Global Commission on Evidence - 5.4 Conditions that can help and hinder evidence intermediaries - Demand for evidence

Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges 5.4 Conditions that can help and hinder evidence intermediaries Some of the conditions that can help and hinder evidence intermediaries are within their sphere of control (e.g., aspects of their work at the interface between the demand for evidence by decision-makers and its production by researchers), while others are only within their. [...] • Capacity to acquire, assess, adapt and apply evidence, which includes capacity to: ⚪ distinguish high- from low-quality evidence (and evidence from ‘other things’), as discussed in chapter 4 ⚪ judge, with humility and empathy, what the evidence means in a given context (e.g., judging the degree to which the evidence should lead to a re-drawing of our ‘mental map’ about a challenge and ways of ad. [...] window of opportunity and time to act) • Motivation to institutionalize the use of evidence and a high-functioning evidence-support system, which will likely rely on intrinsic motivation rather than incentivization In addition to capacity related to evidence synthesis, those supporting government policymakers need four other types of capacity to inform their judgements about what the evidence mean. [...] Policy analysis to clarify a policy problem and its causes, to frame options to address the problem, and to identify implementation considerations (which we addressed in section 4.4) Systems analysis to understand who gets to make what types of decisions about the challenge now (governance arrangements), how money flows in addressing the challenge now (financial arrangements), and how efforts to a. [...] We have come a long way in the past, say, five years in different parts of the UN system, and we still have a long way to go in supporting evidence use by government policymakers and other decision-makers in member states, in using evidence in the UN’s normative guidance and technical assistance, and in making the most of partnerships with global public-good producers, which are the subject of man.