Webinar Series

All webinars

Economic empowerment, school participation and changing social norms

19 July 2022 - Reducing adolescent childbearing is a global priority; enabling contraceptive use is one means of achieving this. This webinar looks at what interventions have been evaluated in low- and middle-income countries and what is needed to move the field forward and ensure the best evidence and interventions are conducted in the future.

The collaborative exploration of alternative futures: A different approach to Theories of Change

6 April 2022 - ParEvo is a web application that enables the collaborative construction and exploration of a range of alternative futures: likely and unlikely, desirable and undesirable. This webinar will describe a recent ParEvo exercise implemented by the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) in Cambridge.

Involving Men and Boys in Family Planning (Involve FP) in low- and middle-income countries

23 February 2022 - This seminar presents a CEDIL-funded systematic review sharing our understandings of the state of the evidence on engaging men and boys in family planning in LMICs and especially we present an analysis of the programme characteristics and components that can lead to male engagement and meeting the family planning needs of women and men in LMICs.

Impact evaluation: causal maps, mechanisms and the elusive quest for useful middle range theory

23 February 2022 - This webinar explores how causal mapping can aid analysis of evaluation data; highlights the important distinction in impact evaluation between multi-case cognitive causal mapping and single case causal inference; illustrates how far causal mapping and mechanism identification in impact evaluation can aid useful middle range theory building; and explains why it is not possible to produce useful middle range theory from empirical evidence alone.

Language of Instruction Transitioning in Low-and- Middle Income Countries: An Evidence Synthesis

15 December 2021 - In this webinar we will discuss: 1) how can we apply midrange theory to understand the impacts of language of instruction transition choices on student learning outcomes; 2) what the impacts are of mother tongue education on learning outcomes in the mother tongue as well as in a national or later acquired language across contexts; and 3) what are the key ingredients of a successful language of instruction transition program across contexts?

Exploring the transferability of mid-range theories through recontextualising an evidence portal

22 November 2021 - This webinar describes the process that was undertaken to recontextualise an evidence portal to the Chad Basin. In particular, the panel will discuss the stakeholder engagement and mapping of differences in the evidence bases on pedagogical approaches between different country contexts.

A review of theories of change for youth employment using a MLT approach

26 October 2021 - How can evidence from a study in one setting be transferred to another? How do we understand what are the ‘ active ingredients’ of a programme which make it work. These issues are addressed by using mid-level theory. That is, a theoretical approach which rises above the level of projects but below a level of abstraction which is too general to be testable or yield operational principles. MLT focuses on causal processes and other assumptions for the theory of change. This webinar will out the CEDIL approach to MLT illustrated with an example from youth employment.

Amplifying the voices of the Global South

22 September, 2021 - A conversation about what decolonisation means across disciplines, sectors and geographies; the incentives between research development and evidence use and how to promote change in a way that is incremental (and therefore sustainable); and capacity building versus capacity sharing.

Measurement in Evaluation

2 June 2021 - This webinar will discuss some conceptual issues linked to the construction and validation of appropriate measures that are useful for evaluation. In particular, the panel will discuss issues around what to measure, how to measure, how to use existing measures, and how to construct new measures with specific examples concerning the measurement of child development in the early years.