3ie seeks grant proposals under the Social Protection Thematic Window funded by DFID

The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) is inviting proposals under a thematic window that evaluate the impact of social protection programs. The focus of this grant program is on generating evidence that is relevant to low-income countries and filling critical gaps in the knowledge about social protection. Applications will be accepted beginning October 10, 2011.

The Social Protection Thematic Window (SPTW) is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), with the potential for more funding from 3ie. This is the first thematic window being launched by 3ie and is part of an ongoing drive to fund high quality research in particular sectors that helps us gather a body of evidence and understand what works, why and under what circumstances. Both 3ie and DFID share a clear focus on poverty reduction and are committed to communicating research findings so that it makes a real difference to policy and lives in developing countries.

Programmatic focus

 The SPTW seeks to gather evidence about risk reduction/coping mechanisms (in particular cash transfer interventions and public works), but may also consider complementary interventions in the area of risk prevention (unemployment benefits, pensions, and insurance) and opportunity promotion initiatives, such as job creation and training. This will enable the call to capture the linkages between the “protection” and “promotion” roles of social protection which fills an important evidence gap in this emerging field.

Geographic focus

The SPTW is focused on generating lessons and evidence relevant to low-income countries and priority will be given to proposals from low-income contexts. However, the SPTW will also be open to studies of social protection interventions that include work in a middle-income country, as long as the study clearly demonstrates that the lessons from this work are of relevance to low-income countries. Cross-country and cross-regional studies are also of interest, as they can bring relevant comparisons of experiences.

Grants

This window will fund 7 to12 impact evaluations of up to a total of US$5 million. There is no maximum size for individual grants, although best value for money will be explicitly assessed.

Deadline for submission of expressions of interest is November 7, 2011.

For more information and details, you can visit this link.