Developing countries face significant structural challenges related to their demographic composition, poverty and inequality, insecurity, political instability, and climate change.
Developing countries face significant structural challenges related to their demographic composition, poverty and inequality, insecurity, political instability, and climate change. In response to these challenges, cooperation and development policy actors are increasingly engaging with the research community to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of their interventions. It is crucial that policy decisions, whenever possible, are based on rigorously established evidence or informed by it.
The Research Unit on Impact Evaluation of Development Policies – known in French as la Cellule d’analyse d’impact des politiques de développement – was established in June 2022 at the initiative of the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs to provide advisory services to Luxembourgish Cooperation and its implementing agency, Lux-Development.
Its diverse missions include facilitating collaboration between decision-makers and research teams, conducting research to deepen the understanding of the causes and persistence of poverty, improving the targeting of policy measures, evaluating the impact of development policies and cooperation strategies on targeted beneficiaries and development outcomes, collaborating with research and non-research organisations in Luxembourg and partner countries, and organising training sessions for various stakeholders.
The Research Unit on Impact Evaluation of Development Policies (CAIPD) employs a diverse range of advanced methodologies to assess and guide development policies. This methodological toolbox supports rigorous impact evaluation and policy analysis, enabling evidence-based decision-making across multiple sectors and timeframes.
At the heart of our mission is the commitment to enhancing development cooperation by equipping policymakers with reliable, empirical insights. Our evolving toolkit continuously integrates cutting-edge research methods to tackle urgent global challenges such as poverty, inequality, and climate change.
This structured, data-driven approach ensures our work remains impactful, targeted, and grounded in measurable results.
Recognised as the "gold standard" in impact analysis, RCTs are used to evaluate pilot interventions before potential scaling. By randomly selecting participants for treatment and control groups, RCTs help to accurately measure the causal effect of an intervention, ensuring its relevance and effectiveness before wider implementation.
Quasi-Experimental Methods enable robust policy evaluation without the need for randomisation. By using observational data and statistical techniques, we estimate the causal impact of policies, particularly when RCTs are not feasible. This approach helps refine policy designs and guide decisions on scaling interventions.
Used to assess the vulnerability of regions or countries to external shocks, such as climate change or conflict, this method allows for projections of future impacts. Structural models help predict the effects of development policies on specific regions and sectors, providing essential insights for policy planning and risk management.
Explore key topics driving this project, addressing challenges like digital transformation, health equity, and green economy with innovative solutions.
A passionate team of experts collaborates to deliver meaningful research and innovative solutions. Their dedication ensures this project achieves impactful outcomes.
Key contributors: Michal Burzynski, Narcisse Cha’ngom, Rana Cömertpay, Joël Machado, Aline Müller, Mariajose Silva-Vargas, Marc Suhrcke, Aleksandra Szymanska
United in purpose. these departments contribute their expertise to drive research and strategies that create tangible societal change.
Our Research Unit employs advanced methodologies to tackle development challenges, ensuring evidence-based policymaking and impactful solutions. Through collaboration with international partners, we aim to foster sustainable development and resilience where it’s needed most.
Complex challenges are addressed through three strategic methodologies, each crafted to deliver thorough insights into development policies.
By integrating these complementary research strategies, we transform data into meaningful, actionable knowledge that can drive positive change.
We carefully and rigorously initiate pilot interventions through Randomised Controlled Trials, systematically measuring intervention impacts to inform precise, evidence-driven implementation strategies.
Our second approach involves sectoral analyses, examining development policies by comprehensive survey administrative data to guide both future policy decisions and evaluations.
The third methodology employs sophisticated structural models that help us understand regional vulnerabilities to climate and economic shifts, enabling more effective policy recommendations.
On July 19, 2023, Luxembourg's Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, Franz Fayot, and Senegal's Minister for the Economy, Planning, and Cooperation, Oulimata Sarr, officially signed the fifth Indicative Cooperation Program (PIC V) between their respective countries. Read more
The PIC V outlines a comprehensive program monitoring and evaluation plan scheduled for execution from 2024 to 2030. LISER, working through the CAIPD, will assume a central role in promoting evidence-based approach to aid management and cultivating the essential expertise required for program impact assessment. To fulfill this mission, the formulation of a detailed work plan is imperative. LISER is optimistic that this pionnering collaboration with development stakeholders under the PIC V-Sénégal initiative will serve as a blueprint for potential replication in other partner nations.
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In recent years, there has been a discernible shift in the discourse on industrial relations in Europe. Contentious collective bargaining in response to surging inflation, tighter labour markets leading to a stronger bargaining position for workers, renewed strike activity in many countries and organising drives in the low-wage service sector have been noticeable developments. These changes contrast with the preceding decades marked by the erosion of sectoral collective bargaining and associated institutions.
The Urban Development and Mobility department (LISER) and the Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research (VUB) have organised a one-day symposium titled "To pay or not to pay – The role of fares in public transport" on the 20th of March 2025 at the Black Box (Maison des Sciences). The symposium marks the end of the LiFT project, a bilateral project funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) and the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). The LiFT project focused on the policy of abolishing fares in public transport, otherwise known as fare-free public transport (FFPT).
The Discussion Paper on an AI-related topic published in 2024 by Christina Gathmann (LISER and IZA), Felix Grimm (LISER), and Erwin Winkler (University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and IZA) has been selected for the 2025 IZA Award for Innovative Research on a Pressing Public Issue (IRPPI).
