Message from our executive director

3ie’s executive director Marie Gaarder takes stock of the last few months as head of 3ie. She reflects on some of the challenges, opportunities and measures that 3ie is taking to respond to the complexities facing us all today.

How do electricity access interventions affect social outcomes? A forthcoming systematic review.

In 2017, around 89 per cent of the global population, predominantly based in high-income countries, were fortunate enough to have access to a reliable source of electricity and were able to go about their personal and professional lives without the risk of a power cut, let alone the prospect of having no electricity access at all.

What works to improve school enrollment and attendance? Cash

In 2018, one in six of the world's school-aged children — more than 258 million kids —were not in school, according to UNESCO. And as that data shows, progress in increasing attendance has slowed dramatically, with the proportion of children who do not attend primary school barely budging in the last decade.

Is it possible to combine capacity development with a rapid synthesis response to an evidence request?

Two of the most important and long standing challenges for evidence synthesis in international development are: 1) The need to provide timely (eg. rapid) responses to demands for evidence to inform decisions; 2) Developing capacity to do high-quality, policy-relevant syntheses, especially in L&MICs. At present these challenges are typically addressed in isolation.

Reflections on the impact of agricultural certification on well-being

Carlos Oya and colleagues recently published a systematic review of agricultural certification schemes that stands out for me as useful research for informing policy and programming. Why do I say that? Agricultural certification schemes set and monitor compliance to voluntary standards with the objective of making production socially sustainable and terms of trade fairer for smallholder farmers and workers.

Not missing the woods for the trees: mapping evidence gaps on land use and forestry programmes

Forest protection is among the most effective approaches we have to mitigate climate change. At the same time, agricultural land and forests provide food, livelihoods and fuel for billions of people globally, particularly in low and middle-income countries (L&MICs). At the same time there are concerns that large-scale forest protection programming will have negative knock-on effects on food security and other aspects of human well-being.

How synthesised evidence can help with meeting the Sustainable Development Goals

In early 2016, 193 governments across the world put together a to-do list that would intimidate even the most workaholic overachiever: wipe out poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years. The United Nations led in articulating these into 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which were then translated into 169 target indicators that will be monitored – a remarkable feat given the disparate views of the various stakeholders.

Toward evidence-informed policies for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals


Not all ‘systematic’ reviews are created equal

In a recent World Bank blog based on a paper, David Evans and Anna Popova argue that systematic reviews may not be reliable as an approach to synthesis of empirical literature. They reach this conclusion after analysing six reviews assessing the effects of a range of education interventions on learning outcomes.  The main finding of their analysis: While all these reviews focus on the effects of learning outcomes based on evidence from impact evaluations, there is a large degree of divergence in the studies included in each review, and consequently the conclusions they reach.

