Degree Name

MA in Sustainable Development

First Advisor

Amy Jersild

Abstract

The movement to make policy more evidence-based is gaining increasing influence in the field of international development. I argue that, properly understood and executed, evidence-based policy has the promise to make development efforts more effective. However, if policy decisions are to be evidence-based, there must be tools available to policymakers that provide evidence in usable formats. The research community has developed a variety of such tools, but there are some decision-making contexts for which none of the currently-available tools are ideally suited. This paper describes a new type of evidence tool, the rapid evidence map (REM), that provides users with an overview of the evidence base on a particular topic, while adopting a sufficiently narrow scope to allow for rapid completion and applicability to specific policy decisions. In this way, the REM seeks to accommodate both decision-makers’ need for evidence and their real-world time constraints. After presenting the concept of the REM, I outline a pilot REM project for a Peruvian government agency seeking to improve its services for indigenous populations.

Disciplines

Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation

Download

Share

 
COinS