Blog Series on Qualitative Methods for Impact Assessment

The Author: Monica Biradavolu

SPIA Member

CEO and founder of QualAnalytics

Monica holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Delhi and a PhD in sociology from Duke University and has held academic appointments at Yale, Duke, and American University. She specializes in qualitative methods and brings a sociological lens to a variety of research goals: evaluations of development projects, situational analyses to inform intervention design, development of survey questions that are meaningful and context-specific, use of qualitative data as the ‘gold standard’ to develop indices, process monitoring to understand mechanisms behind social change, and training teams to collect large-N open-ended interview data. She has worked with collaborators across a range of disciplines - sociology, economics, nutrition, public health and law - on issues of gender, nutrition, wellbeing measurement, living standards, education, labor force participation, education, cultural heritage, and organizational change. She has worked in 15 countries on projects funded by the World Bank, UN Women, UNICEF, USAID, J-PAL, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Her publications have appeared in AIDS Care, American Sociological Review, Global Health, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Social Science and Medicine, and World Development.

Blog Series:

There is growing interest and demand to include qualitative methods for impact assessment to improve both accountability and learning in the CGIAR System. There is great potential for qualitative methods to complement quantitative methods at different stages of the impact assessment process. Additionally, there are impact questions which are best addressed relying entirely on rigorous qualitative methods. SPIA will provide guidance on the use of qualitative methods in impact assessment through a series of blogs. This introductory blog provides a synopsis of the topics to be featured in upcoming blogs. Note that this overview is only indicative and may be subject to changes in terms of sequencing and detailed content of each blog.