The Summer School “Development Methodologies”, a week focused on impact evaluation

“We've partnered with this summer school to provide training on impact evaluation to the teams we finance and learning from their projects,” says Juliette Seban, Executive Director of FID. This year, the thirty participants were offered two training programs at the summer school: an “incubator” program for organizations currently implementing a project and another module aimed at research teams, which tackles impact evaluation from a more academic and in-depth perspective.

Around ten organizations took part in the “incubator” module, including NGOs, associations and social enterprises which have received FID funding, to learn the fundamentals of impact evaluation and the tools to apply. “The idea is that the teams leave with a clearer vision of how they’re going to evaluate their project’s impact, having asked themselves: “How do we produce an impact evaluation? How do we establish links with a research team? What are the different methods of impact evaluation?” says Juliette.

The teams selected for this module come from organizations supported by FID, who are currently in the prototyping or pilot phase of an innovation project, and are starting to think about impact evaluation. “We really want to measure our project’s impact in a professional way,” says Arpana Philip from the Shambani Pro organization, which is leading a project to support smallholder farmers in Kenya by processing unsold mangoes, and “we want to be sure that we do it correctly and with an impartial approach."

Dr. Michele Orsi from the CUAMM team, an NGO which is developing an innovative medical device to facilitate childbirth in Ethiopia, says “At the summer school, I want to improve my understanding of the evaluation methodology and identify relevant information that I can pass on to political decision-makers.”

One of the main purposes of impact evaluation is to inform the decision-making process. During the question and answer sessions, Esther Duflo reminds participants that “collecting evidence of impact is essential to demonstrate what works and accept that part of the project may fail. It's what we call risk-taking.”

Small group workshops were organized so the teams could discuss their current projects and spend time reflecting on their process and methodology with the researchers present.

“Every lesson is important. Learning about the theory of change was particularly useful in helping us design a theory of change that can produce tangible results,” says Abiy Meshesha from NURU, an organization working to develop online training courses and an app to improve mother and child health in Ethiopia.

The summer school isn’t just a place for academic work, it’s also a chance for teams to meet, talk and learn from each other’s advice and experience. “It’s an effective tool for creating a connection between the various teams we finance who are sometimes working on similar issues in neighboring countries. It’s an invaluable opportunity to share their experience and ask questions,” says Juliette Seban.