Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is repositioning German development cooperation under its 2026 reform plan, “Shaping the future together globally.” A central part of the shift is using evidence, data, and learning more systematically to set priorities, allocate resources, and shape partnerships. The Joint Learning Forum brings together policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to ask how evidence can inform those choices across the full policy cycle, from strategy to implementation. It covers practical questions such as mutual-interest partnerships, development cooperation in fragile contexts, health, fair labor migration, employment, and global supply chains.

The day opens with a panel of senior voices from UNEP, the World Bank Group, the ILO, and the OECD, followed by a keynote from Bärbel Kofler, Parliamentary State Secretary at BMZ. Parallel sessions and a poster session run through the day. Marie’s panel is the last of the day, before concluding remarks and a reception.

Organizers: DEval, in cooperation with GIGA and RWI. Supported by WZB, GIZ, KfW Development Bank, and IDOS. Funded by BMZ.

View the full agenda (PDF)
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3ie Executive Director Marie Gaarder joins the afternoon panel “From Rigorous Impact Evaluations to Cumulative Learning: Building and Using an Evidence Base for German Development Cooperation.” The session runs from 4:00 to 5:00 pm CET and looks back at five years of the BMZ-funded Rigorous Impact Evaluation (RIE) funding program, which ends this year.

The panel takes up two questions:

  • How can rigorous impact evaluations improve development projects?
  • How can a cumulative evidence base support learning and evidence-informed decision-making?

Martin Bruder of DEval moderates. Marie speaks alongside:

  • Uwe Gehlen, Head of the Division of Development Research and Evaluation, BMZ
  • Martha Gutierrez, Director General of Evaluation, GIZ
  • Jochen Kluve, Director, Evaluation Unit, KfW Development Bank
  • Raji Jayaraman, Associate Professor of Economics, ESMT and the University of Toronto
What Marie brings to the discussion

Marie draws on 3ie’s experience of how decision-makers use evidence, and puts three questions to the panel:

  • Useful to whom? Rigor is necessary but not enough. Evaluations need to answer questions that someone will actually decide on, and increasingly that person sits in a partner-country ministry.
  • What counts as use? Scaling up is one of seven ways decision-makers use evidence. Redesigning, closing, or informing the debate on a program counts too.
  • Who rewards it? When members of the Global Evidence Commitment assessed themselves, incentives scored lowest of the five levers. Evidence use gets praised far more often than it gets rewarded.