizations, working on projects such as an experimental study examining how new evidence affects the decisions of policymakers and exploratory research to identify the most cost-effective anti-poverty interventions. Mark has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Maryland, a master's in international development, School for International Training and bachelor's in philosophy, College of William & Mary, Virginia.
Kerry Albright, Director of Evaluation, UNICEF, Co-Chair SDG Synthesis Coalition
Kerry Albright is a Social and Political Scientist with over 25 years of experience in international development and evidence informed decision-making. In September 2022, she took up a position as Deputy Director /Principal Adviser-Evaluation for UNICEF’s global evaluation function, based in UNICEF’s Evaluation Office in New York City, USA. In this capacity, she oversees work on evaluation strategic partnerships, including for evaluation synthesis; national evaluation capacity development and evaluation uptake and impact amongst other responsibilities. Prior to this, she was Deputy Director a.i. and Chief of Research Facilitation and Knowledge Management of UNICEF’s Global Office of Research & Foresight (UNICEF Innocenti), based in Florence, Italy where she was responsible for research oversight and capacity-building across UNICEF’s 190+ offices worldwide. A long-term advocate of evidence-informed decision-making, whilst at Innocenti she introduced structured evidence synthesis capacity at the Office and strengthened a global ethics in evidence generation function. She also enhanced attention to evidence uptake and impact measurement and designed various global capacity-strengthening products and trainings to help build evidence literacy and critical thinking skills across UNICEF and partners.
- Exclusive insights from 3ie & DEval on key findings from the SDG evidence landscape to gain actionable insights on evidence trends, opportunities, and gaps
- Panel discussion with global experts on bridging the evidence gap
- Real-world use cases on leveraging DEP for informed decision-making
- Interactive Q&A with leading development practitioners
