Is impact evaluation still on the rise? The new trends in 2010–2015

Abstract

This article examines the content of a web-based repository of published international development impact evaluations created by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) in 2012. In 2015, the authors of this article along with a team of reviewers at 3ie used an updated search and screening protocol to identify new impact evaluation studies published until September 2015. By using systematic search and screening techniques to populate the repository, which contains 4,205 development impact evaluations published between 1981 and September 2015, we can use the data to analyse the trends in impact evaluation research. Though we find early evidence of a plateau in the growth rate of development impact evaluations, the number of studies published between January 2010 and September 2015 account for almost two thirds of the total evidence base. Over half of all studies fall under health and education sectors, though we see in the current decade an emergence of studies in formerly unrepresented sectors. While development impact evaluations are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America (60%), studies are increasingly conducted in underrepresented regions such as the Middle East and North Africa.

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