Building an Evidence Base for USAID's Center for Development Research
In 2020, the USAID Center for Development Research (CDR) commissioned the Pulte Institute to build the evidence base around how research contributes to improving development outcomes.
The Pulte Institute is developing an Evidence Gap Map (EGM) that compiles and organizes evidence relevant to CDR’s Theory of Change, which hypothesizes that increasing university capacity to produce and disseminate development-relevant research will lead to increased use of research findings among policymakers and development practitioners. The objective of the EGM is to inform future CDR programs and research priorities by uncovering evidence that confirms or refutes the underlying assumptions of CDR strategies. This project builds on the Pulte Institute's past experiences developing an evidence gap map for USAID's Private Sector Engagement team.
Funding for this project was provided by USAID CDR through the Research Technical Assistance Center (RTAC), a network of academic researchers generating timely research for USAID to promote evidence-based policies and programs. RTAC is led by NORC at the University of Chicago. The Pulte Institute plans and delivers capacity strengthening workshops for RTAC network members, on topics such as Systems Thinking and Data Science for Development.