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Research Programmes and centres

Centre

CDI-logo-web-story

Centre for Development Impact

The Centre for Development Impact (CDI) contributes to learning and innovation in the field of impact evaluation, through the use of appropriate, mixed method, and robust evaluation designs. It is a joint initiative between IDS, Itad and the University of East Anglia (UEA).

South Africa. Mobile health team visiting rural communities. Credit: Giacomo Pirozzi / Panos
South Africa. Mobile health team visiting rural communities. Credit: Giacomo Pirozzi / Panos

Debates around impact evaluation have received renewed interest in recent years. Alongside a growing pressure on politicians and policymakers to demonstrate results and value for money, conventional evaluation approaches are being critiqued for lacking in rigour, and/or being too narrowly focused and unable to capture complexity. CDI’s work will help to broaden the range of evaluation designs and methods, providing funders and evaluators alike with valuable insights and tools to measure and understand impact.

Our current focus is on:

  • Exploring a wide range of evaluation designs and methods, including complexity theory, systems thinking and different approaches to causal inference, in order to understand what works, for whom, why, and in what context.
  • Designing appropriate methodologies for evaluating complex interventions in challenging contexts, such as: interventions in emergent, dynamic and uncertain situations (such as conflict), those that are multi-sectoral in nature (like nutrition or empowerment), and those not readily amenable to counterfactual construction (such as value chains).
  • Better understanding the realities of the evaluation process, such as when evaluations are conducted under severe resource (or other) constraints, the politics of evaluation, and the use of evidence.

We achieve this through:

  1. Doing evaluations that provide scope for innovation in a particular domain;
  2. Doing research on evaluations, including meta-research and meta-evaluations; and,
  3. Developing and delivering training and learning programmes.

CDI is a joint initiative between IDS, Itad and the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Centre for Development Impact website

Core team

Rachel Eager (Itad), Emme Henderson (Itad), Giel Ton (IDS), Marina Apgar (IDS), Louise Clark (IDS), Maren Duvendack (UEA), Laura Camfield (UEA)

Advisory Board

Rachel Sabates-Wheeler (IDS), Maren Duvendack (UEA) and Chris Barnett (Itad)

Key contacts

Image of Giel Ton
Giel Ton

Research Fellow

g.ton@ids.ac.uk

+44 (0)1273 915756

Partners

In partnership with
School of International Development, University of East Anglia Itad
Supported by
UKaid Rockefeller Foundation

People

Image of Ana Pueyo
Ana Pueyo

Research Fellow

Image of Deborah Shenton
Deborah Shenton

Hub Manager

Image of Edward Jackson
Edward Jackson

Honorary Associate

Image of Giel Ton
Giel Ton

Research Fellow

Image of Inka Barnett
Inka Barnett

Research Fellow

Image of Marina Apgar
Marina Apgar

Research Fellow

Image of Philip Mader
Philip Mader

Research Fellow

Image of Rachel Sabates-Wheeler
Rachel Sabates-Wheeler

Research Fellow

Emmeline Henderson (Itad)
Chris Barnett (Itad
Rachel Eager (Itad)
Maren Duvendack (UEA)
Laura Camfield (UEA)
See all

Projects

Project

Increasing Transparency in Smallholder Supply Chains: Comparing Approaches to Monitoring Performance of Investments and Private Sector Participation

For this DfID-funded project, we will be providing a synthesis of the types of monitoring, evaluation and data being used by investors and the private sector in agricultural supply chains in a developing country context.

Project

New Frontiers for Evaluation

An unprecedented revolution has swept over the development scene since the turn of the century: it is market-led and emphasizes the mobilization of private energies, funds and skills. A brand new cast of influential development actors is transforming the state aid monopoly. The development...

Project

Millennium Villages in Northern Ghana Impact Evaluation

This project was a five year independent impact evaluation of the Millennium Villages in Northern Ghana. The evaluation is being led by ITAD, in partnership with IDS and PDA Ghana.

Project

Independent Impact Evaluation Agent (IIEA) for Tilitonse, Malawi

This Independent Impact Evaluation aims to measure the impact of Tilitonse, formerly the Civil Society Governance Fund, in Malawi. It is a challenging area for impact evaluation as the anticipated 'impacts' are likely to require a shift in power relations, and are likely to be transformative...

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Recent work

Featured Professional development course

Contribution Analysis for Impact Evaluation

From 7 January 2019 until 11 January 2019

Many development programmes have overlapping activities that are regularly adapted to changes in the context, and result from collaboration with many partners. Traditional impact evaluation...

Report

Contribution Analysis and Estimating the Size of Effects: Can We Reconcile the Possible with the Impossible?

CDI Practice Paper 20

While contribution analysis provides a step-by-step approach to verify whether and why an intervention is a contributory factor to development impact, most contribution analysis studies do not quantify the ‘share of contribution’ that can be attributed to a particular support intervention....

Image of Giel Ton
Giel Ton & 6 others

7 January 2019

Journal

The Millennium Villages: Lessons on Evaluating Integrated Rural Development

Integrated development projects seem to have largely fallen out of favour since their heyday in the 1970s and 1980s. Integrated projects are by their nature often complex and messy – and this has thrown up challenges for researchers and evaluators attempting to assess the benefits of...

30 September 2018

Working Paper

Getting the Most Out of Participatory Impact Assessment: Reflections from a Multi-Country Cash Transfer Impact Assessment

CDI Practice Paper;19

Mixed methods approaches are widely used in impact evaluations, but all too often a ‘methodological gap’ emerges between broad, large-scale surveys and in-depth, small-scale qualitative investigation that can be difficult to bridge.

1 August 2018

Working Paper

Getting the Most Out of Participatory Impact Assessment: Reflections from a Multi-Country Cash Transfer Impact Assessment

CDI Practice Paper 19

Mixed methods approaches are widely used in impact evaluations, but all too often a ‘methodological gap’ emerges between broad, large-scale surveys and in-depth, small-scale qualitative investigation that can be difficult to bridge. In this CDI Practice Paper we reflect on a multi-country...

1 August 2018

Opinion

What can we truly learn from impact studies?

Giel Ton reflects on his work with the Centre for Development Impact on the usefulness of impact studies for the outside world.

Image of Giel Ton
Giel Ton

15 February 2018

Past Event

SenseMaker: Using Micro-Narratives for Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

In this CDI seminar, Steff Deprez will present the principles and practice of the SenseMaker methodology and provide examples of SenseMaker applications in diverse programmes for both monitoring and evaluation processes.

15 February 2018

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