Over 40 university students are today set to complete a 10 day summer school aimed at increasing use of high-quality data and evidence in the agricultural sector.

The summer school, dubbed, ‘Impact Evaluation Summer School’ was hosted by World Bank, European Union (EU), the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources and the University of Rwanda.

The summer school was aimed at increasing the use of high-quality data and evidence in the agricultural sector, from policy design, implementation, and scale up/down decisions.

This is with an aim to accumulate learning to increase programme impact, and to adapt to emerging needs on the ground.

The partnership also sought to enhance capacity for evidence-based policymaking in Rwanda.

The partnership focused on building capacity in the sector through the Summer School to serve as a spring-board for the next generation of Rwandan researchers, implementers and policy-makers.

It followed a competitive selection process whereby over 100 applications were received and 42 candidates selected.

The selected participants consists of current University of Rwanda students and recent graduates from the University’s masters and PhD programmes.

The Summer School has three main components; lecture sessions, group discussions, and in-depth lab sessions that seek to help students gain skills in industry-leading statistical programmes through a hands-on approach to learning.

The Summer School was led and facilitated by researchers from the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation unit and senior faculty from the University of California, Berkeley.

The final element of the Summer School was the creation of a job market for high performing students. This involved an employer roundtable with participating research-focused not-for-profit institutions to find potential internship opportunities.

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