Institutionalizing Evidence Use in the Sustainable Livelihood Program of the Philippine Department of Social Welfare and Development

In July 2015, the Philippines government issued a circular mandating evidence-based decisions and proposed ambitious new evaluation standards across all government departments. Motivated in part by these new standards and an impending expansion, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has requested IPA’s support to help its evaluation unit set up a rigorous evaluation of a core program—the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP). The SLP is a community-based capacity building program coupled with cash grants that aims to help micro-entrepreneurs and job seekers achieve a sustainable income source. With funding from the Government Partnership Initiative, IPA seconded a Policy Associate to the DSWD to comprehensively train department staff on using and collecting evidence, conduct a process evaluation of the SLP and—with support from the Social Protection Initiative at IPA—develop an impact evaluation of the SLP.