I just finished reading a fascinating paper on the social impact of urban street paving in Mexico by Marco Gonzalez and Climent Quintana. A previous version of this paper had been presented at the Impact conference in Cuernavaca back in June 2011. It turns out that street paving – mostly with cement - has a significant impact on property values (+43%), land values (+54%) … [Read more...] about Cement is good
Learning from failure
Failing is embarrassing and inevitable. It is for that reason that is very refreshing to find organizations that want to learn from failure, where failure is recognized and built upon, like the Canadian NGO Engineers Without Borders, led by David Damberger, and which produces an Annual Failure Report. A good reason for the flourishing of Impact Evaluations is the … [Read more...] about Learning from failure
In search of the lost data
An objection I usually hear when discussing with practitioners about using rigorous impact evaluation techniques is “…but these evaluations cost a lot of money”. I always answer that the cost of an evaluation does not depend on the method, but mainly on whether or not you need to collect primary data (I was glad to hear Paul Gertler responding in the same way during a recent … [Read more...] about In search of the lost data
Monitoring and evaluation systems work…only if they are used
In the last few years, demand for public program evaluations has increased in Latin America and the Caribbean. This has been accompanied by the design and implementation of reliable and timely monitoring systems, that serve as data source for keeping track of public program implementation and results. A good monitoring and evaluation system is not enough, even if it is … [Read more...] about Monitoring and evaluation systems work…only if they are used
A new evaluation guide for practitioners: labor market programs
With the purpose of providing support for those in charge of overseeing evaluations, we at the Office of Strategic Planning and Development Effectiveness at the IDB are producing guidelines on selected topics and methods. This allows non-evaluators to understand the key steps that are necessary for a credible evaluation to take place. Our latest publication is Building an … [Read more...] about A new evaluation guide for practitioners: labor market programs