Developing countries face significant structural challenges related to their demographic composition, poverty and inequality, insecurity, political instability, and climate change.
Developing countries face significant structural challenges related to their demographic composition, poverty and inequality, insecurity, political instability, and climate change. In response to these challenges, cooperation and development policy actors are increasingly engaging with the research community to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of their interventions. It is crucial that policy decisions, whenever possible, are based on rigorously established evidence or informed by it.
The Research Unit on Impact Evaluation of Development Policies – known in French as la Cellule d’analyse d’impact des politiques de développement – was established in June 2022 at the initiative of the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs to provide advisory services to Luxembourgish Cooperation and its implementing agency, Lux-Development.
Its diverse missions include facilitating collaboration between decision-makers and research teams, conducting research to deepen the understanding of the causes and persistence of poverty, improving the targeting of policy measures, evaluating the impact of development policies and cooperation strategies on targeted beneficiaries and development outcomes, collaborating with research and non-research organisations in Luxembourg and partner countries, and organising training sessions for various stakeholders.
In this context, J-PAL Europe partners in the design and launch of research with J-PAL affiliated researchers on development economics topics that are relevant to Luxembourg’s development cooperation efforts. More information on this collaboration is available on the J-PAL Europe website.
The Research Unit on Impact Evaluation of Development Policies (CAIPD) uses a methodological toolbox of advanced research methods to rigorously evaluate development policies and their impacts. By combining diverse, data-driven approaches, this toolbox supports evidence-based decision-making across sectors and timeframes. It continuously evolves to integrate new research techniques that address global challenges such as poverty, inequality, and climate change, ensuring policy analysis remains robust, targeted, and grounded in measurable results.
Explore key topics driving this project, addressing challenges like digital transformation, health equity, and green economy with innovative solutions.
A passionate team of experts collaborates to deliver meaningful research and innovative solutions. Their dedication ensures this project achieves impactful outcomes.
Key contributors: Michal Burzynski, Narcisse Cha’ngom, Rana Cömertpay, Joël Machado, Aline Müller, Mariajose Silva-Vargas, Marc Suhrcke, Aleksandra Szymanska
Project leaders:
United in purpose. these departments contribute their expertise to drive research and strategies that create tangible societal change.
Our Research Unit employs advanced methodologies to tackle development challenges, ensuring evidence-based policymaking and impactful solutions. Through collaboration with international partners, we aim to foster sustainable development and resilience where it’s needed most.
Complex challenges are addressed through three strategic methodologies, each crafted to deliver thorough insights into development policies.
By integrating these complementary research strategies, we transform data into meaningful, actionable knowledge that can drive positive change.
We carefully and rigorously initiate pilot interventions through Randomised Controlled Trials, systematically measuring intervention impacts to inform precise, evidence-driven implementation strategies.
Our second approach involves sectoral analyses, examining development policies by comprehensive survey administrative data to guide both future policy decisions and evaluations.
The third methodology employs sophisticated structural models that help us understand regional vulnerabilities to climate and economic shifts, enabling more effective policy recommendations.
On July 19, 2023, Luxembourg's Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, Franz Fayot, and Senegal's Minister for the Economy, Planning, and Cooperation, Oulimata Sarr, officially signed the fifth Indicative Cooperation Program (PIC V) between their respective countries. Read more
The PIC V outlines a comprehensive program monitoring and evaluation plan scheduled for execution from 2024 to 2030. LISER, working through the CAIPD, will assume a central role in promoting evidence-based approach to aid management and cultivating the essential expertise required for program impact assessment. To fulfill this mission, the formulation of a detailed work plan is imperative. LISER is optimistic that this pionnering collaboration with development stakeholders under the PIC V-Sénégal initiative will serve as a blueprint for potential replication in other partner nations.
