Spotlight | Message from our executive director
 It has been nearly six months since I took over as executive director of 3ie, a month before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The global disruptions, the local effects of the pandemic, and the countermeasures are still emerging. The prognoses are grim in terms of the likely unraveling of years of improvements in indicators related to gender equality, education, hunger, and poverty across the world.
It has been a challenging time to lead an international organization as there are few ready answers. All measures seem to have unintended consequences, as we are learning the hard way. This may well be the case, for example, when moving to long-term work-from-home, which many organizations are considering. Everyone seems to be learning by doing. At 3ie, we have been trying to strike a balance between taking care of our own staff, research partners, and affiliates while still responding to prior commitments and urgent evidence needs. |
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What we’re doing about COVID-19
We know there is a lot being said about evidence in the time of COVID-19. In fact, this is a topic we covered in our Virtual Evidence Weeks in May. We are introducing a new section that will highlight work that 3ie and our partners are doing in response to the crisis. We hope these are informative and useful.
New initiative | 3ie’s evidence synthesis response to COVID-19 crisis
3ie, in partnership with Africa Centre for Evidence (ACE) and the Global Evidence Synthesis Initiative (GESI), is launching an Evidence Synthesis Response to the COVID crisis, focused on providing easy access to rigorous and timely syntheses to inform non-clinical COVID-19 responses in L&MICs in the short and medium term. We have just concluded a priority setting survey to help curate evidence and will have more updates shortly. Read our blog to know more about the initiative. |
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Blog | Implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on impact evaluation activities in East Africa
Our colleagues at Network of Impact Evaluation Researchers in Africa (NIERA) wrote a guest blog sharing results from a survey to understand the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on impact evaluation activities in East Africa. Read the full blog.
Blog | It’s time to take note of SHG’s potential
3ie staff working on livelihoods projects took stock of how women members of self-help groups have been stepping up in various ways to respond to the challenges presented by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Read this blog to understand the potential of India’s ‘silent soldiers.’
Other blogs you might be interested in
Can transparency and accountability initiatives improve natural resource governance?
Transparency and accountability initiatives in the natural resources sector are often proposed as an antidote to the resource curse, but evidence on their effectiveness is remarkably sparse. Read this blog to find out how 3ie’s evidence programme is helping fill some of the gaps.
How do food system interventions affect food security and nutrition? We're mapping the evidence
GIZ, through the programme Knowledge for Nutrition (K4N), has commissioned 3ie to develop an evidence gap map on the effects of food systems interventions on food security and nutrition outcomes. If you have suggestions for studies to be included, read this co-authored blog to know how you can contribute.
#2020Hindsight campaign: what works in health and food security
In this latest blog as part of our hindsight campaign, Paul Thissen reviews systematic review evidence to explain how text message reminders can help people make healthy choices.
We also continued to focus on synthesis evidence on health, specifically publishing blogs on maternal and newborn health and using social media for community health, investment in road infrastructure. In the last month, we turned our focus to food security, examining the evidence on cash-based vs food-based social assistance in humanitarian emergencies and how market support interventions can yield dividends. To check out all the blog posts, visit the campaign page on our website.
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 Evidence impact
Ugandan government uses evidence to change healthcare reporting systems
Findings from a 3ie-supported evaluation led the Ugandan health ministry to improve how they monitor support to and supervision of health workers tackling malnutrition in humanitarian settings. According to the evaluation by Lazzerini and colleagues (2019), enhanced peer-to-peer supportive supervision led to high enrolment rate of malnourished children, improved cure rate and low drop out from treatment centres. The government has moved to operationalise supportive supervision by adding new sections on it to the health unit outpatient monthly report that is submitted by local health facilities. The ministry also considered providing additional funding to facilities that have functional supportive supervision. |
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Announcement: Welcoming 3ie’s new board commissioners
We are excited to welcome Santiago Levy and Susan Ketcham to 3ie’s Board of Commissioners. Santiago is currently a non-resident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution and a senior advisor to the United Nations Development Program. Susan Ketcham is a finance professional with extensive experience in corporate planning and organisational development. We would also like to thank our outgoing commissioner, Ju-Ho Lee, for his advice and support over the last few years.
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 Past events
3ie Virtual Evidence Weeks
 3ie hosted a series of highly-interactive online events from 7-28 May, as part of our Virtual Evidence Weeks. Nearly 2,000 people participated over five webinars that covered a range of topics. We organised discussions on the role and importance of evidence in the midst of this ongoing global health crisis, the importance of cost evidence, cost-benefit analysis and scaling up programmes. The videos and event summaries are now available on our website here.
3ie at gLOCAL evaluation week 2020
 3ie hosted four well-attended webinars as part of the gLOCAL Evaluation Week 2020 held from 4-5 June. The first two webinars were conducted in French, and aimed at researchers, evaluators and policymakers in West Africa. In the first webinar, we provided an overview of National Evaluation Systems in eight countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union. The second webinar was a joint initiative with the Benin government, where presentations focused on challenges in managing evaluations for public policy. We also led webinars on our new Development Evidence Portal and our latest map on big data interventions. Read more. |
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Journal of Development Effectiveness: join our community
If you are interested in contributing to an international, peer-reviewed journal that focuses on the impact of development interventions, we suggest you take a look at the Journal of Development Effectiveness.
Published by Taylor & Francis and supported by 3ie, the Journal of Development Effectiveness publishes high-quality, original research that examines evidence of the impact of projects, programs and policies in developing countries, and discussions of experience in conducting impact evaluations and using their findings to inform policy and program design.
While the journal does not subscribe to any one approach to impact evaluation, it does require that the techniques employed be rigorous, with a preference for studies which have been well contextualized with appropriate use of mixed-methods. To know more about how to get involved, visit the website.
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| 3ieNews is a bi-monthly newsletter of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie). We promote evidence-informed equitable, inclusive and sustainable development. We support the generation and effective use of high-quality evidence to inform decision-making and help improve the lives of people living in poverty in low- and middle-income countries. We provide guidance and support to produce, synthesise and assure the quality of evidence of what works, for whom, how, why and at what cost. |
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