CEDIL funding for projects within its Programmes of Work

1. CEDIL funding for projects within its Programmes of Work Craig Bardsley, Charlotte Cornforth, and Marcella Vigneri 19 and 27 March 2019

2. Webinar outline • Introduction to CEDIL and its purpose • Overview of CEDIL programmes of work • Overview of commissioning process • Other priorities • Expectations of projects • Timetable • Q&A

3. What is CEDIL? • The Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning • A multidisciplinary consortium funded by DFID, to identify, develop and test innovative approaches to assessing development effectiveness • Composed of: • Research directorate • Programme directorate • Intellectual leadership team (ILT) of impact evaluation experts

4. The challenges of impact evaluation and CEDIL’s response

5. Huge rise in development IEs since early 2000s Source: Shayda Mae Sabet & Annette N. Brown (2018) Is impact evaluation still on the rise? The new trends in 2010–2015, Journal of Development Effectiveness, 10:3, 291-304

6. But… Motivation for CEDIL is DFID dissatisfaction ‘unsatisfactory evaluations’ Issue CEDIL RFP: • ‘The objective is to establish a high quality, inter-disciplinary academic centre to innovate in the field of impact evaluation; design, commission and implement impact evaluations; and promote the uptake and use of evidence from impact evaluations. The purpose of CEDIL is to drive forward the field of impact evaluation and development evaluation both theoretically and in practice. CEDIL will act as an international focal point and develop and demonstrate new and innovative methodologies for impact evaluation and evidence accumulation.’

7. Examples given by DFID • Packages of interventions • Humanitarian and FCAS contexts • Budget support • TA and institutional development

8. Some examples

9. Our response identifies four gaps • Evidence gaps for IEs: geographic and thematic • Methods gaps for IEs: evaluation questions that cannot be answered by current large n statistical methods • Evidence synthesis gaps in evidence and methods • Policy uptake gap

10. Programmes of work • CEDIL has identified 3 key areas for evaluation and synthesis • £9.5m funding available over 3 years • Funds will be awarded to research teams through a competitive commissioning process • CEDIL directorate and ILT to provide technical support and quality assurance • Overview

11. Programmes of work • CEDIL work organised around 3 research themes: • Complex interventions • Mid-level theories • Promoting evidence use • Selected through: • 4 pre-inception papers, 12 inception papers • 2 CEDIL conferences, 1 internal workshop and consultations

12. Project types • Evaluations: large scale evaluations of current interventions collecting primary data. • Secondary data analysis: retrospective evaluations or other research projects relevant to the programmes of work using existing data sources. • Evidence synthesis: projects which systematically draw together existing evidence and analysis. • Exploratory projects: small scale projects to develop innovative approaches.

13. Projects in the programmes of work • Funding opportunities for:

14. Programme of work 1: Evaluating complex interventions

15. PoW 1: Evaluating complex interventions Interventions with multiple components and multiple outcomes. • Programmes with interacting components • Programmes with long causal chains • Portfolio interventions • Multi-country projects • What are complex interventions?

16. PoW 1: Evaluating complex interventions • Open the black box • Find out how the programme operates • Find proper data and comparison groups • Assess impact of interactions • Address impact on multiple outcomes • Find ways of assessing cost-effectiveness • CEDIL approach

17. Programme of work 2: Generalising evidence by building middle-range theories

18. PoW 2: Generalising evidence through mid-level theories • How to extrapolate evidence from one place to another? How to account for differences: • Population • Implementation • Project • How to scale-up interventions? • No evaluation design or method that can achieve external validity • Generalisability problem

19. PoW 2: Generalising evidence through mid-level theories • MLT between ‘theories of change’ and all-explaining social science theories • Describe mechanisms: how things work • Provide examples of mid-level theories for difficult and under-researched interventions • Evaluation questions and evaluation designs to be derived from mid-level theories • CEDIL approach

20. Programme of work 3: Promoting evidence use

21. PoW 3: Promoting evidence use Ideally evaluations should be reviewed, and summarised, and the recommendations adopted by policy-makers In reality • Evidence may not exist or being multiple and conflicting • Evidence may not be relevant, or credible or timely • Evidence is just one of many factors considered in policy • Are impact evaluations used?

22. PoW 3: Promoting evidence use • We will promote and test models of stakeholder engagement in our own evaluations • We will produce guidelines on how to make sense of different and conflicting sources of evidence • We will test the effectiveness of different communication methods • We will contribute to build an evidence infrastructure to support evidence use • CEDIL approach

23. CEDIL commissioning • Competitive process based on peer review (research quality and potential for impact) • No institutional restrictions • Individuals and organisations may be involved in multiple proposals • Priority countries and themes • Southern researchers and North-South partnerships encouraged • Key characteristics

24. Collaboration with development interventions • Projects may be submitted by teams with established relationships with organisations implementing interventions (CEDIL does not fund the costs of interventions) • Submission of a team proposal to enter into a matchmaking process with DFID interventions (details to be published soon) • Two routes

25. Want your programme to be evaluated!? Send a brief description (max. 200 words) of your programme to cedil.commissioning@opml.co.uk

26. DFID IE priority areas… viz… DFID country programmes Afghanistan Bangladesh Burma Chad DRC Ethiopia Iraq Jordan Kenya Lebanon Malawi Mali Mozambique Nepal Niger Nigeria OTP Pakistan Rwanda Sierra Leone Somalia South Sudan Sudan Syria Tanzania Uganda Yemen Zimbabwe

27. Priority thematic areas • Accelerating use of family planning • Anti-corruption, including illicit financial flows • Climate change and sustainable resource management • Conflict • Disability and gender • Economic development • Education • Extremism • Governance • Humanitarian assistance • Inclusive growth • Infrastructure and building markets • Justice • Migration and modern slavery • Nutrition • Security and stability • Southern innovation and use of technology • Trade

28. Forms of collaboration with southern partners

29. Contribution to wider programme • Submitting a number of research outputs over the lifetime of the contract which will enable the Centre to identify and develop synergies and overlaps with other projects;  • Contributing to Centre-level efforts to enhance user engagement with CEDIL’s research;  • Participating in annual CEDIL workshops or conferences;  • Participating in Centre-managed workshops on thematic and methodological issues 

30. Timetable

31. Questions?

32. Thank you • www.cedilprogramme.org