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    3ie invented evidence gap maps to improve decision-making around where to make investments in producing more evidence or synthesising existing evidence. Since then, we have pioneered further advancements, including developing our interactive online map platform and innovating evidence mapping to broaden its use in development decision-making.

    3ie funds and quality assures formative and impact evaluations of development programmes in low- and middle-income countries. These evaluations provide crucial evidence on what works, for whom, why and at what cost. On our website, we host the largest-of-its-kind impact evaluation repository that includes summaries of both 3ie-funded and other studies.

    We are global leaders in producing and assuring the quality of theory-based systematic reviews of the effectiveness of development interventions. 3ie continues to innovate and improve synthesis and systematic review methodologies and the uptake and use of synthesised evidence.

    3ie specialises in increasing access to, demand for and use of evidence by governments, parliaments, programme managers, civil society, programme participants and the media. We do this by emphasising the value of planning and engaging with stakeholders to ensure that evaluations and reviews are relevant and useful. We use robust and effective monitoring to measure evidence use so that we can convey evidence impact on programmes and policies with greater confidence.

    We set up our replication programme to address the need for a freely available global public good that helps improve the quality and reliability of impact evaluation evidence used for development decision-making. Replication is the most established method of research validation in science, yet it has not been fully embraced by the research community or development donors, leading to this gap.

    3ie’s evidence programmes and services help build technical capacity to commission and conduct rigorous evaluations, produce evidence gap maps, conduct evidence synthesis and use evidence. We also work with L&MIC governments to build effective monitoring and evaluation systems. 3ie’s bursary programme supports L&MIC policymakers, programme managers and researchers to participate in specialised training and international events.

    3ie has always been strongly committed to research transparency and open access to data. We are proud to be a leader in the growing movement to improve global standards for research transparency.

    On request, 3ie provides services to partners for supporting the generation and use of evidence to inform their development policies and programmes. We commission and quality assure evidence gap maps, evaluations and syntheses as well as provide training.

    3ie plays a unique role in promoting collaboration among researchers, policymakers and development programme managers at country, regional and global levels. Our global advocacy for evidence-informed action helps ensure decision makers have quality evidence about what works when they need it.

  • Evidence hub
    • Impact evaluation repository
    • Systematic review repository
    • Evidence gap maps
    • Replication studies
    • Publications
    • RIDIE

    Searching this database will bring up published impact evaluations from our Impact Evaluation Repository as well as completed 3ie-funded impact evaluations.

    This repository includes summaries of systematic reviews drawn from a range of sources and sectors. The summaries include findings, methodologies and quality appraisal of existing reviews and protocols of ongoing studies.

    These provide a visual display of completed and ongoing systematic reviews and impact evaluations in a sector or sub-sector, structured around a framework of interventions and outcomes.

    We provide funding for replications, conduct in-house replication research and publish guidance on replication methodology. We also provide funding to original authors of 3ie-funded for preparing their raw datasets.

    As part of our mandate as a knowledge producer and translator for our main audiences, we publish a range of knowledge products. These include briefs, impact evaluation reports, systematic review reports and summaries, replication papers, evidence gap map reports, scoping reports and working papers.

    3ie’s Registry for International Development Impact Evaluations (RIDIE) aims to enhance the transparency and quality of impact evaluation research before it begins.

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    • Working with governments
      • Philippines
      • Uganda
      • West Africa Capacity-buidling and Impact Evaluation
    • Replication
      • Replication Programme on Financial Services for the Poor
      • Replication programme on HIV prevention

    3ie’s evidence programmes support studies to fill critical knowledge gaps in a sector, sub-sector or in an area with limited rigorous evidence. We fund studies under a specific theme or which address a particular question or set of questions in programme areas where our donors want to expand global public knowledge of what works and what does not.

    To help address gaps in the understanding of what works and what does not, we fund a variety of studies across this programme area, including interventions focused on insurance, extension, land-use and forestry, and innovation and technology.

    3ie supports impact evaluations, systematic reviews and evidence gap maps on education effectiveness that help answer the questions of what works, for whom, why and at what cost.

    We fund the production of rigorous evidence on biodiversity and forest conservation programmes, environmental regulations, impact of sustainable fuels, climate change mitigation and adaptation.

    3ie is supporting the generation of evidence in areas such as transparency and accountability in natural resource governance. We also fund the production of rigorous evidence on interventions to curb corruption, judicial and civil service reforms, land reforms, public financial management, conflict prevention and peacebuilding, decentralised governance and public service delivery.

    We fund the production of rigorous evidence on interventions on HIV and AIDS, immunisation maternal and child health, nutrition and sexual and reproductive health through a number of evidence programmes. Evidence products from these programmes include replication studies, evidence gap maps, systematic reviews and impact evaluations.

    We are supporting the generation of rigorous evidence in humanitarian contexts on interventions related to water, sanitation and hygiene, food security, multi-sectoral humanitarian programming and interventions targeting malnutrition.

    We fund the production of rigorous evidence on the socio-economic and environmental impacts of public transportation by rail, bus and rapid transit systems, and essential services such as electricity and gas to expand access, foster inclusive growth, and combat climate change through sustainable systems.

    3ie, in collaboration with India’s rural development ministry is working to generate rigorous evidence on the impact of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission.

    We support policy-relevant studies that contribute to improving our understanding of public expenditure trends and improving the delivery of public goods.

    We support impact evaluations to build the evidence base on the effectiveness of interventions that reduce the risks faced by the poor through participation in public works and employment programmes.

    3ie’s has two major evidence programmes that support the generation and use of high-quality evidence for informing decision-making in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector

    .

    We work with various departments in the Philippines government to develop and fund rigorous evidence useful for policymakers. We also support capacity-building activities for Philippine researchers and support the impact evaluation management framework of the National Economic and Development Authority.

    Working in collaboration with the Office of the Prime Minister, the primary aim is to improve developmental outcomes through evidence-informed decision making in Uganda. 3ie is currently supporting evaluation of government programmes around youth livelihood, family planning, public service delivery and local governance, and universal primary education.

    3ie and the government of Benin are working on a a multi-year regional initiative that aims to promote the institutionalization of evaluation in government systems across eight countries in West Africa, including: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
     

    .

    3ie funds internal replications of influential or innovative impact evaluations of financial interventions on mobile money, cash transfers, bank deposits, and other financial service interventions targeted towards underserved and unbanked populations in developing countries.

    3ie funds internal replications of influential or innovative impact evaluations of biomedical, behavioural, social, and structural HIV prevention and treatment interventions to improve the evidence base in low- and middle-income countries.

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    View our current funding opportunities for evaluations, systematic reviews and internal replication studies.

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  4. A Rapid Assessment Randomized-Controlled Trial of Improved Cook Stoves in the Tumu Region of Ghana

A Rapid Assessment Randomized-Controlled Trial of Improved Cook Stoves in the Tumu Region of Ghana

Impact evaluation
Publication Type: 3ie series report
Author: Jason Burwen, David I. Levine
Country: Ghana
Region: Sub-Saharan Africa (includes East and West Africa)
Sector: Agriculture and Rural Development, Environment and Disaster Management, Health Nutrition and Population, Pollution Control/ Waste Management, Preventive Health and Health Behavior
Equity Focus: Indigenous Groups
Evaluation design: Difference-in Difference (DID), Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT)
Status: Completed
3ie Funding Window: Open Window Round 1

Publication details

Burwen, J. and Levine, D. I., 2012. A rapid assessment randomised-controlled trial of improved cookstoves in rural Ghana, Impact Evaluation Report 2. New Delhi: International Initiative for Impact Evaluation

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About this Impact evaluation

Under current trends, household energy use in Africa alone will produce 6.7 billion tons of carbon by 2050. Tragically, the stoves that create this carbon will also create indoor air pollution that will kill millions of children. At the same time, deforestation will harm local ecosystems and biodiversity.

Improved stoves have the potential to reduce all of these problems. Importantly, several mechanisms already exist and new ones are evolving for rich nations to subsidize improved stoves that reduce greenhouse gases.

The research in this proposal will examine the scale-up of access to carbon credits and pioneer a market for health credits to finance further deployment of improved cook stoves across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The implementing partner Plan Ghana is eager to expand the pilot improved stove project to hundreds or even thousands of villages in Ghana if sustainable impact-based financing can be found.

Plan Ghana is also part of a much larger NGO, Plan International, which operates in 60 countries worldwide. The opportunity is vast, as there are hundreds of millions of inefficient biomass stoves in use. Establishing a market for health credits will challenge accepted paradigms for financing global health and can ultimately transform the broader development agenda.

Methodology

This study uses a randomised controlled trial to evaluate the impacts of improved cook-stoves among villages near Tumu in the Upper West region of Ghana. The use of biomass fuels for cooking poses a serious health hazard, because they emit large quantities of health-damaging air pollutants due to very low combustion efficiency. Improved cook-stoves have the potential to reduce this problem and to decrease deforestation and the release of greenhouse gasses owing to their more efficient fuel use.
A lottery was used to assign villages to treatment or control groups. The study ran from February to May 2009 in 8 of 20 sampled villages, selected for ethno-linguistic and geographic variation. For the sample of villages that were offered cook-stoves, treatment households (N = 402) received them in the first period and control households (N = 366) received them 2 months later. With the aid of Plan Ghana, villagers were trained in building (and using) improved cook-stoves to keep implementation costs low. To reduce attrition and evaluation costs, a baseline was not collected. Instead, the analysis relies on a mean comparison between treatment and control groups.
All participants carried out a cooking test in which they prepared a standardised meal. Treatment households used their new cook-stoves, and control households used their traditional ones. Exposure to carbon monoxide (CO) during the test was monitored with CO tubes. Wood use was calculated, and stove use was measured with stove usage monitors. A household exit survey collected data on socioeconomic characteristics; fuel consumption; wood-gathering time; recent cooking activity; perceptions of the improved stove and incidence of respiratory illnesses, coughing, wheezing and trouble breathing for participants in control and treatment groups. Finally, follow-up stove usage was observed in three villages, 8 months after programme implementation. The authors avoid endogeneity problems resulting from households' decisions to comply by using intent-to-treat estimates. The wood use analyses present treatment-on-the-treated estimates and use lottery assignment as the instrumental variable. Standard errors are clustered at the village level.

Findings

Cooking tests indicated that use of the new cook-stoves (that is, the treatment condition) reduced fuel use by 5 percent, which was not statistically significant, irrespective of the estimation method (intent-to-treat or treatment-on-the-treated). There were no statistically distinguishable reductions in time for collecting fuel wood or in CO exposure. Cooking outdoors lowered CO exposure for control households. For treated households, the new stoves were slightly successful in reducing CO exposure indoors ('15 ppm, p = 11%).
Results related to self-reported health seem more promising. The treatment group reported approximately half as many days experiencing irritated eyes, headache, bad cough or a sore throat following cooking. They also reported a smaller number of respiratory symptoms (17 percent versus 34 percent of control households reporting at least one symptom). The self-reported respiratory symptoms did not, however, correlate with self-reported new stove use, or with CO measurement. The positive health impact might be the result of experimenter demand and courtesy bias toward Plan Ghana.

The 8-month follow-up survey showed that half of the improved stoves remained in regular use. Households seemed to employ multiple stoves simultaneously. A probit regression showed that study groups are similar on baseline characteristics, apart from the number of cook-stoves. Substantial attrition, which occurred during the cooking test and follow-up survey, had no statistically significant predictors. High heat destroyed 28 percent of all the stove usage monitors. As a result, data could not be collected for 26 percent of treatment households and 32 percent of control households. This attrition rate was comparable for traditional and improved cook-stoves.

According to the authors, their rigorous evaluation method was successful in reducing the costs of evaluating field-based stove performance, user uptake and exposure to smoke. They advise health-improving stove programmes to focus on regions with indoor cooking, since the expected benefits of the new stoves are higher in that setting than for outdoor cooking. Another recommendation is to create monitoring and maintenance systems that ensure proper functioning of the stove chimneys. When installed incorrectly, leaky chimneys may prevent health benefits that are associated with reduced smoke exposure.

Additional publications

  • A rapid assessment randomized-controlled trial of improved cookstoves in rural Ghana, ScienceDirect, May 2012

Thank you for your interest in this publication

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