Archive for February, 2011

Five challenges facing impact evaluation

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

[from NONIE Meeting 2011 website, posting by Howard White] "There has been enormous progress in impact evaluation of development interventions in the last five years. The 2006 CGD report When Will be Ever Learn? claimed that there was little rigorous evidence of what works in development. But ...

Eight lessons from three years working on transparency

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

Blog posting by Owen Barder February 22nd, 2011 "I’ve spent the last three years working on aid transparency. As I’m moving on to a very exciting new role (watch this space for more details) this seems a good time to reflect on what I’ve learned in the last three years. This is a ...

Learners, practitioners and teachers Handbook on monitoring, evaluating and managing knowledge for policy inluence

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

Authors: Vanesa Weyrauch, Julia D´Agostino, Clara Richards Date Published: 11 February 2011 By CIPPEC. Available as pdf Description: The evidence based policy influence is a topic of growing interest to researchers, social organizations, experts, government officials, policy research institutes and universities. However, they all admit that the path from the production of ...

Using stories to increase sales at Pfizer

Friday, February 18th, 2011

by Nigel Edwards, Strategic Communications Management Vol. 15, Issue 2, Feb-March 2011. pages 30-33. Available from Cognitive Edge website, and found via a tweet by David Snowden [RD comment| This article is about the collation, analysis and use of a large volume of qualitative data, and as such has relevance to ...

Nature Editorial: To ensure their results are reproducible, analysts should show their workings.

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

See Devil in the Details, Nature, Volume:470, Pages: 305–306 , 17 February 2011. How many aid agencies could do the same, when their projects manage to deliver good results? Are there lessons to learned here? Article text: As analysis of huge data sets with computers becomes an integral tool of research, how should ...

Social assessment of conservation initiatives: A review of rapid methodologies

Friday, February 11th, 2011

Kate Schreckenberg, Izabel Camargo, Katahdin Withnall, Colleen Corrigan, Phil Franks, Dilys Roe, Lea M. Scherl and Vanessa Richardson. Published: May 2010 - IIED, London, 124 pages Summary "Areas of land and sea are increasingly being marked out for protection in response to various demands: to tackle biodiversity loss, to prevent ...

Learning in Development

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Olivier Serrat, Asian Development Bank, 2010 "Learning in Development tells the story of independent evaluation in ADB—from its early years to the expansion of activities under a broader mandate—points up the application of knowledge management to sense-making, and brings to light the contribution that knowledge audits can make to organizational learning. ...

Joint Humanitarian Impact Evaluation: Report on consultations

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Report for the Inter-Agency Working Group on Joint Humanitarian Impact Evaluation. Tony Beck  January 2011 " Background and purpose Since the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition there have been ongoing discussions concerning mainstreaming joint impact evaluation within the humanitarian system. With pressure to demonstrate that results are being achieved by humanitarian action, the question has ...

A guide to monitoring and evaluating policy influence

Monday, February 7th, 2011

ODI Background Notes, February 2011. 12 pages Authors: Harry Jones "This paper provides an overview of approaches to monitoring and evaluating policy influence and is intended as a guide, outlining challenges and approaches and suggested further reading." "Summary: Influencing policy is a central part of much international development work. Donor agencies, for example, ...

UK Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) – online consultation

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

ICAI website text: "The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) is the independent body responsible for the scrutiny of UK aid, focusing on delivery of value for money for the UK taxpayer, maximising the impact for recipients and ensuring effectiveness of the UK aid budget. ICAI reports ...