Ideas to Action:

Independent research for global prosperity

Multimedia

CGD's weekly Global Prosperity Wonkcast, event videos, whiteboard talks, slides, and more.

Closing the Evaluation Gap

Evalgap

In this four-minute clip from 2010, CGD senior fellow William Savedoff and former vice president Ruth Levine tell the story of how CGD’s Closing the Evaluation Gap initiative led to the creation of the International Institute for Impact Evaluation (3ie), a new institute for impact evaluation. Savedoff explains that before the 3ie, there was a gap in information between the implementation of aid programs and the eventual impact of those programs. For example, we knew that schools were built, but how many children attended the school and what did they learn? Such information was not as readily available. Savedoff and Levine formed a working group that promoted two major recommendations in its final report: (1) aid agencies need to invest more in their own capacity to do impact evaluations and (2)  independent institutions need to be created to mobilize and channel funding for high-quality impact evaluations. 3ie became that organization, and with the help of CGD it is working to close the evaluation gap. Learn more about this CGD initiative here.

FAI Insights: What Is Rigorous Impact Evaluation?

Rachel Nugent

Michael Clemens, Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD)
and visiting scholar at the Financial Access Initiative and at NYU-Wagner
and the NYU Dept. of Economics (Spring 2011), talks about the findings from
his research into the UN Millennium Villages.