User:LGreg/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge (LG seminar)/ Group 2/Evidence/Evidence Based Policymaking

What is evidence based policymaking?

Evidence based policy making is “a discourse or set of methods which informs the policy process, rather than aiming to directly affect the eventual goals of the policy”. It offers a more systematic and rational policy making process by advocating that “policy decisions should be better informed by available evidence and should include rational analysis”. It has been seen that this approach has yielded better outcomes. For example, in Tanzania, a reduction of 40% in infant mortality rates was achieved between 2000 and 2003 due to a set of “health service reforms” that were implemented according to the results from household disease surveys. On the contrary, the HIV/AIDS crisis has worsened in some countries, because their governments disregarded the evidence of the causes for the disease.

Issues surrounding evidence based policymaking

There are, however, some problems that face evidence based policies. Firstly, the reliability of the evidence, and how it is used/interpreted by policy makers can vary. Policy makers can use evidence that is only useful for their cause and disregard information that would support the counter-argument. Secondly, the credibility and validity of evidence may be unclear. The lines that distinguish evidence from irrelevant information can be easily blurred which could be misleading. Lastly, the hierarchy of evidence could raise some complications. Usually, hard evidence (statistical, quantitative data) is favoured more by policy makers than soft evidence (qualitative analysis), however this preference can actually create “a risk and a limitation that EBP will in fact be used to ignore evidence that comes low in the hierarchy”.