The overarching question for this course is: how do we know if sustainability initiatives achieve their intended outcomes?

This course draws on the theoretical foundations of:

• Public policy
• Political economy
• The field of environment and development economics and policy

The core analytical orientation of the course focuses on the fundamentals of program or impact evaluation for sustainability and development initiatives, including:

• Research design for causal inference
• Realistic and process evaluation
• Design and measurement challenges
• Data sources and quality
• Approaches to synthesizing evidence
• Cost-effectiveness analysis

The course will draw on a range of case studies from low and middle-income countries, including efforts to address:

• Water and sanitation
• Air pollution and energy access
• Forest-based climate mitigation, etc.

By the end of this class, students will be able to:

• Analyze different approaches to monitoring and evaluation
• Critically evaluate existing evidence regarding the effectiveness of sustainability and development programs and policies

These skills are fundamental for developing new policy and designing programs that build productively on past experience.