CGD Policy Blogs

Chris Elias, President & CEO at PATH, will step down from his current position and join the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) as President for global DEVELOPMENT in February 2012. Yes, that’s global development, not global health. First reactions from many in global health lamented the "loss" of one of the field’s most accomplished and visible experts. But as we digested the details of the announcement and discussed its implications, we realized that the Foundation’s decision could be a bonanza for global health. Here are two reasons why:

Efforts to design better aid programs often are hampered by the failure to evaluate what works—and what doesn’t—in existing programs. Today, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation and other important efforts are helping fill the evaluation gap.

This is a joint post with Rita Perakis.

USAID’s new evaluation policy, announced by Raj Shah at a CGD event on January 19, and written about by Bill Savedoff already on this site here, is not getting nearly enough attention. It not only outlines a new policy. It amounts to fostering a new culture, of transparency and learning.

In a presentation on the new policy hosted yesterday by Carol Lancaster, Dean of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Ruth Levine of USAID said the new policy responds to the “need to learn” and to “generate accountability”, noting there can be tension between those two.

Here are things to like about it beyond what Bill already highlighted – with some notes of caution (the “buts” below):

Today Miriam Temin and I responded to a critique of Nike’s “Girl Effect” campaign posted on William Easterly’s AIDWATCH blog (check it out here).