Think Tanks Series | The results and findings of impact evaluations can support critical evidence for innovating design, planning and implementation of public policies and thus create substantial changes that improve people’s life.
However, these studies do not always seek responses to questions that are relevant for program managers and their recommendations do not always reach decision makers in an effective and practical manner.
In recent years, Latin America has seen an increase in the use of diverse methodologies of impact evaluation for the analysis of the effects of state and non-state interventions upon people’s life, to improve the performance of governmental or social programs and projects and in some cases, for decision making in matters of development policy.
Many governmental actors, such as the Directorate of Budget (DIPRES) in Chile, the SINERGIA Monitoring and Evaluation System in Colombia, the National Commission of Evaluation (CONEVAL) in Mexico, cooperation agencies such as the International Development Research Center of Canada (IDRC); intergovernmental agencies such as the World Bank (WB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) and civil society organizations such as the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action (J-Pal), and universities and research centers continue to have a role in supporting the use of rigorous evaluation methodologies, strengthening capacities of researchers, public officials, and politicians and the effective and efficient use of results and findings from these studies.
At the same time, research teams or organizations in charge of implementing impact evaluations assume greater challenges in relation to the necessary dialogue between evidence and decision-making that can lead to changes in policy. In this, they have taken and continue to assume a leading role through the implementation of effective and innovative policy influence strategies that are able to capture the attention and trigger the action of decision makers in the field of public policies.
Therefore, it is valid to ask, “Are researchers being able to influence policy with the findings and recommendations produced by impact evaluations conducted in Latin America? What are the policy influence strategies that the researchers utilize? How do they use them and how do they work? What are the challenges and opportunities that research teams face in establishing an effective dialogue with policy makers? What is the role of institutional development in the field of evaluation in Latin American countries and how does it affect the policy influence capacity of research teams?”
This document intends to reflect on the practice and systematize some of the lessons learned in the field of policy influence of impact evaluations in the region to help us respond to some of these questions.
This document was developed on the basis of joint and bilateral dialogues that were established between researchers, think tanks, donors and institutions of international cooperation that work in Latin America (see Appendix). The International Development Research Center of Canada (IDRC) commissioned this document to the Center for Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC). For its elaboration the authors counted with collaboration from the Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE), the Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS) of the Universidad Nacional de la Plata in Argentina and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie).
The impact evaluations that were used as the basis for the document were:
1. Impact evaluation of the program “Red Unidos” (Colombia).
2. Impact evaluation of the program “AFAM-PE” (Uruguay).
3. Impact evaluation of the non-contributory pensions program “Pensión 65” (Peru).
4. Impact evaluation of the conditional cash transfer program “JUNTOS” (Peru).
5. Evaluation of the non-contributory pensions program “Renta Dignidad” (Bolivia).
6. Impact evaluation as part of “Proyecto Capital” (Peru) and the platform “Todas Cuentan” (Chile).
7. Impact evaluation of the “Programa Piloto Promoción del Ahorro en Familias JUNTOS” (Peru).
8. Impact evaluation of the “Telenovela for Financial Education Program: Financial Telenovela (Peru) ‘Isidora la ahorradora’ and ‘Diva la Ahorrativa’ (Peru and Colombia)”.
9. Impact evaluation of the “Programa Piloto Educación Financiera del Fondo de Solidaridad e Inversión Social (FOSIS)” (Chile).
10. Impact evaluation of the Savings Pilot Program “Chile Cuenta” (Chile).
This document written by Natalia Aquilino and Sofía Estévez with the support of Agustina Suaya has three sections. The first gives a definition of impact evaluation and defines what we understand by policy influence. The second section proposes a framework of exploratory analysis to understand what are the factors that affect (negatively or positively) the policy influence potential of impact evaluations. Within said framework, the third section gathers and systematizes a number of lessons learned during different impact evaluations conducted with the support of IDRC in Latin America.
