Reflections on Impact Evaluations of Education Programs in Humanitarian Settings

• In Event: Designing, implementing, and learning from mixed-methods randomized controlled trials in humanitarian contexts: lessons from remedial education in Dadaab and Kakuma
  In Formal Panel Session: Designing, implementing, and learning from mixed-methods randomized controlled trials in humanitarian contexts: lessons from remedial education in Dadaab and Kakuma.

Proposal

WUSC’s experiences suggest that designing and implementing impact evaluations in humanitarian contexts is challenging but feasible. In addition, the results can be used to improve programming and move programs to scale. This presentation presents a summary of WUSC’s experiences with impact evaluation.

WUSC’s experiences with the impact evaluation show that balancing cultural context, Do No Harm principles, ethical concerns and gender issues is critical for designing a high-quality impact evaluation in a protracted crisis setting. Understanding how these factors affect study design is critical for implementing a high-quality study.

WUSC will present reflections and its experiences during the impact evaluation process, its journey in collaborating with AIR in designing and conducting the study and sharing lessons learnt in achieving quality study in such challenging contexts. The WUSC presenters will explore the partnership with AIR, the methodological approach, the mentorship process, opportunities and concerns around RCT & RDD and sampling strategies in humanitarian contexts; reflections on the experiences of working with a renowned research institute and how the study is influencing programming.

The target audience for this workshop includes evaluation practitioners, policy makers, academics and educators interested in gaining insight into delivering impact evaluation in highly fragile and conflict-affected contexts.
The panel will include AIR and WUSC presentations, with opportunity for discussion at the end. The presenters will provide description and analysis of the experiences and reflections, share quantitative and qualitative midline results and lessons learned.

Authors

• Timothy Mwongera Kinoti, World University Service of Canada (WUSC)

• Darius Getanda Isaboke, World University Service of Canada (WUSC)

• Clara Van Praag, UNHCR

• Thomas Dreesen, UNICEF