This database of publications comprises outputs from our team and partner organisations that are relevant to the areas of work in which CDI aims to be active.
August 2015
As part of the International Year of Evaluation 2015, this Wilton Park convened meeting gave evaluation professionals, development partners, and investors an open forum to review recent evaluation experience, debate evaluation governance issues, and probe the methodolog...
July 2015
This background paper is a summary of literature reviewed on the topic of the evaluation of impact investments, and was prepared for the "New Frontiers for Evaluation in an Era of Market-Oriented Development" Conference, 20-23 July 2015. The literature was scoped using...
July 2015
This background paper, written by Robert Picciotto, was produced for the "New Frontiers for Evaluation in an Era of Market-Oriented Development" Conference, 20-23 July 2015.
June 2015
This workshop was supported by the Institute of Development Studies’ (IDS’) Department for International Development (DFID) Accountable Grant, with a view to start a dialogue around the use and application of ethics in impact evaluation.
June 2015
This background report supported an event hosted in January 2015 by the Centre for Development Impact (CDI) – a joint initiative between the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Itad and the University of East Anglia (UEA) – with the objective of opening up the debat...
April 2015
This CDI Practice Paper by Giulia Mascagni provides a critical assessment of the literature on tax experiments to date.It examines the main conceptual, methodological and data-related challenges, and provides practical reflections on how to move forward in low- and midd...
March 2015
With the increase in resources that organisations are dedicating to evaluation the issue of evaluation quality has risen up the agenda and a growing number of commissioners are now looking at how to ensure the studies they commission are of sufficient quality.
March 2015
This CDI Practice Paper by Melanie Punton and Katharina Welle explains the methodological and theoretical foundations of process tracing, and discusses its potential application in international development impact evaluations.
March 2015
This CDI Practice Paper by Julian Barr and Angela Christie brings together recent work at Itad to examine the origins of the concept of value for money (VFM) in the performance audit of public expenditure and its increasing prominence as a tool applied to support the ma...
January 2015
This IDS Bulletin is the second of two that follow an Institute of Development Studies event seeking to define an agenda for research and practice of development impact evaluation. It focuses on exploring the potential of systems ideas and complexity concepts to meet th...
January 2015
All evaluation approaches have to address questions about their legitimacy, validity, relevance and usefulness. As the complexity of interventions is more widely acknowledged, impact evaluation appears to be especially vulnerable to these challenges. This article explor...
January 2015
The three core systems concepts – interrelationships, perspectives and boundaries – can be used for framing an impact evaluation (see Williams, this IDS Bulletin). But their use also has implications for the type of learning that an impact evaluation is likely to genera...
Going Beyond Mixed Methods to Mixed Approaches: A Systems Perspective for Asking the Right Questions
January 2015
An impact evaluation's primary task is to determine which impacts were caused by an intervention, distinguishing them from those produced by other causes. However, in complex systems, interventions may contribute towards less apparent forms of impact (such as negative,...
January 2015
The complexity of development processes makes it difficult to observe and interpret the impacts of policies. The authors demonstrate the use and benefits of system dynamics modelling (SDM) in impact evaluation of private sector development programmes. A system dynamics...
January 2015
System dynamics modelling (SDM) was used and process researched as a case to investigate its utility as a systems-based evaluation (SBE) approach. A system dynamics (SD) model1 was developed to evaluate the potential requirements and implications on the health systems o...
January 2015
Ideas from complexity science and systems thinking are demonstrably helpful in a shift from exploring (systematic) linear net effects of an intervention towards exploring wider (systemic) effects occurring elsewhere. But where these ideas of ‘impact’ are coupled with a...