Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/270991 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
IDOS Discussion Paper No. 3/2023
Publisher: 
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), Bonn
Abstract: 
Over the last two decades, national development agencies have committed to results-based approaches and to putting evidence at the centre of their decision-making. For evidence 'optimists', this is a much-needed corrective to past practice; in contrast, 'pessimists' worry about ideology masquerading as science, and results-based approaches contributing to the further depoliticisation of development. This paper argues that reality falls somewhere in between these two extreme interpretations, and that the experiences of development organisations are varied enough to warrant further interrogation, not into whether evidence shapes policymaking, but into how it does so, and whose evidence matters most. The paper seeks to address these questions through an analytical framework that highlights the process of contestation between evidence agendas against a backdrop of policy complexity, professional barriers, and organisational incentives. A brief review of evidence from development cooperation agencies - with spotlight cases from Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom - reveals that institutionalisation and entrepreneurship play a critical role in enabling and shaping evidence-based policymaking. This leads to clear implications for practitioners, whose focus should be not only on getting the right kind of evidence, but on getting the politics of evidence right.
Subjects: 
evidence
results-based management
adaptation
policy entrepreneurship
political economy analysis
development cooperation
development management
United Kingdom
Spain
Germany
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-3-96021-204-1
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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