What drives the use of evidence within government?
Contributing chair
Louise Shaxson @LouiseShaxson - Research Fellow, Research and Policy in Development Programme, ODI
Keynote speaker
Rizal Sukma @KBRILondon - Indonesian Ambassador to the UK
Speakers
Ian Goldman @iangoldmansa - Head of Evaluation and Research, South African Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (via video link)
Justin Parkhurst @justinparkhurst - Associate Professor in Global Health Policy, London School of Economics
Penny Hawkins @penehawk - Former Head of Evaluation, UK Department for International Development
Description
For policy to bring positive change to people, it needs to be informed by the best available evidence and local knowledge. Producing robust evidence is just part of the policy change; we need to look at where that evidence is – or isn’t – being used by governments, and why. And while we have seen increasing interest in evidence-informed policy-making, relatively little attention has been paid to the political and organisational challenges of embedding a culture of evidence within government departments.
What are the politics of how research-based evidence is used in policy-making: what factors influence decision-makers? What systems help or hinder research use? And how can the development community support robust evidence-informed policy-making?