On a personal note, while I understand and endorse the rigorous processes that donors and evaluators require, I sometimes feel frustrated by the lack of urgency.
I don’t mean to speak for anyone but myself, but I sense that there has been an increase in skepticism in recent decades, as interventions that seemed promising and which “we know work” turn out not to have any measurable effect, or even to have negative effects, when carefully studied. My prior, at least, regarding any new intervention that I hear about is that any effect is probably illusory or minimal.
It’s not that there is no urgency about the problems in the world — those are indeed urgent and demanding — but rather, our resources are so limited, and good interventions so hard to find, that we should probably dedicate only a small amount of our funding to more speculative projects, so that we can build evidence over time and not waste funding on projects that turn out not to work. As an example of what we want to avoid doing, look at what happened with microfinance.
Of course the situation would be different if we had already fully funded well-studied projects like bednets, deworming, Vitamin A, etc.; but sadly that’s not the world we actually inhabit.
I guess then it’s just my title: In God we trust, but all others must bring data. It just feels frustrating sometimes, also because people actually don’t say they don’t believe you. So if you don’t call me a liar, then why don’t you help or support me?
I would really like it if a more systematic way of identifying, testing and scaling successful innovations was available.
My post are definitely not intended to complain by the way. I am blessed with a great and supportive team and have great partners as well. It’s a genuine interest to understand, learn and improve.
Thanks Niek for your thoughts.
Regarding this:
I don’t mean to speak for anyone but myself, but I sense that there has been an increase in skepticism in recent decades, as interventions that seemed promising and which “we know work” turn out not to have any measurable effect, or even to have negative effects, when carefully studied. My prior, at least, regarding any new intervention that I hear about is that any effect is probably illusory or minimal.
It’s not that there is no urgency about the problems in the world — those are indeed urgent and demanding — but rather, our resources are so limited, and good interventions so hard to find, that we should probably dedicate only a small amount of our funding to more speculative projects, so that we can build evidence over time and not waste funding on projects that turn out not to work. As an example of what we want to avoid doing, look at what happened with microfinance.
Of course the situation would be different if we had already fully funded well-studied projects like bednets, deworming, Vitamin A, etc.; but sadly that’s not the world we actually inhabit.
I guess then it’s just my title: In God we trust, but all others must bring data. It just feels frustrating sometimes, also because people actually don’t say they don’t believe you. So if you don’t call me a liar, then why don’t you help or support me?
I would really like it if a more systematic way of identifying, testing and scaling successful innovations was available.
My post are definitely not intended to complain by the way. I am blessed with a great and supportive team and have great partners as well. It’s a genuine interest to understand, learn and improve.