A new report, External Assessment of Outcomes from IFPRI’s Causal Impact Evaluation Research 2012–2022, authored by independent consultant Sarah Lowder, details the outcomes of IFPRI’s wide portfolio of causal impact evaluations on policies, investments, and interventions. It highlights the ways in which high-quality research design can serve as the backbone for addressing food insecurity, malnutrition, and other development challenges worldwide.
In a world marked by increasingly scarce resources for development, it is important to know whether pro-poor investments are cost-effective or not. Causal impact evaluation (CIE) methodologies answer this question by measuring the benefits attributable to specific projects, investments, or programs relative to a (counterfactual) world in which the intervention did not occur. CIE methods include randomized controlled trials (RCTs) as well as quasi-experimental methods such as regression discontinuity designs and matching methods.