Dear Colleague,
3ie is an organization dedicated to promoting better use of evidence in decision-making by L&MIC governments, development institutions and funders. How do we work towards achieving this goal? 3ie helps such institutions by making evidence more accessible. Be it through synthesizing existing bodies of evidence, by providing helpdesk services rapidly translating existing evidence into clearly articulated policy briefs or by building evaluations into ongoing programs, we continuously ensure we learn more about what works, under what conditions, through which mechanisms, for whom and at what cost. But accessibility is not enough to achieve our goal. Good use of evidence is first and foremost about influencing the evidence culture in the above institutions. By ‘evidence culture’ I mean an ingrained mindset and practice of critically assessing current approaches and their evidence-base, a curiosity and desire to find the best possible approach, and an openness and desire to acquire further evidence and learn more from current approaches so that each time we can do better than before. The same way that neuroscientists have discovered that new behaviors can be created by rewiring the brain, institutional incentives, structures, and processes can help foment this culture in organizations and governments. 3ie has, therefore, invested a lot in creating a holistic approach to evaluation capacity development, which you can hear more about in an interview (see below) with Dugan Frazer, the program manager of GEI, and in being a partner to organizations and governments that have set on a journey to further improve their evidence culture, like MCC, the UN Peacebuilding fund or the West African governments.
Marie Gaarder, Executive Director, 3ie |
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