FHI360 has conducted the first phase of a program to gather the evidence on the pros-and-cons of integrated approaches to development. In this first phase, they published a report that reviews existing studies.

Of the 25 program types, 13 produced mostly positive findings; 9 produced mostly mixed findings; and 3 suggest a neutral or unknown effect.

The study provides three recommendations for future programs: better systematic evaluation design, more nuanced outcome evaluations (as simply compiling standard sector indicators don’t necessarily tell the whole story) and better selection of comparison groups, as most of the studies compare their integrated approach to no intervention at all, where a more useful comparison might be to single-sector programs.