Global Evidence Commitment: Advancing Use of Rigorous Evidence
Development programming continues to expand and diversify to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. While organizations are increasingly recognizing that better decisions start with better evidence, building a strong internal culture of evidence use across the sector remains a challenge. To address this, 3ie launched the Global Evidence Commitment in 2023—as a collective response to the pressing need for more systematic and meaningful use of evidence in development programming. As the convenor of this pledge, 3ie provides support to signatory organizations to better assess their evidence culture by offering a new diagnostic self-assessment tool grounded in the TRIPS framework.
Hosted by Norad and convened by 3ie, the second convening will build on the momentum from the inaugural meeting in 2024 and bring together the world’s leading development institutions committed to embedding evidence into decision-making. It will spotlight how organizations are reforming systems, investing in evidence generation, and championing cultures of cost-effectiveness and learning.
Major bilateral and multilateral organizations sign 3ie-led Global Evidence Commitment
3ie launched the Global Evidence Commitment, an opportunity for leading international development institutions – bilaterals, multilateral development banks, international NGOs, philanthropies – to come together to improve the culture and practice of evidence use in their institutions. In this blog, we talk about the significance of this moment, and how the signatories plan to advance the use of rigorous evidence to enhance the development- and cost-effectiveness of their programs
About the pledge
At 3ie, we believe that using rigorous evidence in the design, implementation, and evaluation of development projects is essential to ensuring that precious resources deliver real impact. The Global Evidence Commitment brings together leading institutions dedicated to strengthening the culture and use of evidence within their organizations. The founding signatories include the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Inter-American Development Bank, KfW Development Bank, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office, and 3ie.
As the facilitator of this initiative, 3ie is proud to support our partners and invites others to join this growing community. Together, we are promoting mutual learning, accountability, and smarter decision-making to enhance the cost-effectiveness of development efforts worldwide. A major step in this direction is our new self-assessment tool for signatory organizations that not only identifies characteristics of an evidence culture but also provides a common framework and common language to assess these characteristics. It is grounded in the TRIPS framework (more below) – which 3ie developed in 2024 to outline key levers that promote evidence culture within organizations.
Read the pledge
If your organization wants to join a global network of development actors working to strengthen evidence culture, share good practices, and improve the impact and efficiency of development resources, write to us at globalevidencecommitment@3ieimpact.org.
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Origins of the commitment
In 2023, 3ie and the Center for Global Development (CGD) co-convened a pivotal discussion focused on one core question: How can we improve development effectiveness by strengthening a culture of evidence use within institutions? This conversation was grounded in insights from CGD’s 2022 report, New Evidence Tools for Policy Impact, which highlighted a persistent challenge—the lack of institutional incentives to use appropriate evidence in decision-making.
To guide the dialogue, 3ie introduced a practical framework outlining key levers organizations can use to strengthen evidence culture: Training, Resources, Incentives, Processes, and Signals from leadership—the TRIPS framework.
The Global Evidence Commitment emerged from this collaborative exchange in May 2023, with two core goals:
- Fostering peer learning and institutional change
The Commitment brings together a coalition of leading development organizations committed to improving their internal culture of evidence use by applying the TRIPS framework. Through this community, partners learn from each other’s efforts, innovations, and lessons. - Promoting fit-for-purpose evidence use
The Commitment also responds to a common challenge in development: selecting the right type of evidence to answer the right questions at different stages of the project or policy cycle. By spotlighting this issue, the Commitment encourages smarter, more contextual use of evidence to guide decisions that matter.
Together, our efforts aim to help create a global movement toward more accountable, effective, and evidence-informed development.
