Water provision remains high on the global development agenda including political commitments such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and associated post-2015 targets. By 2012, the United Nations declared that governments had met the MDG drinking water target to ‘halve the number without access to safe drinking water (defined as access to water from an improved source within 1 kilometre of the household).’  This suggests that some development efforts are working.

Whether you are a research funder, decision maker or researcher, keeping up with the ever expanding evidence base is not easy. Over 2600 impact evaluations and 300 systematic reviews assessing the effects of international development interventions have been completed or are ongoing to help answer that question and understand how, why and at what cost.  Despite this increase in quality evidence, more evidence is needed, which is why funders and researchers continue to fund and produce new research.

“The 3ie replication process differs in important ways from the standard research community-led peer-review process in academic journals. We have been explicitly instructed by 3ie staff not to discuss our experiences with the replication process at any length in this note, including our views on the weaknesses of their current system and the review standards they employ.