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New USAID Policy on Cost-Analysis in Impact Evaluations

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…

CategoriesBlog Post Opinion

Evaluation in the Age of Climate Change

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).

Thoughts on External Evaluations

Let me preface this by saying that these thoughts have been brewing for a while; they do not refer to any specific client or individual experience… /*Begin Rant The industry of evaluation is interesting.  Most of our team comes from a research background. While we do program evaluations, we approach it with the tactics of a […]