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GRA · Development Finance Nexus

Spatial financeWhere capital meets hazard, exposure and transition

Analysis and uncertainty

Development Finance Nexus compares the methods used to justify and evaluate development investment: cost-benefit analysis with shadow prices, robust decision-making, impact evaluation with counterfactuals and geospatial targeting. This page sets out what each can show, what it assumes, and how the choice of discount rate or counterfactual can decide the answer.

01Register

Analysis and uncertainty on the record.

Development Finance Nexus
  1. 01FieldsDevelopment finance, Critical infrastructure, Economic development
  2. 02STEM methods5 canonical methods applied
  3. 03Topics10 subject pages
  4. 04Counterparts9 platforms in shared fields
  5. 05PublisherThe Global Risks Alliance
03Evaluation and risk methods

Evaluation and risk methods in development finance.

MethodQuestion it answersCaution
Cost-benefit analysis with climate scenariosDoes resilience investment pay under plausible futures?Discount rate and scenario choice dominate
Robust decision makingWhich option performs acceptably across many futures?Requires a broad scenario ensemble
Impact evaluationDid the project change outcomes?Counterfactuals are hard for infrastructure
Spatial targetingWhere does investment reach exposed and poor populations?Gridded poverty estimates carry model error
04Process

How the process runs.

Process explorer · Process

Analysis and uncertainty: PRISMA 2020 review reporting

10 steps4 stages

Process

Analysis and uncertainty: PRISMA 2020 review reporting

PRISMA 2020 is a reporting guideline for systematic reviews; the steps follow its checklist, not a mandated sequence, and no Nexus document adopts it.

  1. 01 Plan

    1. 01Registration and protocolRecord · The review teamThe guideline asks for registration details, access to the protocol and any amendments.
    2. 02Eligibility criteriaRecord · The review teamThe guideline asks for the inclusion and exclusion criteria and how studies were grouped.
  2. 02 Find and select

    1. 03Search: sources and strategiesStep · The review teamThe guideline asks for the information sources and the full search strategies. It does not fix which sources are used.
    2. 04Selection of studiesStep · The review teamThe guideline asks how studies were judged eligible, including how many reviewers screened. It does not fix the number of reviewers.
    3. 05Flow diagramRecordThe flow diagram shows the number of records found, the number of studies included and the reasons for exclusion.
  3. 03 Analyse

    1. 06Data collectionStep · The review teamThe guideline asks how data were collected from reports and which data items were sought.
    2. 07Risk of biasStep · The review teamThe guideline asks for the methods and tools used to assess risk of bias.
    3. 08SynthesisModel · The review teamThe guideline asks for the effect measures and the synthesis methods. It does not prescribe meta-analysis.
    4. 09Certainty of evidenceStep · The review teamThe guideline asks for the methods used to assess certainty, and reports the result per outcome. It does not name a grading scale.
  4. 04 Report

    1. 10Review reportRecordThe guideline helps authors report why the review was done, what they did and what they found.

ReportsOutline of an externally published reporting guideline, not a Nexus process and not a record of operation. PRISMA 2020 mainly covers reviews of intervention effects. No Nexus page names it. Every programme is at service level R0.

05Decision analysis

Methods described once, applied here.

Decision methods under deep uncertainty are described at GCRI optimisation under uncertainty and the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) decision analysis. Development Finance Nexus applies them to lending questions.

06Uncertainty

How uncertainty is reported.

  1. 01

    State assumptions

    Each analysis lists its assumptions and the data it depends on.

  2. 02

    Quantify where possible

    Ranges and confidence are reported alongside central estimates.

  3. 03

    Validate and compare

    Models are checked against observations and, where possible, against other models.

  4. 04

    Publish limits

    What an analysis cannot show is stated beside what it can.

07Sources

Where this page's references lead.

The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.

08Questions

Questions and answers.

Are the methods open?
Method descriptions are public on the STEM Commons. Code and data follow their own licences and access terms, listed in the source register.
ReportsContribute

Contribute evidence from this page.

Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

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