Evidence synthesis: the third wave of the evidence revolution

What is the best way to spend public resources? How should government and NGOs manage their programmes for maximum effectiveness in achieving their objectives? New public management, which arose in the 1980s, laid the basis for the results agenda, which shifted the focus from counting inputs and outputs to outcomes. This was the first wave of the evidence revolution. But there was growing realisation that outcome monitoring does not tell you what difference your programmes are making to those outcomes. The early 2000s saw the start of the second wave of the evidence revolution of rigorous impact evaluations, particularly randomised controlled trials, to evaluate the effectiveness of programmes in a wide range of sectors in both developed and developing countries. Individual studies are important, but policy and practice should be based on bodies of evidence drawn across a broad range of contexts. We are now entering the third wave of the evidence revolution: evidence synthesis.

In this seminar, Howard White described what governments and international agencies across the world are doing to embrace the third wave. The event was chaired by Pierre Jacquet, president Global Development Network/ Santosh Mathew, former joint secretary, Ministry of Rural Development,Governemnt of India, was the discussant.

About the speaker

Howard White is the CEO of the Campbell Collaboration. He was the founding executive director of 3ie. Prior to that, Howard led the impact evaluation programme of the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group. He started his career as an academic at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, and at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. His academic work engaged the research-policy frontier, seeking to bring rigorous evidence to discussions of aid effectiveness, macroeconomic policy reform and poverty reduction. Howard has made important contributions to programme evaluation, policy research and research synthesis. His focus on combining credible counterfactuals with causal chain analysis has made him a vocal proponent for mixed methods.