Please join us for the Importance of Systematic Reviews with Howard White from the Campbell Collaboration. The brown bag will be held on Friday, November 20 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the George Washington University Marvin Center (Room 405).   

Is government money being spent on programs which don’t work? The importance of systematic reviews -- a short talk and Q&A on why systematic reviews are the key to judging program effectiveness The answers to a recent quiz on which government programs work show that many of them do not (you can take the quiz here). How can there be failing programs over twenty years after the adoption of a results-based approach? The reason is too little reliance on rigorous evidence, and a failure to distil available evidence in accessible forms. The rise of evidence-based medicine is the story of the rise of the production and use of systematic reviews. We are poised on the possibility of a similar movement to design and implement better social and economic programs. Systematic reviews can – as shown by the quiz – provide clear answers on program effectiveness. Other sources of evidence, including non-systematic reviews, are subject to many sources of bias, giving unreliable results. The vision of the Campbell Collaboration is to build a global library of knowledge of the effectiveness of programs to support evidence-based decision making and practice.

Howard White is the CEO of The Campbell Collaboration. Previously Howard was the founding Executive Director of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) a global program funding research on what works in international development, before which he led the impact evaluation work of the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group. He has advised governments across Africa and Asia, and published widely on evaluation methodology and the effectiveness of anti-poverty interventions.