3ie Issues Second Call for Impact Evaluation Proposals

The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) is accepting proposals for impact evaluations of interventions aimed at improving social and economic development in low and middle-income countries with a deadline of November 27. In June, 3ie successfully awarded 18 impact evaluation grants that totaled US$3.5 million. The new call may award as much as $10 million. More information can be found on 3ie’s website.

India Plans for Independent Evaluation of Public Policies

More than 250 senior Indian Administrative Service staff and leading international and local researchers met in New Delhi on October 12-13 to discuss the future of the Indian evaluation system, and draw on international experiences of development evaluation. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, announced the creation of a new Independent Evaluation Office.

US Government Promotes Rigorous Evaluation

Peter Orszag, Director of the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB), recently announced a major new government-wide initiative to promote rigorous impact evaluations of social, educational, and economic programs. OMB will allocate additional funds to agencies that propose rigorous impact evaluations and use the resulting evidence to set funding priorities.

Additional Resources

• A recent study, "Measuring the impact of fair trade on development" uses data from coffee and banana cooperatives in Peru and Costa Rica. It finds limited impact on farmers’ incomes but benefits for capitalization and strengthening farmers’ organizations.
• With support from DFID, 3ie has recently published two papers on institutionalizing evaluation: Impact Evaluation 01: How to institutionalize evaluation? and Institutionalizing evaluation: A review of international experience.
• “Eradicating diseases: The effect of conditional cash transfers on vaccination coverage in rural Nicaragua” uses double-difference estimates to show the program led to large increases in vaccination coverage, and these resulted in vaccination levels greater than 95% for some vaccines. Effects were especially large for children who are typically harder to reach with traditional supply-side interventions.
• The Millenium Challenge Corporation has financed an education program in Burkina Faso called BRIGHT that was evaluated independently by Mathematica. The impact evaluation found that BRIGHT increased the rate of primary enrollment among girls and had positive impacts on Math and French test scores for both girls and boys.