By Florence Kondylis (Senior Economist and Program Manager, DIME), John Loeser (Economist, DIME), and Jonas Heirman (Evaluation Officer, World Food Programme). — Our results discipline a debate on “big push” interventions What are the common perceptions of “big push” cash interventions? “Big push” interventions are commonly proposed to generate significant, sustained increases in household, community, and national income. At the household level, two approaches to increasing intervention size may — in theory — enable households to escape poverty traps and produce persistent decreases in poverty:

By Emma Frankham (Technical Writer, DIME, World Bank), Marcus Holmlund (Senior Economist and Research Program Manager, DIME) and Hanna Paulose (Impact Evaluation Officer, WFP) with inputs from colleagues from the Climate & Resilience Window — Countries in the Sahel — Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad — are among the poorest in the world and face frequent shocks that can hinder the ability of communities and families to prosper. The Sahel is home to 80 million people (projected to double over the next 20…

WFP recently completed an independent review of the WFP Impact Evaluation Strategy. Review manager, Simone Lombardini, answered a few questions about the significance of the Review. — Why was the Review undertaken? The purpose of the review is to provide an independent assessment of WFP’s Impact Evaluation Strategy to ensure that it is still fit for achieving its vision. …

In a first of its kind, the evaluation of WFP’s use of technology in constrained environments assesses the use of digital technologies and data over the period 2014 to mid-2021. Evaluation team leader, Patrick Vinck, shares more about the highlights, challenges and key learning of this novel evaluation. — What do you consider to be the real strengths of the evaluation? What did you appreciate most in the process?

Initial findings from the cash-based transfers & gender impact evaluation window — By Emma Frankham, Kristen Mccollum, and Marc-Andrea Fiorina — and colleagues from the CBT & Gender Window & WFP Gender Office In September 2021, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Office of Evaluation and the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation department held a virtual event that shed light on initial descriptive…

By Kristen Mccollum and Abdoulaye Ndiaye — This blog is co-published with J-PAL. How can we make good use of the limited resources available for humanitarian interventions, when needs are on the rise globally? As part of J-PAL’s developing workstream on the effectiveness of humanitarian interventions, J-PAL Europe organised a virtual training on randomised evaluations for nearly…

By Emma Frankham (Technical Writer, DIME, World Bank), Marcus Holmlund (Senior Economist and Research Program Manager, DIME) and Ola El Toukhi (Impact Evaluation Analyst, WFP) with inputs from colleagues from the Climate & Resilience Window — There is an urgent need to understand how families and communities can absorb and respond to shocks — such as conflict, climate change, and extreme weather events.

WFP EvalXchange 2021 delivered a rich line-up of events for the second virtual festival of learning — More than 350 participants from 17 different UN agencies, along with governments, NGOs, civil society and independent consultancies joined WFP’s Office of Evaluation for the return of EvalXchange. The series, encompassing a trio of events on 18 November, 25 November and 2 December, connected participants to share lessons aimed at…

By Emma Frankham (Technical Writer, DIME, World Bank) — with inputs from colleagues from the CBT & Gender Window — The Updates from the Field blog series highlights research generated from an innovative partnership between the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Office of Evaluation (OEV) and the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation (DIME). The partnership uses impact evaluation to understand how WFP programmes are helping families around the world. As the…