International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie)

The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) is a mission-driven non-profit that uses evidence to improve people's lives. It works with governments, foundations, NGOs and development and research organisations around the world to produce and use rigorous evidence for better policies, programmes and investments. Its work covers the whole decision-making cycle: understanding the causes of a problem, finding out which interventions have worked, designing programmes so they can be learned from, and measuring whether they succeed. 3ie says it goes beyond basic impact evaluations and systematic reviews, shaping its services around each partner's needs and helping decision makers use the findings. It also runs public evidence databases and a peer-reviewed journal, and supports research transparency and ethics in the social sciences.

Headquarters: Washington, DC, USA (India office: New Delhi, Delhi)

Major Areas of Work

• Impact evaluation: Scoping, designing and carrying out rigorous evaluations that show whether development programmes achieve their intended outcomes.

• Evidence synthesis: Systematic reviews, evidence gap maps and rapid evidence briefs that bring together what is known on a policy question.

• Evidence use and policy engagement: Helping governments and development partners apply evidence through theory of change work, stakeholder engagement and decision support.

• Capacity strengthening: Training and institutional support that builds the ability of organisations and governments to generate and use evidence.

• Research grants and research integrity: Managing research grants for funders and running a helpdesk on transparency, reproducibility and research ethics.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Rural India Livelihoods Project: A long-running programme of evaluations of India's Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), which links the rural poor, especially women, to sustainable livelihoods and financial services.

• West Africa Capacity-building and Impact Evaluation (WACIE): A regional programme that builds a culture of evidence-informed decision-making among senior policymakers and supports impact evaluations in West Africa.

• Development Evidence Portal: A searchable, free-to-use repository of rigorous impact evaluations and systematic reviews in international development.

• Transparent, Reproducible and Ethical Evidence (TREE): An initiative that promotes research transparency, reproducibility and ethical practice to make social science findings more credible.

• Research Commissioning Centre: A centre run with the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) that manages open funding calls for development research.

• Journal of Development Effectiveness and RIDIE: A peer-reviewed journal that publishes evidence on the impact of development interventions, alongside the Registry for International Development Impact Evaluations, which records evaluations in low- and middle-income countries before they begin.

India is one of 3ie's main areas of work. Through the Rural India Livelihoods Project it has evaluated DAY-NRLM and the National Rural Economic Transformation Project (NRETP), looking at how women's self-help groups and rural enterprise programmes affect household income, livelihoods and women's empowerment. The findings are meant to feed into the design of one of the country's largest anti-poverty programmes.

Impact

3ie states that it has produced 590 knowledge products and research and policy publications and awarded 471 grants to researchers and institutions. Its own site cites 24,225 studies in the Development Evidence Portal and 66 summaries showing how its evidence has been used. Its members include public and private donors, government agencies from low- and middle-income countries, and NGOs.

Leadership

• Marie Gaarder, Executive Director

• Birte Snilstveit, Director of Synthesis and Reviews and Head of London Office

• Sebastian Martinez, Director of Evaluation

• Neelakshi Mann, Program Director, Asia

3ie suits people who want to work where research meets policy. Staff work on evaluations, systematic reviews and evidence maps across many sectors and regions, and they work directly with governments, multilateral agencies and major funders. The work is analytical and methods-heavy. It will appeal to economists, evaluators, statisticians, research managers and policy specialists who want to show what works in development and see that evidence used. The New Delhi office and the large India portfolio make it a strong choice for people who want to apply rigorous research to India's major public programmes.