NGOs and governmental agencies in low and middle-income countries to invited to submit “proposed social and economic development interventions (projects, programmes, or policies) to be subject to quality impact evaluation.” 3ie or the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation works “to increase development effectiveness through better use of evidence in developing countries. In fulfilment of this mission 3ie funds impact studies of high relevance to policy makers which have a large potential policy impact.”

“Overview of the window

The window operates through a two stage process:

1. Implementing agencies are invited to submit interventions to be evaluated. A panel of policy experts will select up to six of these proposals to be evaluated with 3ie grant finance. The review criteria are listed in Annex 1.

2. A separate international competitive bidding process is run for each of the selected proposals. Bids are reviewed by a technical team of reviewers, including a representative from the implementing agency. The review criteria are listed in Annex 1.

Final approval of awards is made by the Board of 3ie, which will meet in the second half of October, 2010.

Review process and timeline

Applications must be submitted on the appropriate application form before the deadline, along with any supporting materials. Applications should be submitted to (email hidden: see the source link below/next page). Any submissions not on the correct form, or sent to other 3ie email addresses, may not be considered under this call.

The deadline for submissions is 11.55 pm Delhi time, June 11th 2010. The proposals will be reviewed by a panel of international policy makers. The selected proposals for evaluation will be announced by June 28th 2010.

The international competitive bidding process for the selected proposals will be launched in the first half of July, with a submission deadline of August 25th 2010. Successful awards will be announced in the week beginning 25th October 2010.”

Role of national researchers/evaluators

The study team will include national researchers. These will be selected in one of three ways.

The usual means are either that: (1) the national research team is the lead agency in the bid, or (2) the national research team will be part of a bid in a collaborative partnership with an international research team. National teams may participate in more than one bid for the same contract, which international team members may not.

In exceptional circumstances, the implementing agency may indicate the preferred national team. In such cases, 3ie will determine the most appropriate way of handling the bidding process.

Evaluation process

For each study, a steering committee will be established, comprising a representative from each of the (1) the implementing agency, (2) the parent government agency, if not the implementing agency, (3) the national study team, (4) the international study team, (5) the two independent experts appointed by 3ie to act as peer reviewers, and (6) a 3ie staff member to act as secretary. The steering committee will review all major products produced by the study team.

Conditions

In submitting a proposal, the submitting institution agrees to the following conditions:

1. 3ie reserves the right not to commission an evaluation if there are no proposals of sufficient quality.
2. Report findings will be disseminated locally and published on 3ie’s website. There will be a period of internal consultation prior to publication. A ‘management response’ can be included in the final report if requested.
3. The implementing agency will submit a report to 3ie on how it plans to utilize the recommendations and findings that ensued from the study, within 3 months of the dissemination of the results.
4. Data collected with 3ie financing are required to be placed in the public domain, being available for use by other researchers, 12 months after the completion of data collection.

More information at this link.

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