Over the past twenty years, the use of cash transfers in development and humanitarian interventions has experienced exponential growth. Both evidence and ethics have contributed to its rise. Extensive research has demonstrated how cash transfers can serve as critical lifelines in both acute humanitarian emergencies and more stable development contexts, whilst also providing recipients with […]
USAID released a revised version of its policy on designing and implementing development projects and activities, governed by ADS Chapter 201. This is one of the largest revisions of the ADS in recent years and it includes some significant changes to the way USAID plans to operate its Program Cycle. One single sentence, in particular, stood out to us: All impact evaluations must include a cost-analysis of the intervention or interventions being studied (ADS 201.3.6.4) Economist Kristen Schubert discusses the changes, implications, and challenges for implementing partners…
Armed conflict and other situations of violence can lead to changes in both the formal and informal economic systems in any given country or region. These changes often create what scholars call a “war economy.” In the short term, the consequences of conflict include human casualties and the physical destruction of assets and infrastructure. In […]
The Navajo Nation Context The Navajo Nation is sovereign territory with over 250,000 Navajo people occupying 27,000 square miles of the Colorado Plateau—spanning the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Driving through Diné Bikéyah, or Navajoland, you will see stunning southwestern landscapes rich with a cultural history sacred to the Diné people. What you […]
CategoriesBlog PostCOVID-19 is proving calamitous, with over 250,000 deaths globally, including 70,000 deaths within the United States, and 50,000 across the continent of Africa. Its economic impact is in the never-before-seen realm, and uncertainty, even amid talk of ‘opening up,’ is growing, as new hot spots emerge and as everything from schools to professional sports contemplate next-steps.
Among the outcomes up in the air? State-society relations, everywhere, with long-term, potentially generational implications for the trajectory of post-pandemic health, development and prosperity.
CategoriesBlog PostThere is little about COVID-19 that is clear right now. It has torn through countries, though at varying rates. Death rates have varied, and as time has passed, initial assumptions about who is affected have been shredded, as even young, healthy people have succumbed to the disease. The uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 has been a challenge for everyone, whether a small business owner or public policy expert.
CategoriesBlog PostAs we all grapple with the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 virus on our lives and the lives of those in our families and communities, it can be difficult to zoom out and think about the possible impacts beyond our town, city, and/or nation. It is nearly impossible to wrap our heads around the uncertainties the pandemic has presented for our own future, much less the future of 7 billion others.
Causal Design has been awarded a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), distinguishing the firm as a trusted and valued provider of independent monitoring and evaluation services in the international development sector.
Between Greta Thunberg’s Time ‘Person of the Year’ awards, and almost concurrent end to a do-nothing UN climate talks in Madrid (to borrow from our US Congress lexicon), two things were reinforced, again, these past weeks: the urgency of climate change, and our inability to address it, at least from on-high.
Remarkably, however, for an industry that is rooted in evidence, which examines disparities in health and well being across time and space (and especially among groups and sub-groups), and which holds dear an ethical mantra of ‘do no harm,’ Evaluation has done little to either mainstream the role of climate in our own practice, nor to ameliorate the industry’s impact (because, while disparate and far flung, we are an industry).
The OECD-DAC recently added to its list of evaluation criteria—the de facto norm through which organizations like Causal Design frequently organize evaluations and reporting. Specifically, after a multi-year process of considering how to best adapt its existing criteria, OECD added Coherence: How well does the intervention fit? to the existing and remaining five criteria.
Reactions around our proverbial dinner table were appropriately mixed: How does this further a wider learning agenda? How does this differ from the existing Relevance? (which at times already overlaps with Sustainability) What does “fit” actually mean, and how do we use it, and meaningfully?
