The Educate Girls DIB exceeded its goals: How did they do it and what does it mean? (Devex)

By Adva Saldinger

WASHINGTON — The first year was a scramble to get the program up and running, year two was full of stops and starts — it wasn’t until the third and final year of the Educate Girls’ development impact bond that things clicked into place. But even with a two-year ramp-up to smooth operations, the impact bond outperformed the goals set. 

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And there are skeptics as well. Justin Sandefur, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development said that he’s not overwhelmed by the results or the importance of this DIB, though he thinks it’s an interesting pilot.

Sandefur said that it is hard to tell whether the learning gains are significant. While they seem “reasonably comparable to other programs, as they note,” it “doesn’t sound revolutionary for 3 years,” he told Devex in an email. The gains appear to be solid, but “hardly unprecedented for a pilot” he said, noting several examples of organizations showing bigger learning gains. 

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