In a joint initiative between the World Bank (www.worldbank.org) and the Poverty Action Lab (www.povertyactionlab.org), the SIEF initiative trains ministries of education, health, and finance for governments across the world on how to incorporate randomized evaluations as an organic part of their policies. The Spanish Trust Fund for Impact Evaluation, or SIEF, initiative aims to encourage governments to craft public policies in developing countries that are based on sound scientific evidence. This program serves to advance global knowledge about what types of policies work, and builds the capacity of agencies to carry out rigorous impact evaluations and to use results effectively. The program runs from July 2007 through December 2010, operating mostly in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, eastern Europe, and Latin America.

IQSS Graduate student Plamen Nikolov serves as a staff member of the SIEF initiative, teaching workshops on causal inference, randomized evaluations, and various impact evaluation techniques. Nikolov is a PhD candidate in Health Economics at Harvard University Department of Economics.

More information on the initiative is available at http://www.worldbank.org/sief.