Jos Vaessen
Maastricht University
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Campbell Systematic Reviews | 2014
Jos Vaessen; A. Rivas; Maren Duvendack; R. Palmer Jones; Frans L. Leeuw; G. Van Gils; Ruslan Lukach; N. Holvoet; Johan Bastiaensen; Jorge Hombrados; Hugh Waddington
The main objective of this campbell systematic review was to provide a systematic review of the evidence on the effects of microcredit on womens control over household spending in developing countries. More specifically, we aimed to answer two related research questions: 1) what does the impact evaluative evidence say about the causal relationship between microcredit and specific dimensions of womens empowerment (womens control over household spending); and 2) what are the mechanisms which mediate this relationship. We prioritise depth of analysis over breadth, thus the scope of this review is narrower than previous systematic reviews on microfinance (stewart et al., 2010; duvendack et al. 2011; stewart et al., 2012). We focused on specific aspects of womens empowerment which allowed us to combine statistical meta-analysis and realist (context-mechanism-outcome) synthesis. From the different searches we identified an initial number of 310 papers that were selected for full text examination. Eventually, 29 papers were retained for further analysis, corresponding to 25 unique studies. In line with three recent other reviews on microfinance (stewart et al., 2010; duvendack et al., 2011; stewart et al. 2012) we found that the microcredit evidence base is extensive, yet most studies are weak methodologically. From those studies deemed comparable and of minimum acceptable quality, we concluded that overall there is no evidence for an effect of microcredit on womens control over household spending.
Journal of Development Effectiveness | 2014
Maren Duvendack; Richard Palmer-Jones; Jos Vaessen
Systematic reviews and meta-analysis have risen in popularity in international development to provide evidence on ‘what works’. This paper reports the findings of a meta-analysis to assess the impact of microcredit on women’s control over household spending to illustrate the challenges of conducting meta-analysis in the case of a diverse evidence base. We provide an assessment of methodological quality and present the findings of a meta-analysis. The results suggest that the effect sizes are small. Furthermore, the confidence that we can place in these findings is limited by the high level of heterogeneity within and between studies and the general reliance on non-experimental studies and statistical analyses which are not reported in sufficient detail to enable confident judgement as to their robustness.
IDS Bulletin | 2014
Jos Vaessen; Oscar Garcia; Juha I. Uitto
In international development, impact evaluation (IE) is becoming more and more an institutionalised practice. This article starts out by addressing the question of what institutionalisation of IE means and how it could work. Subsequently, the article explores common challenges in monitoring and evaluation functions in the UN system related to the supply of (and to a lesser extent demand for) evidence on impact. Rather than looking for solutions to these challenges in the practice of IE, the article explores the issue of how to improve non‐IE monitoring and evaluation practices. On the basis of the identified challenges three categories of solutions are discussed: improving the quality of impact‐related evidence at activity and project level, strengthening the causal logic underlying interventions, and strengthening the aggregation and synthesis of evidence. Finally, the article presents some illustrative examples of the latter two categories of solutions.
Archive | 2009
Frans L. Leeuw; Jos Vaessen
Transaction Publishers | 2009
Jos Vaessen; Frans L. Leeuw
Campbell Systematic Reviews | 2014
Jos Vaessen; A. Rivas; Maren Duvendack; Richard Palmer-Jones; Frans L. Leeuw; G. Van Gils; Ruslan Lukach; N. Holvoet; Johan Bastiaensen; Jorge Hombrados; Hugh Waddington
Archive | 2009
Frans L. Leeuw; Jos Vaessen
Archive | 2002
Johan Bastiaensen; Tom De Herdt; Jos Vaessen
Mind the gap. Perspectives on policy evaluation and the social sciences | 2009
Jos Vaessen; Frans L. Leeuw
Archive | 2002
Miguel Alemán; Johan Bastiaensen; Isabel Dauner; Ben D´Exelle; Ligia Ivette Gómez; Nadia Molenaers; José Luis Rocha Gómez; Tomás Ernesto Rodríguez Alas; Jos Vaessen