3ie’s recent review of community-driven development (CDD) programmes has been at the centre of active debate and discussion online. While debates can have layers, they can also get polarised. A message that is being taken away from the review is that ‘CDD programmes don’t work.’ In this blog, the review authors, Howard White and Radhika Menon, clarify the synthesis study’s main messages. They evidence shows that CDD programmes have worked to deliver public infrastructure at a large scale. However, implementers should reconsider claiming that CDD builds social cohesion. read more

Inadequate contextual knowledge can cause evaluators to make power miscalculations that can render years of research and hundreds of thousands of dollars meaningless. In the second blog of our 10th anniversary series, Benjamin DK Wood and Anna C Heard use specific examples from 3ie-funded studies to show how inaccurate assumptions can have dramatic effects on the value of studies. They state that by funding pilot studies to obtain better information, 3ie hopes to address a number of issues including assessing whether there is sufficient intervention uptake, verifying whether the expected or minimum detectable effect is reasonable and determining an accurate estimation of the similarity of participants within clusters. read more

3ie has always been strongly committed to research transparency and open access to data. 3ie’s Research Transparency Policy articulates 3ie’s commitment to research transparency and aligns our policy with the transparency policies of our key funders. read more

This video provides an overview of our evidence programme, Promoting Latrine Use in Rural India. It contextualizes our ongoing work, shares insights from the formative phase on barriers to use and reinforces the need for high-quality evidence to inform programmes and policies read more