Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan held a five-day workshop on Evidence-Based Program Design (EBPD), an annual training programme held by CERP in collaboration with JPAL, Clear initiative and Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) from 9-13 December 2019.
The workshop equipped the participants with conceptual and practical knowledge towards analysing problems and designing the best possible solutions within the paradigm of evidence. The workshop helped ensure that development policies and programme achieve maximum impact, and was attended by some of the most senior professionals from the development and government sector, academia and think tanks.
What is Evidence-Based Program Design, How to Become a Learning Organisation, Theory of Change, Program Design in practice, Becoming a Better Consumer of Descriptive Evidence and Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evaluation Methods, are some of the modules included in the rigorous training programme to help participants learn the economic theories along with its practical application.
The modules are designed, taught and led by esteemed faculties from world class academic institutions. The programme aims at equipping professionals to develop a more structured approach towards problem-solving and furthering the use of evidence and data to constantly design, test and refine programmes and policy solutions to answer fundamental policy problems.
The programme teaches participants to apply Smart Policy Design and Implementation (SPDI): a six-step framework identified by EPoD that integrates evidence to develop policies. Mr. Maroof A. Syed, President and CEO CERP, while discussing how to create a more structured approach towards analysing data while utilising SPDI framework described “Solving problems requires a structured approach. Being solution driven does not take us far.” Whereas Dr. Tahir Andrabi, co-founder and board member CERP, shared a real-world application of the SPDI framework and established the importance of creating adaptive design.
To inculcate the learnings of the modules taught by the leading faculty (namely) Dr. Asim Khwaja, Dr. Kate Vyborny, Dr. Tahir Andrabi, Dr. Ali Hasanain, Dr. Farooq Naseer, Mr. Maroof A. Syed, Ms. Maha Rehman, Mr. Adeel Shafqat, Ms. Nazish Afraz and Mr. Osman ul Haq: the workshop embedded case study analysis and group assignments to help participants apply the learning outcomes and design a policy solution to the problem at hand.