Itad’s Climate Change theme is implementing an evaluation for the World Bank-funded Climate Investment Fund (CIF) to examine the Transformational Change Learning Partnership undertaken by CIF’s Evaluation and Learning Initiative. The aim of the evaluation is to boost the transformative impact of CIF investments, as well as those of other funds, by establishing a more systematic and robust understanding of transformational change and how it occurs.
The Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) has engaged the PSD theme in a formative and participatory evaluation of the market systems development (MSD) approach. The overall aim is to expand the MSD approach and use of adaptive management by encouraging learning amongst Sida staff.
The Impact Investment theme has undertaken evaluations of partners and programmes funded by the Argidius Foundation, across Latin America and East Africa. These include: Impact Hub Latin America (LAM), a network of innovation labs, business incubators and social enterprise community centres supporting small growth business development and facilitating links to impact investors; GrowthAfrica, a growth platform that provides business acceleration services, strategic advice and access to investments to early-stage enterprises (ESEs) in Africa; and Alterna, an organisation committed to launching and developing social ventures to create a dynamic ecosystem for social entrepreneurship and small and growing businesses, as well as building networks to discuss, connect and create at a national and regional level. Itad has also undertaken an impact strategy audit of the impact investments of Nesta Impact Investment Fund (NIIF), a £17.6m venture capital fund.
Together with IPE Global, Itad’s Governance theme is implementing the fourth component of the Supporting Partnerships for Accountability and Civil Engagement (SPACE): Evidence and Learning. SPACE is a new programme supported by DFID to improve engagement between government and civil society in Myanmar (Burma). The programme is designed to maximise learning from SPACE investments, and other related initiatives, to understand what works and what doesn’t in fostering more productive relationships between local government and communities. The Governance theme is also implementing the monitoring and evaluation of DFID’s Support to the Palestinian Authority, a three-year programme to provide accountability and lesson learning to the Stability, Services and Reform Programme (SSRP).
The Gender theme is evaluating UN-Women’s contribution to Governance and National Planning. This corporate evaluation aims to provide findings, conclusions and recommendations to support accountability, learning and knowledge generation, as well as decision-making, in order and to feed into the implementation of UN Women’s new Strategic Plan (2018 – 2021).
The Organisational Effectiveness theme is undertaking the foundation stage evaluation for the Global Challenge Research Fund on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). This involves supporting the development of a Theory of Change for the £1.5 billion fund, and preparing a monitoring and evaluation framework, while partner Technopolis undertakes a process evaluation of the Fund.
The Fragile and Conflict-Affected States theme has just been awarded the contract under the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) to provide monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) support to the North Africa Joint Unit in order to provide stronger evidence about UK impact on development objectives in North Africa. Itad now supports three of the CSSF’s regional units, also working in the Middle East and Eastern Africa. On a smaller scale, Itad also supports the Strategy Implementation Plan for the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, a multi-stakeholder global fund that works with local partners to strengthen community resilience to violent extremism.
The Social Protection and Livelihoods theme, in partnership with Helvetas, the Swiss INGO, has started work on the AVANTI initiative, an IFAD-funded grant to fund the development of ‘AG-Scan’, a tool that will enable government ministries working in rural development to self-assess M&E systems, identify gaps and develop action plans for strengthening capacities.
Our WASH team has started work on a four-year contract to monitor DFID’s funding of WASH programmes, implemented by UNICEF in eight countries from Haiti to Myanmar (Burma), as part of the DFID-funded Independent Monitoring and Verification Services for Rural WASH. They’ve also assessed WASH projects being supported by the Co-op/One Foundation.
This year, the Health theme started work on Itad’s first contract with Gavi, the global Vaccine Alliance, to undertake an independent, external evaluation to assess the overall relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, results and sustainability of the Gavi Civil Society Organisations (CSO) platform model. This will also assess the effectiveness, outcomes, results and sustainability of Gavi’s direct support to CSOs through country Health Systems Strengthening grants from 2011-2017.
To find out more about what we’re working on have a look at our project overviews.
