Driving Revolutionary Ideas Into Practice

The World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) department generates high-quality and operationally relevant data and research to transform development policy, help reduce extreme poverty, and secure shared prosperity. DIME develops customized data and evidence ecosystems to produce actionable information and recommend specific policy pathways to maximize impact. To do so, DIME has developed and implemented a model of co-production with agencies on the ground that transfers capacity and know-how to partners, enables them to make mid-course corrections and motivates the scale-up of more successful policy instruments to achieve policy outcomes and optimize development impact. In so doing, DIME secures increases in the rate of return of underlying investments by large margins, far exceeding the costs of the research. The department conducts research in 64 countries with 200 agencies, leveraging a US$180 million research budget to shape the design and implementation of US$26 billion in development finance. DIME also provides advisory services to 30 multilateral and bilateral development agencies. Finally, DIME invests in public goods to improve the quality and reproducibility of development research around the world. From DIME Wiki to toolkits, training, and summer schools, DIME is servicing the global community of researchers and, in so doing, improving the quality of global policy advice.

Acknowledgements

Arianna Legovini steered the vision for this edited volume. Chapter authors are Guadalupe Bedoya, Girija Borker, Kieran Byrne, Daniel Chen, Paul Christian, Aidan Coville, Chloë Fernandez, Marcus Holmlund, Florence Kondylis, Arianna Legovini, John Loeser, Manuel Ramos Maqueda, Sveta Milusheva, Florentina Mulaj, Victor Orozco-Olvera, Patrick Premand, Daniel Rogger, Jerome Sansonetti, and Astrid Zwager. This edited volume reflects the work of these authors as well as contributions from other members of the DIME team, including Shivangi Bishnoi, Marc-Andrea Fiorina, Eric Tyler Powell, and Mariajosé Silva-Vargas. Marco Fayet and Emma Frankham co-managed the writing and production of the report. Emma Frankham provided copy editing and writing support. Marco Fayet prepared the data visualizations. Special thanks go to the entire DIME team, as well as to the many World Bank staff who actively contribute to the DIME agenda.

Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the financial contributions of the following donors and partners: the European Union (EU), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and the World Food Programme (WFP). Many other partners support our efforts, including the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), the Gates Foundation, and two dozen multilateral and bilateral organizations.