This year’s Asian Evaluation Week (AEW) was held in Shangai from September 2nd to 5th and was organized by the Asian Development Bank. The AEW is a leading platform for sharing evaluation knowledge in the Asia-Pacific region. It gathers government officials, representatives from international organizations, and evaluation experts to exchange knowledge, share experiences, and learn about the latest innovations in the field of evaluation.

On September 4, Tara Marwah, Senior Policy Manager at IPA Philippines, represented IPA at the session “Science Bridging Borders: Evaluating Regionally for International Public Goods.” During this session, speakers presented case studies of the Monitoring Evaluation, Learning & Impact Assessment (MELIA) approaches in the research-for-development context (R4D), based on the CGIAR’s regional work in Asia bridging and scaling up regional goods to the international public level. 

In her presentation, Tara emphasized going beyond using randomized controlled trials to answer new policy questions and that evidence from other settings can inform policy design if presented thoughtfully. She also highlighted the importance of communicating evidence in a broadly applicable way, using tools like the Generalizability Framework.

Speakers

Lead Presenter

Svetlana Negroustoueva, Evaluation Function Lead, Independent Advisory and Evaluation Service (IAES), CGIAR

Case Study Presenter

Cristiano Rossignoli, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) and Impact Assessment Research Leader, WorldFish

Panelists

Tara Marwah, Senior Policy Manager, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Philippines

Moogdho Mim Mahzab, Associate Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Moderator

Gambhir Bhatta, Governance Expert, IED, ADB