Geospatial Data and Analysis for Monitoring and Evaluation
Webinar | Online
About the Event
The use of GIS in supporting of policy, planning and monitoring is
expanding with integration of technology in field. As more and more monitoring systems were
developed in last one decade, a lot of data and information became available for ongoing
monitoring and evaluation of programs, plans and actions. Growing number of
departments/agencies have moved beyond basic facility mapping to more advanced applications
that combine various GIS techniques, outputs, and routine datasets to conduct geospatial
analysis. The use of geospatial data on project variables became an attractive solution. There is
now an incredible opportunity for evaluators to use geospatial data more effectively and
efficiently.
expanding with integration of technology in field. As more and more monitoring systems were
developed in last one decade, a lot of data and information became available for ongoing
monitoring and evaluation of programs, plans and actions. Growing number of
departments/agencies have moved beyond basic facility mapping to more advanced applications
that combine various GIS techniques, outputs, and routine datasets to conduct geospatial
analysis. The use of geospatial data on project variables became an attractive solution. There is
now an incredible opportunity for evaluators to use geospatial data more effectively and
efficiently.
Speakers
| Name | Title | Biography |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Ariel BenYishay | Chief Economist, Director of Research and Evaluation | Dr. Ariel BenYishay is a development economist specializing in empirical microeconomics, geospatial impact evaluations, and randomized control trials (RCTs). He heads AidData’s Research and Evaluation Unit, and oversees the AidData Research Consortium, some 120 academics at 50 universities worldwide. His current research focuses on the impacts of foreign aid programs on agriculture and deforestation as well as human health and social capital. He leads several large-scale RCTs, including one in the Philippines and several in Malawi. Previously a Lecturer at the School of Economics with the University of New South Wales (UNSW), during his tenure there he conducted impact evaluations and randomized control trials of 200 villages as part of the Making Networks Work for Policy project in Malawi, in addition to executing randomized controlled trials as part of ongoing research on farmer training through the CEGA/J-Pal Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative Grant. Ariel spent five years (2006-2011) at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, including serving as Associate Director of Economic Analysis & Evaluation, where he designed quasi-experimental impact evaluations, oversaw M&E efforts for multi-million dollar grant programs, and established organizational guidelines for economic analysis and growth diagnostics. From 2003 until 2007, was a Senior Analyst at QED Group, where he designed and led research evaluations on behalf of the US Trade and Development Agency. Ariel’s work has been published in leading journals, including the Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Comparative Economics, and Economic Development and Cultural Change. Ariel holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland. |
| Muhammad Omar Masud | CEO, Urban Unit | Muhammad Omar Masud is the CEO of the Urban Unit and a member of the Pakistan Administrative Service. Previously, he served as the Government of Punjab’s Additional Secretary of Finance. He holds a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton University and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in urban policy. |
| Alice Duhaut | Economist, Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) department, World Bank | Alice Duhaut is an Economist in the Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) department of the World Bank. Her work focuses on using a mix of remote sensing, surveys and administrative data for impact evaluations of transportation and trade facilitation projects. Her broader research interests include transport policy, trade networks and urban and regional economics and applications of machine learning to bridge the data gap in low and middle income countries. She holds a PhD in quantitative economics from the Solvay Business School in Brussels. |
Moderators
| Name | Title | Biography |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Ammar A. Malik | Senior Research Scientist, AidData | Dr. Ammar is a CERP Research Fellow and a Senior Research Scientist at AidData, a research lab at William & Mary, where he lead the Chinese Development Finance Program that runs the world's most comprehensive and granular dataset covering the Belt & Road Initiative. Previously, he was the Director of Research at Evidence for Policy Design at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he designed and led research-policy engagements that derived actionable policy insights from rigorous microeconomics research, trained civil servants on using evidence for public decisionmaking, and identified opportunities to bring data and evidence for improving people's lives. His academic research has focused on the local economic impacts of China's Belt & Road Initiative, socioeconomic outcomes of spatial urban forms, political economy of public service delivery, and the distributional effects of urban public transport. He has used agent-based modeling to study emergence of innovation clusters in cities, randomized experiments to understand what works in job training programs, assembled large datasets for policy analysis, and advised governments around the world. In his work, he manage large teams of researchers, setup and manage partnerships with key government agencies, deliver technical assistance to major development nonprofits, lead major fundraising efforts and undertake data governance to responsibly derive insights from big datasets. As Principal Investigator, I have won over 20 competitive grants worth over $10 million, conducted field surveys in 5 countries involving 22,000+ respondents and supervised over 50 researchers in over 25 countries. He is concurrently a Non-Resident Fellow at the Urban Institute, Affiliate of the Middle East Initiative at Harvard's Belfer Center, and Research Fellow at Tabadlab. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from George Mason University, MA in Public Affairs from Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) Paris, MA in Public Policy from the National University of Singapore, and BA in Economics and Mathematics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences. |