Evidence Action
Evidence Action reaches millions with the world's most effective health interventions. Our evidence-based solutions provide the greatest impact for communities per dollar spent.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Evidence Action was founded to address a big gap in the fight against global poverty, where many of the most promising evidence-based and cost-effective interventions are either implemented at a very small scale, or not at all. Our organization aims to be a world leader in identifying and scaling evidence-based and cost-effective programs to reduce the burden of poverty. This is why, in addition to continuing refinement of our Deworm the World and Dispensers for Safe Water programs, we are working through our Accelerator to select, optimize and scale interventions that can measurably improve the lives of millions of people in the world’s poorest places.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Safe Water Now
Safe Water Now delivers free and reliable access to safe water for more than 10 million people in rural Kenya, Uganda, and Malawi.
In rural parts of low-income countries, most water sources are untreated, meaning that water is not safe to drink directly from the source. Our uniquely-engineered chlorine dispensers are installed next to commonly-used water sources, enabling people to treat their water using a safe and pre-measured dose of chlorine. The chlorine stays active for 2-3 days, ensuring water doesnt get recontaminated even when stored at home. Adding diluted chlorine to water is a WHO-endorsed approach to improving water quality.
Safe Water Now is a cost-effective solution. The chlorine dispensers cost just under $1.50 delivers safe water access to one person for an entire year. From 2013-2022 our program has saved more than 15,000 lives of children under 5 and averted more than 3 million cases of diarrhea.
Deworm the World
Deworm the World helps governments launch, scale, and sustain school-based deworming programs. Over 868 million children globally are at risk of contracting parasitic worm infections. If left untreated, infections can lead to anemia, malnourishment, and impaired developmentultimately affecting childrens educational outcomes and income as adults. Our program helps governments deliver free deworming treatments to children at schools instead of placing the burden on families to obtain it.
Independent rigorous research, including by Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer, shows that deworming leads to significant improvements in nutrition, cognition, school participation, and future earnings. For less than $0.50 per treatment, children are freed from worm infection, improving their health and enabling them to attend school regularly. Since 2014, we have helped governments provide over 1.8 billion treatments and continue to support deworming in India, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Evidence Action Accelerator
Evidence Action Accelerator is our engine for new program development that selects, optimizes, and scales interventions with the highest potential to measurably improve the lives of millions of people in the world’s poorest places. Each intervention considered by the Accelerator must undergo a multi-stage process of program development, taking it from an evidence-based concept to a fully-developed solution that can be replicated in multiple geographies. We look for three critical aspects during the assessment process: rigorous evidence, cost-effectiveness, and potential for scale.
We are currently accelerating two promising health solutions: working with the Liberian government to detect and treat maternal syphilis, with the aim of preventing thousands of child deaths and disabilities each year; and supporting the Indian government to improve the distribution of iron and folic acid supplementation to millions of children and adolescents to treat iron deficiency anemia.
Syphilis-Free Start
Approximately one million pregnant women around the world are infected with active syphilis. By preventing mother-to-child transmission of syphilis, we can avert thousands of cases of neonatal mortality and disability every year.
Switching from an HIV-only test to an HIV/syphilis dual test costs an additional US$0.35, and combined with delivering a penicillin injection to women found to be infected—each dose costing less than US$0.50—thousands of childrens’ lives can be saved within the next few years.
This intervention was identified and selected by Evidence Action’s Accelerator where the evidence for interventions is rigorously evaluated so that only those with the greatest potential for cost-effective impact are scaled up.
Our first partnership is with the Government of Liberia, where we are testing a technical assistance model to help the government replace its existing HIV tests with HIV/syphilis dual tests and strengthen its capacity to deliver the treatment.
Equal Vitamin Access
Iron deficiency anemia affects millions of children and adolescents and is a leading cause of malnutrition and disability.
Evidence shows that taking iron and folic acid supplements on a weekly basis is highly effective in combating anemia. The supplements are inexpensive, safe, and reduce the risk of anemia in children by 49%.
Through our school-based delivery model, we support the government in providing weekly supplementation to combat iron deficiency anemia. We’ve started this work in India, and are looking to expand into other countries as well.
Where we work
External reviews
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of Children Dewormed
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Deworm the World
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
The total number of children who received deworming treatment each year. *The Covid-19 Pandemic had direct implications on the implementation of deworming rounds in 2020 and 2021.
Carbon Credits Generated
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Safe Water Now
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
More detail at http://dispenserdata.evidenceaction.org
User Adoption
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Safe Water Now
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
The percent of the population that uses our dispensers to chlorinate their water.
Cost per person
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Safe Water Now
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Decreasing
Context Notes
Cost per person served (MLE 2020)
Deworming Treatments Delivered Since 2014
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Deworm the World
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Total deworming treatments delivered since 2014.
Number of people with improved water access
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Safe Water Now
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Number of people with access to safe water
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
We seek to address poverty on the same mass scale at which it exists, by building programs that scale evidence-based interventions, measurably reducing the burden of poverty for hundreds of millions of people, and giving them a chance to reach their full potential.
By 2024, we seek to double our impact. We are strengthening and expanding our existing programs, and working through our Accelerator to identify a new generation of evidence-based and cost-effective interventions that we can scale to reach millions more.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
To achieve this goal, we are pursuing three strategic objectives:
Impact at Scale: Strengthen the cost-effectiveness and impact of our Deworm the World Initiative and Dispensers for Safe Water programs, and scope opportunities for expanding these programs within existing geographies and to new countries.
Next-Generation Programming: Through our Accelerator, launch, scale-up, and scope potential expansion of our Maternal Syphilis program; increase coverage in India and scope new countries to scale our Iron and Folic Acid supplementation program; and identify two new programs through our New Program Development process that can be tested at scale.
Arcs of Influence: solidify Evidence Action’s value proposition and identify opportunities to increase our thought leadership in the sectors we operate.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Cost Effectiveness: We estimate and measure the cost-effectiveness of our programs at all stages of their development. First, cost-effectiveness analysis informs our selection of programs, serving as a key criterion in early-stage program vetting and evaluation. Second, we use cost-effectiveness analysis to inform the implementation of at-scale programming. Through rigorous analysis, we are able to identify the cost and impact drivers of our programs and focus our efforts on the key levers that help minimize costs while maximizing impact. We feed this quantitative data back into our decision-making processes, allowing us to make evidence-informed decisions in real-time. Finally, we use cost-effectiveness analysis to rigorously measure and communicate the impact per dollar spent on our organization. We have a perfect 100/100 Encompass Rating by Charity Navigator in Impact & Results. Our programs have been recommended for their cost effectiveness by The Life You Can Save and Giving Multiplier, a program by researchers at Harvard University.
Monitoring and Evaluation: Our global Monitoring, Learning, and Evaluation (MLE) teams work closely and collaboratively with program teams in all countries where we operate to develop rigorous and fit-for-purpose research, monitoring, evaluation, and analysis using real-time program data collected from the field. These MLE outputs drive the decision-making of program teams and support their operations. The strength of MLE lies in the service-oriented, client-based approach to delivery; commitment to quality and innovation in the delivery of all outcomes; strong technical and managerial competencies across delivery teams and leadership; and a high level of collaboration across the team.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Our significant accomplishments since our founding in 2013 are the result of the hard work of our staff, strong relationships with our partners, and support of our donors. They include:
We operate in 7 countries across the globe and positively impact the lives of over 280 million people per year.
We have helped governments to deliver over 1.3 billion deworming treatments since 2014, at a cost of less than 50 cents per child per treatment.
We have installed and regularly maintain over 27,000 chlorine dispensers, ensuring access to safe water for over 4 million people, and averting over 2.2 million cases of childhood diarrhea since 2016.
We launched two new programs under the Accelerator: Maternal Syphilis and Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation.
When programs that we are testing for their impact and cost-effectiveness don’t measure up, we discontinue them - ensuring that our efforts and resources are put towards the most evidence-based and cost-effective interventions. We communicate openly and transparently about our decisions, as in the example of No Lean Season.
By 2024, we plan to double our impact, measurably improving the lives of hundreds of millions of people and leading the way in evidence-based, cost-effective international development.
Third-party recognition:
Charity Navigator awarded us with a perfect Encompass Score of 100/100 in all its rated categories: Impact and Results, Finance and Accountability, and Leadership and Adaptability.
The Life You Can Save, founded by leading moral philosopher Peter Singer, features Evidence Action on its list of best charities in the world.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We share the feedback we received with the people we serve, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get honest feedback from the people we serve
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Evidence Action
Board of directorsas of 01/19/2024
Shikhar Ghosh
Harvard Business School
Term: 2011 -
Amrita Ahuja
Douglas B. Marshall, Jr. Family Foundation
Dina Pomeranz
University of Zurich
Christina Riechers
Square
Kanika Bahl
Evidence Action
Dr. Owens Wiwa
Clinton Health Access Initiative
Elizabeth Young McNally
Schmidt Futures
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 09/04/2023GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.