3ie supports the production of new evidence by financing new policy relevant impact evaluations, and supporting the synthesis of existing evidence on particular topics. It also provide technical support to agencies wanting to carry out their own impact evaluations. We engage with policy makers to make them aware of the importance of impact evaluation, encouraging them to commission and learn from impact studies. 3ie evolved from the Evaluation Gap Working Group, initiated by the Center for Global Development (CGD).
It also helps efforts to build capacity in low and middle income countries to carry out impact evaluations, especially by encouraging international collaborative research programmes. 3ie produces a number of resources, such as a dynamic website and various publications, to promote the production and use of quality impact evaluations.
The strategic components of the programme are:
- generating new evidence of what works
- synthesising and disseminating this evidence
- building a culture of evidence based policy-making
- developing capacity to produce and use impact evaluations
- developing 3ie’s institutional capacity, governance and management systems
As part of it’s mandate to broker knowledge, 3ie publish the following products:
- Impact evaluations: final reports of 3ie-supported impact evaluations that rigorously measure the net change in outcomes of a development programme.
- Replication studies: a publication and dissemination outlet for internal replication studies of development impact evaluations.
- Scoping papers: these papers explore the current type and availability of evidence in a particular development sector to identify priority policy questions.
- Systematic reviews: examine existing evidence on impact of development interventions in low and middle income countries.
- Working papers: present advances in evaluation methodology and case studies in the conduct of impact evaluations.
- Policy briefs: examine impact evaluation findings on overarching policy questions.
- Journal of Development Effectiveness: publishes papers reporting evidence of the impact of projects, programmes and policies in developing countries.