3ie hosted a session as part of the Asian Development Bank’s Asian Evaluation Week 2023 in Bangkok, Thailand, titled “Going big, going small, and going outside your comfort zone.” Catering to both the demand and supply side of the marketplace for international development evidence,  this session provided participants with illustrative examples of how organizations are applying innovations in evaluation to respond to emergent challenges.

Bringing IPA’s work to the table, Tara Marwah discussed innovative approaches to evolving needs through the Philippines Socioeconomic Panel Survey (PSPS). This twenty-year data collection initiative will produce publicly available data to shed light on long-run processes of social and economic development.

IPA explained how leveraging the PSPS as a policy tool for central and local government could blur the boundaries between evidence generation and policymaking to increase evidence use in government. Tara shared concrete ways the twenty-year survey was created with the end-users in mind:

• signing a dozen Memorandum of Understanding with local government leaders to adequately understand their needs and outline how the PSPS data could best be used for testing and scaling innovations
• involving an array of ministries in the development of the three-hour-long survey instrument, ensuring the data produced is useful to policymakers in the medium and long-term
• partnering up with both academia and central government key actors to ensure the enumeration areas could be best used to test policy and find out what really works to improve the lives of those experiencing poverty before a nationwide scale-up

For more information about the Philippines Socioeconomic Panel Survey, data access, and how to inform your programs, please contact Tara Marwah, Policy Manager at IPA Philippines.

Co-Panelists

• Julian Glucroft, Associate Director, Millennium Challenge Corporation

• Neelakshi Mann, Program Director, Asia, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie)

• Jeffrey Chelsky, Manager, Economic Management and Country Programs Unit, Independent Evaluation Group (World Bank)