Eva Vivalt

I have some very good news to share. As many of you know, back in 2012 I set up AidGrade, a small non-profit research institute, to collect the results of impact evaluations and synthesize them.

Fast-forward 11 years. A global consortium of institutions, led by the World Bank, is going to be working on an open repository of impact evaluation results that could be used for meta-analysis and policy (the Impact Data and Evidence Aggregation Library, or IDEAL). This is really close to AidGrade’s mission, and we will be participating in the consortium, helping to design the protocols, contribute data, and perform cross-checks with the other groups.

Apart from being generally excited about this soon-to-exist global public good, I am thrilled with the impact AidGrade has had. We made a case that this was a thing that should exist, and over time enough other people agreed that it will soon be a much larger thing (in which AidGrade will play the smallest of roles). All along, I was hoping that there could be a better institutional home for such a repository, and here we are. It’s the best possible outcome.

To anyone who supported AidGrade, either through time or money over the years, I hope you feel pleased with what you helped accomplish with AidGrade, and I hope you are as excited as I am about IDEAL.