Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Philippines conducted a one-day workshop on Introduction to Impact Evaluation last Tuesday, 15 March 2016, which was hosted at the OD Corpuz Hall, Development Academy of the Philippines Building, Ortigas Center, Philippines. This was attended by 28 representatives from 11 organizations. 

Faith-based NGOs attended such as Tuloy Lingap ni Padre Pio, Tulay sa Pag-unlad, Inc., and Capuchin Medical Mission. There were NGOs working in the health sector, namely Physicians for Peace and Wireless Access for Health. Government representatives were present as well from the Department of Health, Philippine Center for Population and Development, and the Senate. A private sector organization, RG Financial Services, and a Japanese foundation, The Nippon Foundation, were also in attendance. All of these organizations are involved in health related projects and initiatives and interested in implementing impact evaluations. There was special participation by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), a partner of IPA Philippines, through a lecture delivered by their Senior Research Fellow, Dr. Aniceto Orbeta, Jr. The National Telehealth Center of UP Manila was also able to showcase their project, RxBox, at the workshop.

There were lectures on What is Evaluation and Why Evaluate, Theory of Change, How to Randomize, and Evidence So Far in the Health Sector. Respectively, these were presented by Nassreena Sampaco-Baddiri, IPA Philippines Country Director; Simon Grinsted, IPA Research Associate; Marius Karabaczek, IPA Senior Research Associate; and Dr. Orbeta, PIDS Senior Research Fellow. 

The participants were able to learn that (1) each problem would be different depending on the context, which shows the importance of reviewing the literature and existing data, (2) having a control group and maintaining its integrity is very important, (3) there is value in knowing the counterfactual, (4) it is imperative to ensure that the outcome variable of interest is not affected by other factors or variables that are unaccounted for, and (5) evaluation is a significant part of any intervention and program. They  were also interested in knowing how IPA can help their respective organizations and how IPA can become a possible partner. Fr. Edgardo Dumaual, President of Tuloy Lingap ni Padre Pio, says that “The IPA seminar was able to validate that our actions are on the right track as we implement our interventions keeping in mind the value of testing and evaluation.”