University of Bristol

Promoting the use of evidence in international policymaking is by no means easy. There is little consensus on almost every stage of the evidence-to-policy process. As a result, it is hard for policymakers and experts to make suggestions on how to engage with one another, how to tailor their policy questions and make relevant their research, how to work within each other’s institutional contexts, and to each other’s time scales. Challenges are definitional (what kinds of evidence count?), institutional (what kinds of evidence-to-policy mechanisms work?) and scalar (how do we translate our knowledge of national policy processes to the international realm?). To help break the logjam, this grant will support a project bringing together researchers from the U.K. and across sub-Saharan Africa. Working closely with international policymakers in the U.N. system, the team will elaborate a series of detailed case studies from previously understudied sub-Saharan African countries (including Benin, South Sudan, Tanzania, and South Africa) to better understand localized meanings of evidence and local experiences of evidence-to-policy institutionalization. The work will culminate in a series of reflections and policy recommendations on how evidence can be better institutionalized in international policy processes, with specific attention to the U.N. General Assembly. (Strategy: Evidence-Informed Policymaking)