May 24, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM EDT
 

Since the early 2000s, the global development community has taken an increasing interest in using rigorous evidence to help address global economic inequality and increase the well-being of vulnerable populations around the globe. Yet the number of evidence-based programs that are operating at scale is still relatively small. In the report Best Bets: Emerging Opportunities for Impact at Scale, IPA highlights 14 emerging innovations across 10 sectors (including climate change, crime, and violence, women’s economic empowerment, education, and more) classified as having substantial rigorous evidence behind them, but requiring additional investments in scale-up research, policy work, and coalition-building to get to scale. These are IPA’s best bets for the next generation of evidence-based programs operating at scale.

To identify the fourteen most promising emerging innovations, IPA conducted a review of the impact and potential scalability of hundreds of studies within and outside its portfolio, looking at the quality and amount of evidence along with the cost and other scalability factors. Nearly 50 evidence-based interventions that are poised to alter the development landscape and improve lives were identified at different levels along the path to scale.

In this panel, IPA shared the process and findings from the evidence review underlying the Best Bets report and featured the high-quality evidence, pending research questions, and required policy work for the best bets aligned with USAID’s learning priorities: Payment for ecosystem services (responding to climate change), and Couples’ counseling, soft-skills training, and cognitive behavioral therapy as examples of partnerships with the private sector, local and faith partners (partnering for sustainability).