College of William & Mary
For Bolstering Engagement With Policymakers, Influencers, And Researchers In Africa
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Amount$600,000
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Program
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Date Awarded9/15/2020
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Term24.0 Months
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Type of SupportProject
Overview
AidData is a research lab at William & Mary that equips decision makers with evidence to more effectively design, monitor, and evaluate policies and investments that affect the well-being of people living in low- and middle-income countries. Their work includes helping decision makers use new methods such as geospatial evaluation tools, tracking of all types of financial flows and assessing to what extent resources reach the most vulnerable. This grant will enable AidData to partner with African organizations on new research directions. The project includes building a strong working relationship with the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, a long-standing grantee of our TPA strategy. (Strategy: Evidence-Informed Policymaking)
About the Grantee
Grantee Website
www.wm.edu
Address
P.O. Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA, 23187, United States
Grants to this Grantee
For understanding China’s transition minerals investments
Housed at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute, AidData supports the use of data and innovative tools to solve pressing problems, precisely target resources, and use rigorous evidence to measure the impacts of policies and investments. This grant will support AidData in strengthening its data collection on China’s transition mineral investments and its relationship to the new global energy economy. (Substrategy: China National Policy)
for design, implementation, and evaluation of policies and investments that affect the Global South
A long-term, core partner of the Evidence-Informed Policymaking strategy within Gender Equity & Governance, AidData is a research lab at the College of William & Mary that generates evidence to help decision makers — both inside and outside of government — design, implement, and evaluate policies and investments in ways that improve the well-being of people living in low- and middle-income countries. Over the next three years, this renewal of general operating support to AidData will allow the institution to continue pursuing two major lines of effort: creating more voice and choice for development decisionmakers in the Global South, and promoting behavioral change among development finance institutions that is responsive to partner country needs and perspectives, and underpinned by rigorous and independent analysis. Tactically, this will mean support to programs in five areas: geospatial tools and impact evaluations, research on gender equity in development, the flagship Listening to Leaders multi-year study, best-in-class analysis and data collection on Chinese development finance, and measuring foreign policy influence. Each of these programs will form a core part of AidData's new 2024-26 strategic plan.
for geospatial impact evaluations and engagement with key evidence stakeholders in Africa
Housed at the College of William & Mary's Global Research Institute, AidData connects decision makers and researchers who have a shared interest in working together using granular data and innovative tools to solve pressing problems, precisely target resources, and use rigorous evidence to measure the impacts — intended and unintended — of policies and investments. Building on previous support to AidData in both geospatial research and African institutional engagement, this grant aims to dramatically expand AidData's partnerships with African organizations, especially around two key themes: advancing gender-transformative policy research and strengthening the use of geospatial evaluation tools for climate-sensitive agricultural programming. By partnering with a set of four Africa-based groups with distinct areas of engagement, AidData’s goal is to help inject critical evidence into major policy debates around gender-transformative initiatives in both East and West Africa (targeting both rural and urban settings), and to empower agriculture researchers across the continent to apply geospatial and remote sensing approaches to overcome limitations in surveys and other types of traditional data. In addition, this work has strong relevance to other parts of the Gender Equity & Governance and the Environment programs, and thus offers a chance for Evidence-Informed Policymaking to bolster complementarity across programs. (Strategy: Evidence-Informed Policymaking)
