CategoriesBlog PostAnnouncing the New Building Evidence for Decision-Making (BE4D) Program We are thrilled to announce the launch of the Building Evidence for Decision-Making (BE4D) program earlier this year, a ten-year initiative designed to advance evidence-based decision-making across USAID operating units and global Missions. This program is housed within USAID’s Bureau for Inclusive Growth, Partnerships, and Innovation (IPI) and […]
The Untapped Potential of Impact Evaluations in Humanitarian Contexts What is the right modality of program delivery? Does anticipatory action prior to a humanitarian emergency have a positive impact on a household’s ability to cope? Which methods are most cost-effective? Which methods lead to the most positive impact on long-term resilience? Are you interested in […]
Building scalable and sustainable food systems presents many challenges along farming value chains – not least of which is the point where our small holder famers interact with agricultural inputs. For an isolated farmer with limited education, making wise choices about farming can be challenging, meaning that many farmers fall short of the mark when it comes to running successful commercial enterprises.
With the steady rise of the number of impact evaluations (IEs) per year, it should come as no surprise that not every single IE will show a positive impact. The authors of “no impact” evaluations will understandably be worried that their work will not be academically published nor be used for public policy. There is, however, still value in such information. Evidence that a particular program does not work paves the way for alternative interventions to happen. Licona (2017) provides several examples where null results in Mexican education programs encouraged the tweaking of aspects such as selection criteria, consolidation of redundant programs, and budget optimization.
We work with clients who are running poverty interventions in the field. These are not experiments – where the program is designed around an experiment – these are impact evaluations that have to be designed around a development program that has already been designed or is in progress. As such, often times the sample size […]
