Anecdote + Anecdote = Anecdata?
One of the most difficult barriers in the field of communication and development is the lack of quantitative empirical evidence that demonstrates the effect of communication on development. When we...
View ArticleQuote of the Week: Albert Einstein
“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.” Attributed to Albert Einstein
View ArticleGetting Evaluation Right: A Five Point Plan
Final (for now) evaluationtastic installment on Oxfam’s attempts to do public warts-and-all evaluations of randomly selected projects. This commentary comes from Dr Jyotsna Puri, Deputy Executive...
View ArticleDoing Development Differently - A Chimera?
A lot has recently been written about “doing development differently” from crowdsourcing the next Millennium Development Goals (a la ONE’s Jamie Drummond) to the Copenhagen Consensus and their 16...
View ArticleLant Pritchett v the Randomistas on the Nature of Evidence - Is a Wonkwar...
Recently I had a lot of conversations about evidence. First, one of the periodic retreats of Oxfam senior managers reviewed our work on livelihoods, humanitarian partnership and gender rights. The talk...
View ArticleThe Political Implications of Evidence-Based Approaches (aka Start of This...
The debate on evidence and results continues to rage. Rosalind Eyben (left) and Chris Roche (right, dressed for battle), two of the organisers of April’s Big Push Forward conference on the Politics of...
View ArticleThe Evidence Debate Continues: Chris Whitty and Stefan Dercon Respond from DFID
Yesterday Chris Roche and Rosalind Eyben set out their concerns over the results agenda. Today Chris Whitty (left), DFID’s Director of Research and Evidence and Chief Scientific Adviser and Stefan...
View ArticleEvidence and Results Wonkwar Final Salvo (for now): Eyben and Roche Respond...
In this final post (Chris Whitty and Stefan Dercon have opted not to write a second installment), Rosalind Eyben andChris Roche reply to their critics. And now is your chance to vote– but only if...
View ArticleSo What do I take Away from The Great Evidence Debate? Final Thoughts (for now)
The trouble with hosting a massive argument, as this blog recently did on the results agenda (the most-read debate ever on this blog) is that I then have to make sense of it all, if only for my own...
View ArticleWhat is the Evidence for Evidence-Based Policy Making? Pretty Thin, Actually
A recent conference in Nigeria considered the evidence that evidence-based policy-making actually, you know, exists. The conference report sets out its theory of change in a handy diagram – the major...
View ArticleGiving the Poor What They Need, Not Just What We Have
Recently, this blog discussed a study on cinematic representations of development, highlighting notable films such as Slumdog Millionaire and City of God. Over the weekend, I was reminded that even...
View ArticleHave Evidence, Will… Um, Erm (2 of 2)
This is the second in a series of posts with suvojit, initially planned as a series of two but growing to six…Reminder: The Scenario In our last post, we set up a scenario that we* have both seen...
View ArticleAllowing ‘Revisibility’ in Decision-Making
Throughout this series of posts (1, 2, 3, 4), we have considered two main issues. First, how can evidence and evaluation be shaped to be made more useful - that is, directly useable - in guiding...
View ArticleEnforcing Accountability in Decision-Making
A recent episode reminded us of why we began this series of posts, of which is this is the last. We recently saw our guiding scenario for this series play out: a donor was funding a pilot project...
View ArticleThe Politics of Results and Evidence in International Development: important...
The results/value for money steamroller grinds on, with aid donors demanding more attention to measurement of impact. At first sight that’s a good thing – who could be against achieving results and...
View ArticleBeyond the quest for "policy implications": Alternative options for applied...
This post, written by Michael Woolcock, is a contribution to an online symposium on the changing nature of knowledge production in fragile states. Be sure to read other entries by Deval Desai and...
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