How to communicate a null-results impact evaluation

Sebastian Martinez
18 September 2024 blog  
Development programs aim to improve outcomes for poor and vulnerable populations, from better health and increased learning to higher productivity and incomes. Impact evaluations apply research tools to assess whether those intended outcomes were achieved because of the program.

Open technical questions in geospatial impact evaluations and why they matter

Fiona Kastel, Sanchi Lokhande, Anca Dumitrescu, Devika Lakhote, Douglas Glandon
26 June 2024 blog  

Geospatial impact evaluations offer deeper insights but also come with their unique set of challenges. As part of the GeoField community of practice, we are finding ways to unpack and address these by collaborating with individuals and organizations working across sectors. To that end, 3ie, AidData, and DevGlobal recently co-hosted a workshop with GIS experts to address key issues and best practices in response to technical questions received from participants before and during the session.

Generative artificial intelligence: Addressing five common misconceptions

Devika Lakhote, Fiona Kastel, Sanchi Lokhande, Douglas Glandon
06 June 2024 blog  

You’ve probably heard or read about generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) and its revolutionary potential. Having productive conversations with a chatbot, something that was painful (at best) until a few years ago, has now become easier because of Gen AI models that can generate coherent, meaningful output in a matter of seconds.

New 3ie handbook for measuring cost-effectiveness in impact evaluation

Jane Hammaker, Douglas Glandon, Arnab Acharya, Tanvi
04 June 2024 blog  

Leaders and practitioners across the international development space have emphasized, re-emphasized, and re-re-emphasized the importance of integrating rigorous costing in

Expanding the frontiers of heterogeneity analysis: application of a machine learning method to a gender attitude change program

Fiona Kastel, Devika Lakhote, Geetika Pandya, Douglas Glandon
31 January 2024 blog  
At 3ie, we recently tested a machine learning technique on a previously completed randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a school-based gender attitude change program in Haryana, India to answer this question. We share a few key findings and benefits of employing this method.

Evolution or revolution? What MDB course corrections mean for evaluators

Emmanuel Jimenez
14 November 2023 blog  
“Hard a starboard!” These were the orders of First Officer William Murdoch aboard RMS Titanic on the night of 14 April 1912 immediately after lookouts signaled a rather large obstacle ahead. Though still half a kilometer away, the gigantic ship nonetheless struck the iceberg that was in its way.

Launch of 3ie’s policy and institutional reform ‘Methods Menu’

Carolyn Huang, Douglas Glandon, Jane Hammaker
17 August 2023 blog  
In May 2021, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and 3ie began a partnership to advance the learning and knowledge base around the evaluation, design, and implementation of policy and institutional reform (PIR) interventions. We conducted a scoping review that identified gaps in the way PIR interventions are studied and evaluated, and we are now ready to launch an interactive ‘Methods Menu’ that aims to address many of those gaps. The menu aims to increase awareness and uptake of complexity-informed and mixed-methods approaches to strengthen the way PIR is evaluated and implemented.

Five lessons from our Transparent, Reproducible, and Ethical Evidence (TREE) reviews

Chandan Jain, Charlotte Lane, Andrew Tangang, Jennifer Sturdy, Bidisha Barooah
22 March 2023 blog  
We have been consolidating our efforts to develop stronger systems for producing transparent, reproducible, and ethical evidence (TREE). We have emphasized asking ourselves the right questions at the right times, even when there are no easy answers. We’ve examined very specific questions such as: Does a state of scarcity or equipoise make it ethical to withhold an intervention from a control group?

Best practices for working with survey partners and monitoring data quality

Saumya Mathur, Chandan Jain
30 November 2022 blog  
Collecting primary data for impact evaluations can be both costly and time-intensive, especially in terms of planning, designing survey instruments, setting up field protocols, training enumerators, data collection, supervision, quality assurance, and handling field-level challenges. Evaluators and researchers often partner with survey firms to implement and manage field operations for data collection.

Standards of care in policy research

Douglas MacKay, Anna Marion
12 September 2022 blog  
This blog post expands on ideas discussed in an earlier series of blog posts on ethics in social science research. Read the introduction to that series here and read about 3ie's Transparent, Reproducible, and Ethical Evidence framework here.