Evidence on development policies and interventions is key to addressing many crucial questions: what do children learn when sitting in a classroom? What does it take for children to actually go to school? How can children be properly nourished and escape malnutrition? What will it take for women to be granted equal access to the job market or to be compensated fairly for their work? What will it take for billions of dollars spent on ineffective programmes to be redirected and better targeted to desired development outcomes?

It is over 15 years that the Center for Global Development asked When Will We Ever Learn?, pointing out that billions of dollars are spent each year on development programmes of unknown effectiveness. Since then, there is a growing body of evidence about what works. And that evidence shows that a large proportion of development interventions are ineffective. The availability of this growing body of evidence worldwide is welcome. But there are still three major challenges.

First, to ensure that the evidence is relevant to decision-makers - policy makers and practitioners - by addressing not only what works, but how, why, for whom and at what cost? And that it this evidence contextualized in ways which enhance transferability not generic. Second, to ensure that evidence is communicated in timely and usable ways, which often involves a process of knowledge translation or knowledge brokering and a good understanding of policy processes. And third, to make sure debates on policy challenges are informed by varied and competing sources of evidence, and the people involved in them are capable of discerning between them.

The 'What Works Global Summit 2021: Evidence for Development' takes up these challenges.

The development community is increasingly recognizing the need to integrate robust implementation research with impact evaluations to apply their lessons to decisions about scaling up pilot interventions. Research also has demonstrated the implications of program scale-up for implementation quality and program impacts. For example, studies have shown that many successful pilot interventions fail to produce similar impacts when scaled up, owing to multiple reasons. The decision to invest in a program, however, is guided by both program effectiveness as well as the cost of producing those effects, making it imperative to understand the implications of program scale for costs. This webinar will include two studies that demonstrate costs of scaled-up livelihoods and health interventions, delivered through women’s group programming. The session will specifically explore economies of scale and cost-effectiveness of a Self-Help Group program in India, and the scale-up costs and outcomes of a participatory learning and action cycle with women's groups across multiple countries.

The Gender Equality team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is soliciting brief Letters of Interest (“LOI”) (up to 5 pages) from interested partners to conduct a follow-up survey to generate additional longitudinal data on the long-term effects of group-based models that have shown promise in economically empowering adolescent girls. A LOI is requested by April 16, 2021, with finalist(s) notified by May 7, 2021. Full proposal(s) from the selected finalist(s) will be due by June 4, 2021.

Anticipated timeline of grant: 18-24 months.

More details can be found here

In a policy brief released in the early stages of the COVID pandemic in June 2020, the Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups (ECWG) examined the implications of the pandemic and the lockdown for women’s groups.

What have we learned since then? How has the COVID pandemic affected women’s groups, and how have these groups helped mitigate the negative consequences of the health crisis?

Join the ECWG on April 13 for a discussion on women’s groups and COVID, with the Africa Centre for Systematic Reviews, the American Institutes for Research, the Population Council, and the World Bank.

The ECWG will present the findings of two new reports on the impacts of COVID on women’s groups in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, followed by a panel discussion on the implications and policy recommendations for development organizations and governments.

View the recording

Join LEAD at Krea University and IWWAGE for a webinar that presents emerging evidence on how digital solutions can empower women’s collectives and improve their access to livelihood opportunities.

Women’s Self Help Groups (SHGs) and their federations hold the promise of being transformative change agents for their social and economic empowerment. Digital solutions have the potential to accelerate this progress by improving women’s access to social protection, markets, credit, and improving their book-keeping practices. This webinar will convene key stakeholders to share preliminary insights from the portfolio of research, implementation, and evaluation activities that the Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE) and LEAD at Krea University are implementing in Chhattisgarh in partnership with the State Rural Livelihoods Mission (Bihan). The program is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The event will provide an opportunity to discuss these findings with a curated audience.

In India, with the launch of the POSHAN Abhiyaan/ Nutrition Mission, efforts to improve maternal nutrition services have gained additional momentum in 2018. Nevertheless, it remains a challenge to ensure universal and equal coverage of interventions as well as to contextualize the nutrition care package for the at risk - mothers suffering from obesity, extreme thinness, with or without depression or anemia, both at the facility level and community. The level of awareness on interventions, strategies and innovations is varied among professional nutritionists and gynecologists.

National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR-NIN) and Federation of Obstetric and Gynecologic society of India (FOGSI), in association with UNICEF is organizing a monthly, technical webinar series “Maternal Nutrition technical E-dialogues” with the theme “Strengthening maternal nutrition assessment and services in antenatal care in India”. The goal is to equip nutritionists, gynecologists and other professionals with the latest maternal nutrition interventions, strategies and innovations.

December 03, 2020 – January 22, 2021

The SEEP Network is delighted to launch a challenge fund to support innovations in gender intentional COVID response and recovery efforts related to Savings Groups. SEEP will award four to six 18-month grants, worth a total of $600,000.

The fund will be responsive to promising innovations of diverse types and scope. This may include communications and training materials, program models, policy development, technology, new partnerships, or disruptive collaboration. Activities and interventions the fund might support include: ​

• Technologies or adaptations in Savings Group methodologies that better meet the needs of women to mitigate the effects of health, economic, and social shocks;
• Technologies or approaches that enable Savings Groups to effectively adapt to physical distancing requirements; and
• Partnerships and disruptive collaboration between Savings Groups and market actors (government, civil society and private sector) as part of gender intentional COVID-19 response and recovery efforts.

Successful projects will increase the resilience of Savings Groups and their members in times of crisis by reducing gender gaps and barriers in access to resources and improve the capacity of sector stakeholders to engage them in emergency response efforts.

Proposed interventions must include a strong, practical learning component to document the innovation, track progress, consolidate and assess experience, and communicate results (both internally and externally).

This webinar will focus on mechanisms in interventions with women’s groups in low and middle-income country settings.  The speakers will present findings from two recent evidence reviews: a synthesis of experimental and quasi-experimental evidence on livelihoods, health and adolescent groups and a mixed-methods systematic review of interventions with community groups to improve women’s and children’s health. The panelists, who bring wide experience implementing and researching women’s groups interventions, will discuss implications of these reviews on programs and the evidence base on women’s groups.

View the recording

September 23, 2020 – September 25, 2020

The EVIDENCE 2020 event is the biennial gathering hosted by the Africa Evidence Network. EVIDENCE 2020 ONLINE is being designed as a virtual working meeting that will foster collaboration, facilitate dialogue, and move forward the thinking, practice, and action to advance the use of evidence in decision-making across the continent.

This webinar will explore intersections of adolescent health and gender-based impacts of COVID-19, including educational opportunities, empowerment collective participation, sexual and reproductive health and health behaviors.

ECWG co-PI, Sapna Desai, will be speaking on ‘Disruption and opportunity: the effects of COVID-19 on organizing women and girls’