Fourth Howard White Lecture

Rigged or rigorous? Researcher-practitioner partnerships to evaluate the impact of complex social interventions

Professor Charlotte Watts talked about the growing demand for robust evidence on how to address complex social phenomena, such as violence against women and girls (VAWG). Principles of rigorous evaluation stress the critical need for independence between evaluators and implementers. Her presentation provided insights on what constitutes robust evidences and posed pertinent questions to address if the recommended separation between evaluators and implementers limit the potential to learn and translate evaluation findings into meaningful impacts. The presentation discussed various issues, drawing upon recent discussions of approaches to evaluation, and her research to measure and evaluate the impact of partner violence prevention programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa citing the 3ie-funded SASA study.