China’s explosion of impact evaluations: what it means for the global evidence base

Mark Engelbert, Howard White
30 October 2025 blog  

Our latest blog in our series on regional trends in impact evaluation research takes a slightly different tack. Instead of surveying a region, we focus on a single country: China. China has emerged as a major hub for impact evaluation (IE) research in recent years. With China recently hosting the tenth Asia Evaluation Week, we thought it made sense to look at its evidence landscape in depth. Another blog will examine East Asia more broadly.

Ethics advances at JDEff for our peacebuilding special issue and beyond

Paul Thissen, Audrey Portes, Sudhanshu Handa, Marie Gaarder
14 October 2025 blog  

Ethical considerations should remain at the forefront of researchers’ minds when conducting evaluations of development, humanitarian, and peacebuilding interventions. To make sure that authors for the Journal of Development Effectiveness (JDEff) take their ethical obligations seriously, the journal has added a new ethics-focused step in the publication process. These new ethical considerations will apply to the journal’s upcoming special issue on peacebuilding – more on that below – and beyond.

Closing the gaps: Building evidence on irregular migration

Sanghwa Lee, Maria Daniela Anda Leon, Shannon Shisler, Anil Thota
14 October 2025 blog  
We have just published our new inception report (protocol) for updating and expanding 3ie’s evidence gap map (EGM) on interventions addressing root causes and other drivers of irregular migration. Our new inception report sets out our approach—from defining the scope of interventions and outcomes to the systematic methods we will use—and how we will synthesize evidence. Please share any relevant studies with us (here) to help make our updated evidence gap map as comprehensive as possible.

Learning on the go: Building and testing our Gen AI-based evidence assistant

Fiona Kastel, Devika Lakhote, Sanchi Lokhande, Saqib Masood, Geetika Pandya
09 October 2025 blog  

Each year, more than $200 billion is invested in life-saving policies and programs globally. Ensuring these resources deliver maximum impact depends on decision-makers having timely access to high-quality, relevant and actionable evidence. Yet too often, this evidence remains scattered, hard to interpret, or unavailable when it is most needed.

When the things “everyone knows” turn out to be wrong

Marie Gaarder
07 October 2025 blog  

I still remember my early days as a fresh PhD economist at the Inter-American Development Bank. My job was to help design health and social programs across Latin America. I arrived eager, idealistic, and armed with economic theory. I quickly noticed something: everyone—government officials, colleagues, even myself—had strong views about what the “right” structure of a program should be. If you wanted to reduce the incidence of child malnutrition, you gave out food. If you wanted more women to work, you subsidized childcare.

Beyond names and numbers - understanding data de-identification

Chandan Jain, Anagha Mariya Jose
25 September 2025 blog  

Social science research often involves collecting data through direct interactions with individuals, households, and communities. This data generally includes detailed personal and sensitive information. Additionally, data may be collected from marginalized and vulnerable communities, including those with a limited understanding of their rights as data subjects. Sensitive personal data intended for statistical analysis can be misused or cause harm to households and communities.

Missing the forest for the seedlings: The importance of long-term follow-up impact evaluations

Abdelrahman Nagy, Paul Thissen
02 September 2025 blog  

Most impact evaluations capture short-term (1-2 year) results, but development interventions often aim to shape outcomes over entire lifetimes or even future generations. For example, designers of a program to support childhood health, nutrition, or education might hope that improving immediate outcomes for children will translate into improved labor market outcomes and incomes for those people as adults. There may be strong theoretical reasons to expect these long-term effects, but empirical evidence from long-term impact evaluations 5, 10, or even 20 years later is scarce.

Nine common challenges geospatial analysis can solve: real-world case studies from 3ie

Carlos Enrique Galvan Falcon, Fiona Kastel, Devika Lakhote, Sanchi Lokhande, Geetika Pandya, Manuela Sanchez
25 August 2025 blog  

For evaluators, some of the most pressing challenges are also the most difficult to address with traditional data collection methods. How do you gather reliable data in places you can’t easily reach? How do you monitor changes across vast regions, track historical trends for ex-post evaluations, or measure something that can’t be captured through a survey?

A resource for transforming food systems has gone dormant: our (formerly) living Evidence and Gap Map

Ingunn Storhaug
18 August 2025 blog  

Staying up-to-date with the latest research on food systems and nutrition is more important than ever to work towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2025 SDG report calls for action on food systems as one of six critical areas. My colleagues recently argued that a systems approach is needed to achieve the 2nd SDG, ending hunger.

Where evidence meets impact — a shared journey at ESA Africa

Engy Saleh, Abdelrahman Nagy
08 August 2025 blog  

It is always a bit magical when a conference turns into a conversation—and then into a movement. That’s what it felt like at this year’s Economic Science Association (ESA) Africa Conference hosted by Busara in Nairobi. The conference set something important in motion—a step toward ensuring that research in the Global South is shaped by the people it serves.