evidence-informed policy

\’If not us, then who?\’ Climate change and the devastation left by typhoons Haiyan in the Philippines

Typhoon Hayian was the 25th typhoon that hit the Philippines this year. I lived in the city of Dumaguete in the Philippines for four years and left last May. My family is still there and we were talking on Skype about the typhoon that was approaching the Filipino coast. Dumaguete lies just a couple of

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Politics 1 – Evidence 0. The Italian political crisis in spite of all the (mainly negative) evidence

Here is what the evidence says about Italy. The Annual Report 2013 published by the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (Italian National Institute of Statistics) presents the evidence from 2012: Italy has the highest level in Europe of young people who are neither in education nor employment: 23.9 percent. The number of people living in families

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Also for President Obama it is a matter of judgment about the evidence on Syria

President Obama spoke few hour ago to the Nation.  In a 16 minutes speech (here) he made his case for the need to conduct airstrikes against Syria following  the  chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on Aug. 21 which the Obama administration blames on Assad\’s government. In a  blog published last Monday by The Broker

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The limits of evidence, blog just published by The Broker

The Broker online just published a blog I have written to reflect, from the point of view of the influence that evidence can have on policy decisions, on the the debate in the British parliament about the involvement of British troops in airstrikes against Syria. Here is the link to the blog: The limits of evidence

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Just published – Political economy in practice: thoughts on managing and conducting a political economy study on disaster-risk management in Indonesia

In this opinion piece published by Research to Action I describe the process of conducting a political economy study commissioned by the Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction (AIFDR) and conducted in October – November 2012. My aim is to describe how the research process unfolded and why. The audience I have in mind are programme advisors, programme and project

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Is there a knowledge of the future?

Is there a knowledge of the future? This is a rhetorical question, for there is no knowledge of the future. There cannot be a knowledge of the future, as the future is not yet there, it does not exist when we think about it now, in this moment. Yet, we who work in development (and

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Monitoring policy influence like measuring smoke?

In this blog published by Better Evaluation I write about my experience in a project supporting research centres in Australia to monitor their impact on health policy in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. I reflect on the main challenges and make some suggestions for others looking at the M&E of policy influence. You can find

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