Integrating Evidence into Policy Making Ritwik Sarkar International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) 5 th International Conference on Responsive Evaluation, Colombo Sri Lanka Evaluation Association ( SLEvA)
“Price of light is less than the cost of darkness” (Arthur Nielsen)
Why is evidence needed for policy making? • With limited resources, it is not enough for policy organizations to report how much money has been spent or what output have been attained • Effect of intervention and its outcome needs to be established • With competing budgeting needs – officials need to make the case for a programme to their superiors, line ministries to Ministry of Finance and ultimately the Ministers to the citizens • Right question : • Whether an intervention has achieved its intended objectives in terms of the net changes in development outcomes. • Can I make the case to the finance ministry?
Policy makers grapple with real life policy choices on a daily basis. • Multiple interventions have potential to solve same problem. • Hypothetical Scenario : Interventions to reduce high drop out rates among girls in secondary schools Provide nutritional meals to Stipend for girls attendance to children enrolled in schools secondary schools Incentivize parents to send their Households have additional girls to school income Additional income pays for cost of Improvement in nutritional education and substitutes for outcomes in children potential wages that the girls could earn Children are healthy and able to Incentivize parents to send their concentrate in class room activities children to school Reduction in drop -outs and Reduction in drop outs and increase in regular attendance of regular attendance of children in children in schools schools Increase in years of education of Increase in years of education of girls girls
What does Impact Evaluation Answer? • Impact : What is the change caused by an intervention/policy? -The measured change that was caused by the intervention for the intended population • Cost-effectiveness - If the two interventions are effective in this hypothetical scenario, which one is the most cost effective way to bring about the desired change? Photo@STARS_Kristian Buus
International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) • Founded in 2008, 3ie is an international grant- making NGO promoting evidence-informed development policies and programmes . • 3ie provides grants for implementing impact evaluations • Funded by Bilateral and Multilateral Organizations
3ie was established to… Photo@World Bank/Save the children • Generate high quality evidence of what works • Synthesise and disseminate this evidence • Build a culture of evidence-based policy-making • Develop capacity to produce and use impact evaluations
3ie funds impact evaluations through different grant windows The major funding windows currently in operation are • Open Windows • Thematic Window • Policy Window Photo@JPAL/Bangladesh
3ie Funding Windows Window Total I E s Budget Amount OW 1 18 4.2 OW2 31 14.9 OW3 22 9.0 OW4 19 8.3 TW 71 36.2 PW 20 9.42 Total 180 82 Funding Windows PW OW 1 11% 10% OW2 17% TW OW3 12% 39% OW4 11%
Policy Window • Provides evidence support for developing country governments and funds rigorous mixed method IE s • Demand Driven : Demand for evidence regarding the effectiveness of a programme or policy comes directly from the agency implementing it. • 3ie southern members eligible
Policy Window 11 Countries, 20 Impact Evaluations Kyrgyzstan China Morocco Egypt India Philippines Senegal Kenya Uganda South Africa
Uganda Country Policy Window • Launched in August 2015. Funded by DFID (USD 0 .78m) . • Responsive – Demand from the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) • Objective : Develop capacity in the government to design and conduct/commission IEs • Buy-in from both top management and middle-level civil servants for evaluating their programmes • Ultimately, governments increasingly see IEs as a tool for accountability and is willing to fund IEs through national budget.
Uganda Country Policy Window • Formative / process evaluations and IE designs on questions of national importance identified by OPM - Impact of Youth Livelihood Program implemented by Govt of Uganda - Effectiveness of Family Planning Program. - How effective are public service delivery in Uganda? - How effective is the Universal primary education program in Uganda?
Uganda Policy Window: Capacity Building planned through multiple modalities • Study exposure tour for 8 comprising of civil servants, civil society leaders to Mexico and Columbia • IE workshop for government officers implementing development programmes • Bursaries for attending international IE evaluation conferences and workshops • All study teams will include local researchers who will be involved in a substantive capacity in evaluation design • A locally recruited Senior Evaluation Specialist will mentor OPM staff in their day to day evaluation work through on the job training
Uganda Policy Window- Making evidence available and accessible • The project will support various channels for placing evidence in the public domain • A regular monthly OPM-UEA evaluation seminar series to present planned, on-going and completed evaluations. • Working with journalists to Photo@russavia promote articles, features and OpEds on evidence in print media, and possible TV and radio. • Support to existing social media channels utilized by the research and evaluation community to be more active
Philippines Country Policy Window • Funded by Govt. of Australia (Aus $2.8m) • Steering Committee chaired by the Minister for Planning, Govt. of Philippines • Deliverables include four IEs, in-country delivery of IE course, demand generation workshop and policy influence clinics. • MoUs signed and RFQs launched - Dept. of Social Welfare and Development, and - Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process - Full grant for IE given for an IE for Department of Labour and Employment
From Evidence to Influence • Require grantees to submit a Policy Influence Plan, which identifies what changes in attitude, discourse, procedures, policy content or legislation, or behaviours, and which key policy stakeholders or champions they are targeting. Photo@CIMMYT D. Mowbray, IRRI • Documented a total of 48 cases of use of evidence from 3ie-funded studies
Policy Influence from 3ie Funded Studies Source@3ie Annual report 2014
Please visit: www.3ieimpact.org
Thank you
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