Using Evidence in Policy and Practice – Policy Brief

The research highlighted in this policy brief was carried out with, and through the perspective of, policy makers, rather than researchers. It explored how African policy makers, researchers and development practitioners can apply interventions to promote the use of evidence to improve development outcomes and practice. The case study research was guided by a common analytical framework that combines two different frameworks: i) the Science of Using Science’s framework that looks at evidence interventions and outcomes from a behaviour change perspective (Langer et al., 2016) and the Context Matters framework that serves as a tool to better understand contextual factors affecting the use of evidence (Weyrauch et al., 2016). The framework takes into account contextual influencers and the demand from policy makers. It breaks the evidence journey into the ways in which evidence is generated (evaluations, research etc), the interventions taken in order to ensure evidence use (such as training), the changes in capability, motivation or opportunities to use evidence which arise, and how these eventually translate into evidence being used. We take a nuanced view of use, to include instrumental, conceptual, process and symbolic use.