The Politics of Evidence and Results in International Development critically examines the context and history of the current demands for results-oriented measurement and for evidence of value for money.This book will inspire development professionals and organizations to cultivate their political skills.

The Politics of Evidence and Results in International Development critically examines the context and history of the current demands for results-oriented measurement and for evidence of value for money.This book will inspire development professionals and organizations to cultivate their political skills.

Governments fail to provide the public goods needed for development when its leaders knowingly and deliberately ignore sound technical advice or are unable to follow it, despite the best of intentions, because of political constraints. This report focuses on two forces—citizen engagement and transparency—that hold the key to solving government failures by shaping how political markets function. Citizens are not only queueing at voting booths, but are also taking to the streets and using diverse media to pressure, sanction and select the leaders who wield power within government, including by entering as contenders for leadership. This political engagement can function in highly nuanced ways within the same formal institutional context and across the political spectrum, from autocracies to democracies. Unhealthy political engagement, when leaders are selected and sanctioned on the basis of their provision of private benefits rather than public goods, gives rise to government failures. The solutions to these failures lie in fostering healthy political engagement within any institutional context, and not in circumventing or suppressing it. Transparency, which is citizen access to publicly available information about the actions of those in government, and the consequences of these actions, can play a crucial role by nourishing political engagement.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. There has been an enormous increase in interest in the use of evidence for public policymaking, but the vast majority of work on the subject has failed to engage with the political nature of decision making and how this influences the ways in which evidence will be used (or misused) within political areas. This book provides new insights into the nature of political bias with regards to evidence and critically considers what an ‘improved’ use of evidence would look like from a policymaking perspective. Part I describes the great potential for evidence to help achieve social goals, as well as the challenges raised by the political nature of policymaking. It explores the concern of evidence advocates that political interests drive the misuse or manipulation of evidence, as well as counter-concerns of critical policy scholars about how appeals to ‘evidence-based policy’ can depoliticise political debates. Both concerns reflect forms of bias – the first representing technical bias, whereby evidence use violates principles of scientific best practice, and the second representing issue bias in how appeals to evidence can shift political debates to particular questions or marginalise policy-relevant social concerns. Part II then draws on the fields of policy studies and cognitive psychology to understand the origins and mechanisms of both forms of bias in relation to political interests and values. It illustrates how such biases are not only common, but can be much more predictable once we recognise their origins and manifestations in policy arenas. Finally, Part III discusses ways to move forward for those seeking to improve the use of evidence in public policymaking. It explores what constitutes ‘good evidence for policy’, as well as the ‘good use of evidence’ within policy processes, and considers how to build evidence-advisory institutions that embed key principles of both scientific good practice and democratic representation. Taken as a whole, the approach promoted is termed the ‘good governance of evidence’ – a concept that represents the use of rigorous, systematic and technically valid pieces of evidence within decision-making processes that are representative of, and accountable to, populations served.

The first comprehensive history of the Obama administration's evidence-based initiatives. From its earliest days, the Obama administration planned and enacted several initiatives to fund social programs based on rigorous evidence of success. Ron Haskins and Greg Margolis tell the story of six—spanning preschool and K-12 education, teen pregnancy, employment and training, health, and community-based programs. Readers will appreciate the fast-moving descriptions of the politics and policy debates that shaped these federal programs and the analysis of whether they will truly reshape federal social policy and greatly improve its impacts on the nation's social problems. Based on interviews with 134 individuals (including advocates, officials at the Office of Management and Budget and the Domestic Policy Council, Congressional staff, and officials in the federal agencies administering the initiatives) as well as Congressional and administration documents and news accounts, the authors examine each of the six initiatives in separate chapters. The story of each initiative includes a review of the social problem the initiative addresses; the genesis and enactment of the legislation that authorized the initiative; and the development of the procedures used by the administration to set the evidence standard and evaluation requirements—including the requirements for grant applications and awarding of grants.

This collection brings together internationally-renowned experts to offer a comprehensive review of how politics shapes inclusive development in the global south. Each aspect of development is covered: social, economic, environmental and cultural, with each substantive chapter offering a systematic review of the evidence in the relevant field.

A new lens on development is changing the world of international aid. The overdue recognition that development in all sectors is an inherently political process is driving aid providers to try to learn how to think and act politically. Major donors are pursuing explicitly political goals alongside their traditional socioeconomic aims and introducing more politically informed methods throughout their work. Yet these changes face an array of external and internal obstacles, from heightened sensitivity on the part of many aid-receiving governments about foreign political interventionism to inflexible aid delivery mechanisms and entrenched technocratic preferences within many aid organizations. This pathbreaking book assesses the progress and pitfalls of the attempted politics revolution in development aid and charts a constructive way forward. Contents: Introduction 1. The New Politics Agenda The Original Framework: 1960s-1980s 2. Apolitical Roots Breaking the Political Taboo: 1990s-2000s 3. The Door Opens to Politics 4. Advancing Political Goals 5. Toward Politically Informed Methods The Way Forward 6. Politically Smart Development Aid 7. The Unresolved Debate on Political Goals 8. The Integration Frontier Conclusion 9. The Long Road to Politics

The project has become fundamental to international development and humanitarian practice, playing a key role in defining objectives, funding streams and ultimately determining what success looks like. This book provides a much-needed overview of the project in international development practice, guiding the reader through the latest theoretical debates, and exploring the core tools and stages of planning and design. The book starts with an overview of the role of the project through development history, before taking the reader through the stages of a standard project management cycle. Each chapter introduces the stage, the most common tools used to support that phase of planning, and the critical debates that exist around it, with examples to illustrate discussions from around the world and a range of development fields. The book explores the challenges to working effectively in contemporary aid contexts, including the role of politics and the pressures wrought by the demands to demonstrate quantified results. Throughout, the book argues for the need to see the project as a form of governmentality that arranges resources and people in time and space, and that extends neoliberal forms of managerial control in the sector. Ending with suggestions for innovation, this book is perfect for anyone looking for an accessible and engaging guide to the international development project, whether student, researcher or practitioner.

Religion and development have been intertwined since development's beginnings, yet faith-based aid and development agencies consistently fail to consider how their theology and practice intersect. This book offers a Christian theology of development, with practical solutions to bridge the gap and return to truly faith-based policies and practices. Development aims to raise the living standard of the world’s poor, mainly through small-scale projects that increase economic growth. A theology of liberation provided a critique to development practice, but a specific theology of development is still lacking, and many faith-based aid agencies have failed to adapt their practice. In applying theological thinking to development, the author argues that aid agencies need to address the entrenchment of unequal power relations, and embrace a holistic notion of development, defined by the needs of those most marginalized, instead of by a focus on economic growth. Development organisations need to consider the distinction between charity and justice, and to empower people in the Global South, paying particular attention to the intersections of race, class, sexuality, religion, and the environment. Overall this book is a powerful call to upend development practice as it currently exists and to return faith-based organizations to following Christian practices. It will be an important read for religion and development researchers, practitioners, and students.

The Politics of Evidence Based Policymaking identifies how to work with policymakers to maximize the use of scientific evidence. Policymakers cannot consider all evidence relevant to policy problems. They use two shortcuts: ‘rational’ ways to gather enough evidence, and ‘irrational’ decision-making, drawing on emotions, beliefs, and habits. Most scientific studies focus on the former. They identify uncertainty when policymakers have incomplete evidence, and try to solve it by improving the supply of information. They do not respond to ambiguity, or the potential for policymakers to understand problems in very different ways. A good strategy requires advocates to be persuasive: forming coalitions with like-minded actors, and accompanying evidence with simple stories to exploit the emotional or ideological biases of policymakers.