The global development landscape is at a critical juncture. With shifting funding priorities, increased demands for accountability, and growing urgency around economic challenges, the development sector can no longer afford to invest in programs without solid evidence of impact. Now more than ever, it's crucial to "do more with what works"—to prioritize interventions that have been rigorously tested and proven effective, and to scale these solutions in ways that create lasting change.

The gap between evidence and action remains one of the biggest obstacles to reducing global poverty. Too often, promising research sits on shelves while ineffective programs continue to receive funding. Meanwhile, communities facing urgent challenges need solutions that work—not experiments that might work. This reality has moved us to launch this campaign now: to bridge that gap by sharing field-tested evidence, hard-earned lessons about scaling, and practical resources that help the entire sector do more with what actually works.

IPA's Do More With What Works campaign is our contribution to this sector-wide challenge, offering a collection of resources, insights, and evidence-based solutions that governments, implementers, and funders can use to maximize their impact. Rather than starting from scratch, organizations can build on what's already been proven to work, adapting and scaling effective interventions to reach more people and create more sustainable change.

When IPA was founded in 2002, we set out to transform the way aid and development work by rigorously testing what works and what doesn’t to reduce global poverty. Fast-forward to 2025, and we can point to more than twenty years of evaluations in over 60 countries that have reshaped development thinking and changed lives. Moreover, we help governments establish a sustainable approach to utilizing evidence through our 24 Embedded Evidence Labs in 16 countries—specialized teams that work inside government to systematically connect research with decision-making. We also have a robust Right-Fit Advisory team that helps funders and implementers learn, adapt, and achieve greater impact.

With deep and longstanding relationships in countries where we work and strong partnerships with hundreds of researchers, governments, implementers, and funders, we bridge the critical gap between evidence and implementation. Our work achieves tangible results by improving the delivery of evidence-informed programs, while simultaneously creating lasting evidence-to-impact systems that continue to generate impact on an ongoing basis.
 

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What’s next? Keep an eye out for: Parts two and three of our blog series on Embedded Evidence Labs - see part one published on LinkedIn (also cross-posted here on our website) for our insights on adoption and implementation of evidence in government systems More in-depth stories about the impact and reach of IPA’s work Subscribe to our monthly “Random Update” newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Bluesky, and X for the latest updates!