Policy Impact Toolkit

This toolkit from the International Initiative for Impact Evaluations (3ie) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) is designed to support evaluators and researchers engage with those involved in decision making processes to use their evidence in order to create better policies and programmes. 

"Evidence from evaluations is a vital ingredient for policy and programme decision making. However, ensuring evaluations are used by the right people in the right way for the right purposes is not straightforward at all.

Researchers need to go beyond just making evidence available and instead they need to take on a broader role of engaging with decision makers throughout the research process to support the use of their research." (International Initiative for Impact Evaluations (3ie) & Oversees Development Institute (ODI))

Contents

• "Policy Influence Plan tutorial: Our step-by-step tutorial guides you through the process of developing a comprehensive policy influence plan. It introduces you to a number of examples as well as offering additional resources to help you.
• Researchers discuss the policy influence of their impact evaluation: Can giving free bikes get more girls to stay in school? The International Growth Centre sponsored researchers to investigate the effect of providing every schoolgirl aged 14 in Bihar, India, with money to buy a bike. This short film presents their research and tells a compelling story of the influence it has had in Bihar.
• Happy endings for Mozambican pre-schoolers: In 2007, Save the Children partnered with the World Bank on a three year study, funded in part by 3ie, to show the benefits of early education over time, by comparing children in preschool programs with children who were not enrolled. In this blog, Melissa Kelly describes how Save the Children, together with a range of partners, were able to support uptake of evaluation findings and influence policy makers throughout the evaluation process.
• Evaluating vocational schools in rural China: Vocational schools are increasingly viewed as an appealing alternative to academic high schools in rural China. In recent years, the Chinese government—at both the local and national levels—has been encouraging students to attend vocational schools. But is this a good thing for students? With little evidence on the quality of vocational education in China, REAP set out to evaluate the vocational education programmes." (International Initiative for Impact Evaluations (3ie) & Oversees Development Institute (ODI))