Summary: The author contributes to the lively debate on poverty measurement. He argues that a-dollar-a-day calculations are not sufficient to inform policy.

Region: International

Type: Papers
Sector: Poverty
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: The authors analyse the impact on the global economy of rising oil prices, a falling dollar and a U.S. economic downturn. By 2020 there will be a major realignment of the global economy. The U.S. will experience further economic decline. China, India and Brazil will continue to grow. Non-energy producing countries in sub-Saharan Africa would fare the worst. Income per capita would fall by 1.2 per cent per annum.

Region: International

Type: Papers
Sector: Economic Policy
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: This paper reviews the policy context for research publication in South Africa, using South Africa’s relatively privileged status as an African country and its elaborated research policy environment as a testing ground for what might be achieved – or what needs to be avoided - in other African countries. In this study, South African research policy is tracked against the changing context provided by digital communication technologies and new dissemination models, particularly Open Access. These impact not only on publication but also on the way that research is carried out and they bring with them a growing recognition of the value, particularly for developing countries, of non-market and non-proprietary production in delivering research impact.

Region: International

Type: Papers
Sector: - N/A -
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: This One Pager questions the validity of the ‘one-dollar-a-day’ and ‘two-dollars-a-day’ measurements of poverty in Latin America. Alternatively, the author argues, there are other methods that better capture the state of poverty.

Region: Latin America

Type: Papers
Sector: Poverty
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: In trying to piece together the evidence that should carry weight in policy formation, a key step in the logic is to provide an ‘inclusion criterion’ as a means identifying those existing studies upon which most reliance should be placed. This paper examines some recent yardsticks used to sort the evidential sheep from the research goats by questioning why, how and when such research standards should be brought to bear. It concludes that the drive to cast standards as formal checklists of quality indicators is premature, and that appraising quality is not and cannot be a technical preliminary to research synthesis. Open and critical debate on the interpretation of research findings remains the surest way to establish and maintain investigatory standards.

Region: International

Type: Reports
Sector: - N/A -
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: A 4-page briefing paper outlining some of the theory behind, and practical application of the RAPID Analytical and Practical Framework. Better use of research-based evidence in development policy and practice can help save lives, reduce poverty and improve the quality of life. But for this to happen more effectively researchers need to do three things. First, they need to develop a detailed understanding of the policymaking process and the nature of evidence. Second, they need an overall strategy for their work and thirdly, they need to be entrepreneurial. Based on over five years of theoretical and case study research, the RAPID programme has developed an analytical framework and practical tools.

Region: International

Type: Policy Briefs
Sector: Development Policy
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: Making ideas count in policy has become a key issue for both researchers and policy-makers, and in both developed and developing countries. This volume provides a coherent examination of how, why and to what extent research informs policy in the field of international development. Drawn from think-tanks, academia and development agencies, the contributors provide case histories of how research has informed local, national and global policy. They investigate how development agencies have promoted the development potential of research, and outline various methods and techniques of policy entrepreneurship.

Region: International

Type: Books
Sector: Development Policy
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: There has been a rich debate in development studies on combining research methods in recent years. We explore the particular challenges and opportunities surrounding mixed methods approaches to childhood wellbeing. We argue that there are additional layers of complexity due to the distinctiveness of children’s experiences of deprivation or ill-being. This paper is structured as follows. Sections 2 and 3 discuss the nature of mixed methods approaches and tensions. Sections 4 and 5 apply these debates to researching childhood well-being in particular, in both Northern and Southern contexts. Section 6 concludes and discusses future work.

Region: International

Type: Papers
Sector: Gender
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: A presentation by Vibhor Bansal and Rijit Sengupta from CUTS International on the Training of Trainers on Bridging Research and Policy workshop held in Shimla, India. The presentation was given for the 3rd Annual ebpdn Partners Meeting held on the 26-27 November 2007 in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

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Region: Asia

Type: Presentations
Sector: - N/A -
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: The international development community currently emphasises monitoring and evaluation as the key areas where statistics should support policy-making. This paper argues for a broader approach to the relationship between data and the policy process. Policy outcomes are crucially affected by the use of statistics and statistical procedures in several upstream stages of policy-making.

Region: International

Type: Papers
Sector: Development Policy
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: This lecture looks at whether evidence-based policy and evidence-based government is possible, and whether it is more than a rhetorical device. It attempts to define evidence-based policy and considers factors other than evidence that influence policy making and policy implementation. It also considers the types of evidence used by governments and the types of research that can contribute to that evidence. Some of the mechanisms that need to be in place for evidence-based government to occur are also discussed.

Region: Europe

Type: Presentations
Sector: Governance
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: We are pleased to announce the publication of IPC Policy Research Brief #5, “Policymakers Beware: Standard Regressions Cannot Explain Economic Growth”. The author, Francisco Rodriguez, evaluates the standard application of linear regression techniques to cross-country data in order to explain the causes of economic growth and influence policymaking in developing countries. He maintains that policymakers should be extremely cautious about believing the results from such methods, which have great difficulty in accounting for real-world complexity. They are plagued by numerous problems: failing to account for reverse causation, using inappropriate explanatory indicators, introducing distortions by relying on limited samples and wrongly presuming simplified relationships among variables. In response, he offers some alternatives, such as ‘growth diagnostics’, which is a more concrete and complex form of analysis, and nonparametric regression analysis, which does not impose a preconceived form on data. Through such methods, he finds, for example, that long-term structural and institutional factors are more important than reform policies in explaining economic growth.

Region: International

Type: Papers
Sector: Economic Development
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: We are pleased to announce the publication of IPC Country Study #13, “Poverty, Growth and Income Distribution in Lebanon”. The authors, Heba El Laithy, Khalid Abu-Ismail and Kamal Hamdan, have written a full national report for the Government of Lebanon and UNDP on these topics. This Country Study is a modified Executive Summary of the full report, which is the first to draw a comprehensive profile of poverty in Lebanon based on money-metric measurements of household expenditures. Its data source is a 2004/05 national Living Conditions and Household Budget Survey. Drawing on the full report, this Country Study reports that over one fifth of the Lebanese population is poor but only eight per cent are extremely poor. Moreover, extreme poverty is shallow. So it is certainly feasible for Lebanon to attain the MDG target of halving extreme poverty. However, the Study also finds that regional disparities have worsened in recent years, with the North governorate falling significantly behind and suffering from high rates of poverty. Drawing on the new poverty profile, the Study focuses on targeting strategies. This includes channeling resources to poor areas of the country—such as four subregions where two-thirds of the poor are concentrated. At the same time, the Study recognizes that macroeconomic policies—and fiscal policies in particular—need to be redesigned to generate a broad-based, inclusive pattern of economic growth and create the fiscal space for financing more extensive social services and a more effective social safety net.

Region: Rest of the World

Type: Case Studies
Sector: Poverty
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: We are pleased to announce the publication of IPC One Pager #45, “Pro-Poor Growth: Though a Contested Marriage, Still a Premature Divorce”. The author, Terry McKinley, analyses why enthusiasm for the concept of ‘pro-poor growth’ has waned and been replaced recently by such alternatives as ‘inclusive growth’. He argues that the twin objectives inherent in the concept, namely, faster growth and greater equity, should have remained distinct. Pragmatically merging the two led to the conclusion that growth could no longer be considered ‘pro-poor’ or ‘anti-poor’, just ‘more’ or ‘less’ poverty-reducing. He concludes by raising concerns about whether a strong focus on greater equity has been lost in the process.

Region: International

Type: Papers
Sector: Economic Policy
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: This Country Study seeks to identify employment policies for Yemen that would support an ambitious MDG-based Development Strategy. Based principally on Labour Force and Labour Demand Surveys, it analyzes Yemen’s labour force, structure of employment and unemployment, demand for labour, and hours and wages. The study shows that the country is caught in a scissors between slow economic growth and rapid growth of the labour force. The result is widespread underemployment and poverty. While Yemen currently enjoys a boon in oil revenues, its economy remains undiversified and suffers from low productivity and incomes. As a result, the Country Study proposes a four-pronged MDG-oriented Growth, Employment and Poverty Reduction Strategy that would help the country reach the MDGs. This strategy is designed to accelerate economic growth, improve the employment intensity of growth, focus more resources on the poor and stimulate private-sector expansion, particularly in sectors with strong potential for growth and employment.

Region: Asia

Type: Papers
Sector: Economic Development
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: We are pleased to announce the Portuguese and Spanish versions of IPC One Pager No. 30, “The Gross Inequities of Global Imbalances”. The author, Terry McKinley, former Acting Director of IPC, argued in February 2007 that huge global imbalances not only heightened the risk of global instability (precipitated by a US recession) but also exacerbated inequities since global resources were being monopolized by high income countries, overwhelmingly by the United States, instead of flowing to developing countries to finance development. Available at: http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCOnePager30.pdf

Region: International

Type: Policy Briefs
Sector: Economic Policy
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence