BSS, Dhaka :
Impact evaluation is seen vital to frame effective policies and design programmes that can successfully improve lives and reduce poverty, said participants at a senior level conference in Dhaka Wednesday.
The senior-level Evidence-to-Policy workshop was organized by the World Bank, in partnership with the government, BRAC, Innovations for Poverty Action, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA).
Participants, including senior government officials, civil society organizations and researchers reviewed and discuss successful programmes for providing clean water and sanitation, promoting rural livelihood opportunities, and giving children the nutrition and skills they need to succeed in schools and later in life.
“Evidence of what works and what doesn’t is vitally important for policy makers for designing effective development policies and programmes. Impact evaluation helps them to understand and undertake more effective approaches to reduce poverty and ensure shared growth,” said Johannes Zutt, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh.
The senior level session provided an opportunity for government and civil society officials to share experiences in promoting better service delivery to the poor using rigorous impact evaluation evidence and to discuss new approaches.
“We are very pleased to work directly with Bangladesh policymakers on what we have learned from impact evaluations and how the evidence can be used for better programmes and policies,” said Joost de Laat, Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF) program manager of the World Bank.
Earlier this week, the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund held a three-day workshop in Dhaka for government officials from Bangladesh and the South Asia region that focused on learning how to incorporate impact evaluation into programmes to measure whether programmes are having a real impact on people’s lives.
