IPA-Malawi, with support from Elana Safran from IPA's Washington, DC offices, trained technical members of the Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN) in impact evaluation and results-based management. MEJN had requested the training in impact evaluation methods that could help them attribute the community outcomes to their interventions. The sessions focused on understanding why and how to use randomized controlled trial (RCT) methodologies. MEJN comprises over 100 NGOs and the training brought together about 30 participants, who largely work in promoting good governance in the economic and social sectors of agriculture, health and education.

 

This training will also be useful in helping MEJN understand how to use RCTs to evaluate one of their 3-year World Bank funded projects aimed at tracking procurement accountability in the education sector, and they have also asked IPA to partner with them on designing the RCT. The training which was overall rated as excellent by participants, will help in encouraging evidence-based programming and for future NGOs interested in partnering with IPA to conduct RCTs on their projects.