Using Evidence in Policy and Practice

Lessons from Africa

Ian Goldman, Mine Pabari

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000076110
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book asks how governments in Africa can use evidence to improve their policies and programmes, and ultimately, to achieve positive change for their citizens. Looking at different evidence sources across a range of contexts, the book brings policy makers and researchers together to uncover what does and doesn't work and why.

Case studies are drawn from five countries and the ECOWAS (west African) region, and a range of sectors from education, wildlife, sanitation, through to government procurement processes. The book is supported by a range of policy briefs and videos intended to be both practical and critically rigorous. It uses evidence sources such as evaluations, research synthesis and citizen engagement to show how these cases succeeded in informing policy and practice. The voices of policy makers are key to the book, ensuring that the examples deployed are useful to practitioners and researchers alike.

This innovative book will be perfect for policy makers, practitioners in government and civil society, and researchers and academics with an interest in how evidence can be used to support policy making in Africa.

The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003007043, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• List of contributors
• Foreword by Prime Minister of the Republic of Uganda
• Foreword by Professor Paul Cairney, Stirling University
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction to the book
• 2 An introduction to evidence-informed policy and practice in Africa
• 3 Using evidence in Africa: a framework to assess what works, how and why
• 4 Mere compliance or learning – M&E culture in the public service of Benin, Uganda and South Africa
• 5 Using evaluations to inform policy and practice in a government department: the case of the Department of Basic Education in South Africa
• 6 Use of evidence in a complex social programme: case of an evaluation of the state’s response to violence against women and children in South Africa
• 7 The influence of local ownership and politics of the use of evaluations in policy making: the case of the public procurement evaluation in Uganda
• 8 Rapidly responding to policy queries with evidence: learning from Rapid Response Services in Uganda
• 9 The potential and the challenges of evaluations to positively influence reforms: working with producers in the Benin agricultural sector
• 10 Parliament and public participation in Kenya: the case of the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act 2013
• 11 The contribution of civil society generated evidence to the improvement of sanitation services in Ghana
• 12 Using evidence for tobacco control in West Africa
• 13 Lessons for using evidence in policy and practice
• Index