Comments on: Evidence and results wonkwar final salvo (for now): Eyben and Roche respond to Whitty and Dercon + your chance to vote

By: William Evans

William Evans — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 11:09:24 +0000

Tim Harford on the transfer of evidence based practice into the education sector: http://timharford.com/2013/04/an-evidence-revolution/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

By: ‘Randomistas’ and microcredit: Shutting the evidence gate after the policy horse has bolted? | DevLog@Bath

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:16:12 +0000

[…] to other factors in the policy decision-making mix (see for example the upcoming conference on the Politics of Evidence). I cannot help but wonder then whether the policy of evidence-based policy making will itself […]

By: Debating the ‘politics of evidence’ | Participation, Power and Social Change Research at IDS

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:04:01 +0000

[…] interesting debates and online discussions around the “politics of evidence”. A recent blog post from Rosalind Eyben and Chris Roche spelled out well the arguments going into a conference […]

By: Bledi

Bledi — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 20:09:25 +0000

There is nothing in this article……The evidence is more than enough, but the will of the leaders of poor nations is lacking. And for this blame the people of those nations for putting those kind of leaders in power, or for letting them in power.

By: Robert Stone

Robert Stone — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 19:02:21 +0000

It is heartening that this debate is taking place at all, and particularly encouraging that the quality of the blogs and the comments is so high. The development community has come a long way in our reflexivity and in our understanding of political economy since the days of the Washington Consensus and the even more paternalistic period that preceded it. I am increasingly optimistic about the ability of the coming generation of development researchers and practitioners to make a real impact on world poverty.

By: Søren

Søren — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:29:11 +0000

Re the poll:
Perhaps it would be an idea to have a second poll on what Eyben and Roche are believed to be arguing?

Regardless, my vote is on David’s comment (http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=13327#comment-358589)

By: Patrick Kilby

Patrick Kilby — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 23:19:45 +0000

It strikes me the debate is missing a couple of things. The first is a historical context bit. And I don’t mean it is ‘the same old, same old, over again’ (which it is, raising its head in Australia in the mdi 1980s and got a full blast in the mid-1990s). But I mean the historical context of the development problem. Development for both set of bloggers is ahistorical. In Duncan’s book there is reference to comparison of Korea and Sudan at being at the same level of development in the 1950s and see where they are now. He of course omitted that Korea had just had a big war and 50 years of a tough Japanese occupation but prior to that was very ‘developed’ country, and so in one sense recaptured its former glory. The same can apply to most projects and their success or lack of. Unless our methodologies can take the historical context of the problem and the intervention then we are getting nowhere.

The second is both set of blogs are donor focussed. It is the evidence to the donor when it fact it takes two to tango and the recipient government and community agendas may be (or will be) quite different so whose results are we measuring and for whom.

By: kieran

kieran — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:21:28 +0000

Whoever pays the piper calls the tune?

You cannot expect the wise to answer questions set by the foolish.

The difference between God and a Intl developemnt policy expert, God knows she is not a policy expert.

By: Sally Brooks

Sally Brooks — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:32:38 +0000

While I have enjoyed this debate, I would like to raise an additional issue, missing from a debate that, thus far, has focused on link (linear or otherwise) between research and policy. This concerns the politics of the research process itself, particularly in the current funding environment.

In their contribution posted yesterday, Chris Whitty and Stefan Dercon painted an image of open, reflexive scientific enquiry. However, in my own research on the co-evolution of science and policy in international crop research for development, the production of ‘evidence’ has to be understood in the context of institutions driven by the need to demonstrate ‘impact’ within ever-shorter timescales in order to secure funds and demonstrate continued ‘relevance’. In this case, a discourse of evidence-based policy and practice obscures an increasing tendency, in practice, to ‘defend the little that we know’, as one scientist put it, and to project certainty rather than acknowledge and debate uncertainties.

By: Kirsty

Kirsty — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 12:55:15 +0000

Thanks for using my picture on this blog today but please can you credit it! http://kirstyevidence.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/supply-and-demand-in-evidence-informed-policy-this-time-with-pictures/
My concern is that taken out of the context of the rest of the article it could seem like a criticism of Evidence-Informed Policy. It is not – it is part of an article about how pushing out more and more evidence will not – on its own – lead to more evidence-informed policy if decision makers do not know how to use it.