Foundation
Data
We design data collection, management, quality assurance, and analysis around the decision at hand, producing documented and usable evidence rather than data for its own sake.
Core question What can be measured reliably?
What We Do
From data to evidence, and evidence to better decisions.
CADRE connects rigorous data work, development research, and evaluation in one evidence pathway: building a reliable foundation, explaining complex challenges, and judging what works, why, and under what conditions.
The evidence pathway
Three connected functions of credible evidence
Each function answers a different question. Together, they move institutions from reliable information to explanation, judgment, and informed action.
Explanation
Development Research
We investigate development problems, institutions, policies, markets, and lived realities to explain how systems work, why challenges persist, and which options are credible.
Core question What is happening, and why?
Judgment and learning
Evaluation
We assess policies and programmes to understand relevance, implementation, outcomes, impact, value, and sustainability, then translate findings into practical learning.
Core question What worked, for whom, and what should change?
CADRE's two core disciplines are Development Research and Evaluation. Data design, stewardship, and analysis provide the empirical foundation across both.
Practice area
Development Research
Systematic inquiry into development problems, institutions, policies, markets, and lived experience. The aim is not simply to describe conditions, but to produce defensible explanations and decision-relevant knowledge.
Discipline
We frame research around a consequential decision or knowledge gap. Questions are refined with stakeholders, evidence is interpreted within its institutional setting, and findings distinguish clearly between observation, inference, and recommendation.
Methods
Mixed-methods research, household and institutional surveys, qualitative inquiry, evidence synthesis, political economy and institutional analysis, economic analysis, and participatory approaches.
Typical assignments
Diagnostic and baseline studies, policy and programme research, feasibility and needs assessments, sector studies, implementation research, cost-benefit analysis, regulatory impact assessment, and evidence reviews.
Deliverables
Research reports, analytical briefs, datasets and codebooks, evidence maps, policy options, decision memos, presentations, and accessible knowledge products with documented methods and limitations.
Practice area
Evaluation
Independent and systematic assessment of an intervention's relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability. Evaluation supports accountability while creating practical learning for future decisions.
Discipline
We reconstruct the intervention logic, clarify evaluation questions and criteria, examine intended and unintended change, test alternative explanations, and interpret results against context and implementation quality.
Methods
Theory-based evaluation, contribution analysis, process and outcome evaluation, experimental and quasi-experimental designs where appropriate, case comparison, outcome harvesting, and participatory evaluation.
Typical assignments
Baseline, midline, endline, performance, process, outcome, impact, portfolio, strategy, and institutional evaluations, as well as evaluability assessments and monitoring, evaluation, and learning system reviews.
Deliverables
Inception and evaluation design reports, theory of change, evaluation matrices, findings and recommendations, management-ready briefs, learning workshops, validated datasets, and transparent evidence annexes.
Across both disciplines
Methods follow the question, not fashion.
CADRE selects designs according to the decision, available evidence, feasibility, ethics, risk, and required level of confidence. Every assignment makes its methods, assumptions, limitations, and quality controls explicit.
Discuss an evidence need
Start with the decision you need to make.
We will help clarify the question before recommending a research or evaluation approach.
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