Organizations Promoting Impact Evaluation of Development Interventions
In 2006, the Evaluation Gap Working Group argued for a major gap in the evidence on development interventions, and in particular for an independent body to be set up to plug the gap by funding and advocating for rigorous Impact Evaluation in low- and middle-income countries. The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) was set up in response to this report. 3ie seeks to improve the lives of poor people in low- and middle-income countries by providing, and summarizing, evidence of what works, when, why and for how much. 3ie operates a grant program, financing impact studies in low- and middle-income countries and synthetic reviews of existing evidence updated as new evidence appears, and supports quality impact evaluation through its quality assurance services.
Another initiative devoted to the evaluation of impacts is the Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA). COSA is a non-profit global consortium of institutions, sustained in partnership with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) Sustainable Commodity Initiative, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the United Nations International Trade Centre (ITC). COSA is developing and applying an independent measurement tool to analyze the distinct social, environmental and economic impacts of agricultural practices, and in particular those associated with the implementation of specific sustainability programs (Organic, Fairtrade etc.). The focus of the initiative is to establish global indicators and measurement tools which farmers, policy-makers, and industry can use to understand and improve their sustainability with different crops or agricultural sectors. COSA aims to facilitate this by enabling them to accurately calculate the relative costs and benefits of becoming involved in any given sustainability initiative.
A number of additional organizations have been established to promote impact evaluation globally, including Innovations for Poverty Action, the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) Initiative, the Institutional Learning and Change (ILAC) Initiative of the CGIAR, and the Network of Networks on Impact Evaluation (NONIE).
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