What many people don't know about Raj Shah, who was recently appointed as the long-awaited Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is that he was an early supporter and participant of CGD's Evaluation Gap Working Group. In 2006, the Evaluation Gap Working Group issued its report, raising concerns about the limited number of good quality impact evaluations that are available to guide policy at agencies like USAID. So even though the new Administrator has a large agenda before him, improving evaluation at USAID could be near the top of the list. The U.S. Congress is also weighing on this issue, giving evaluation efforts a prominent role in a draft foreign aid bill that was approved in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (For trivia-lovers: Raj Shah is cited in the acknowledgements of Millions Saved: Proven Successes in Global Health for spurring that publication by asking, "So, what works?" He also supported IFPRI's recent book, Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Global Agriculture, from his position leading the agriculture program at the Gates Foundation.)This post first appeared as a news item in CGD’s Evaluation Gap newsletter. Sign up for the Evaluation Gap and other CGD newsletters here.
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