Advancing Evidence-Informed Policymaking: Lessons from the Partnership for Evidence and Equity in Responsive Social Systems (PEERSS) project

The Partnership for Evidence and Equity in Responsive Social Systems (PEERSS) convened organizations from 13 countries (Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Nigeria, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, and the United Kingdom) to dialogue, learn, and support each other in promoting the use of research evidence in policymaking. PEERSS supported co-production approaches that facilitated timely, relevant, and inclusive evidence generation. It also supported capacity strengthening activities aimed at building knowledge and skills for promoting systematic and institutionalized use of evidence in government decision making.

Results for Development’s Role

Results for Development (R4D) served as Coordinating Organization (CO) for PEERSS from September 2020 until the end of the partnership in July 2023. The lessons in this blog are informed by our observations of PEERSS country teams in action as knowledge brokers and translators, and how they approached and addressed challenges and opportunities in evidence-informed policymaking (EIP) as we coordinated and facilitated collaborative learning and exchange in the partnership.

Evidence-informed policymaking in PEERSS

PEERSS was launched in 2018 with joint funding from the International Development Research Centre and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The Partnership’s original objective was to explore how lessons learned about evidence-informed policymaking in health – a sector that has seen significant advancements in the use of evidence – could be applied to the non-health Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, PEERSS country teams provided critical and timely support for decision-makers across varied sectors including health address social and economic challenges that were exacerbated by the pandemic. While this marked a shift in focus, the Partnership’s commitment to strengthening and institutionalizing the use of evidence in policy decisions remained unchanged.

Evidence is critical at every stage of the policy process – from priority setting, to diagnosing the root causes of challenges, to co-creating and implementing solutions, to evaluating what is and isn’t working. PEERSS country teams produced different evidence products (e.g., evidence briefs, guidelines) to respond to the policy needs of decision- makers. They conducted research (e.g., rapid reviews, evidence maps, evaluations, surveys), analyzed contextual information (e.g., operational, or administrative data), and drew on insights from citizen panels to inform decision- making in different sectors and levels of government. All PEERSS country teams were working to help country-level actors make progress in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

We learned a lot about evidence informed policymaking in our role as CO and were struck by two things. First, countries experience similar challenges in promoting the use of research evidence no matter how varied the context, and second, tacit or experiential knowledge exchange plays an important role in policy communities – helping to bring the context and different ways of knowing into policy discussions. We describe some of our insights in more detail below.

Four observations about evidence informed policymaking from the work of PEERSS partners:

1. Evidence-informed policy making is local. PEERSS partner organizations had a deep understanding of local contexts and policy windows, which made it easier for them to deliver tailored, timely, and responsive EIP activities ranging from capacity strengthening workshops, evidence reviews, citizen panels, and stakeholder dialogues. They built strategic partnerships and cultivated trusted relationships with key government departments and senior leaders over many years. These connections helped to facilitate their policy engagement work, including production of a series of evidence briefs in Lebanon to inform government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, an evidence-informed daily situation report update for senior leadership in Ethiopia, and awareness creation to promote the use of evidence in Nigeria’s parliament. The proximity of PEERSS partners to local issues enabled them to scan and plan for emerging priorities, and through close engagement and co-production approaches, build buy-in and ownership for evidence products.
2. Equity in policy making requires innovative approaches. Bringing new voices into the policy process and ensuring diverse perspectives are reflected throughout – in setting agendas, identifying options, implementing solutions, and gathering feedback – demands intentionality. For example, the Uganda country team piloted the use of pictorial evidence to reach populations with different literacy levels in citizens panels convened to inform a rapid response brief exploring how to promote exclusive breastfeeding in the informal economy. Also, the Colombia country team engaged youth (using pictures, games, and other approaches) to elicit their views on a new youth policy in the city of Medellin.
3. Cross-country learning partnerships are a way to pool efforts and accelerate progress in evidence informed policymaking. Learning partnerships, like PEERSS, create opportunities for tacit “how to” knowledge exchange that can be harder to transfer to formal knowledge products or documents. By building on the expertise and lessons of others with similar challenges, organizations can advance their efforts to find contextually appropriate solutions to the problems they are trying to address. For example, the PEERSS Latin America and Caribbean Learning and Collaboration Hub modeled its regional evidence network after the Africa Evidence Network (AEN), adapting tools and templates that enabled it to swiftly build a regional platform in 16 months, a process that took the AEN four years to complete. As another example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, partners shared rapid evidence briefs to inform government response, supporting each other with translation and efforts to contextualize content, minimizing duplication of efforts, and helping to free up scarce time and resources for responding to other pressing priorities during the rapidly unfolding pandemic.
4. EIP is a continual, iterative process that requires sustained funding. Evidence informed policymaking is messy, highly relational and influenced by political realities that can introduce uncertainty. In addition to the social and economic challenges that COVID-19 introduced, nearly all the PEERSS partner organizations experienced presidential elections that turned over leadership in government or caused some form of political unrest. As opportunities for policy change closed, we observed PEERSS country teams making strategic decisions about activities that needed to be put on hold. This emphasizes the importance of considering how EIP is funded. Partners need the flexibility to make strategic choices about which activities to keep pushing forward and which ones may need to wait until the time is right again. As an ongoing process, EIP requires consistent funding that is flexible enough to allow for course corrections based on shifting priorities, emerging challenges or new evidence.

Throughout our journey in PEERSS, perhaps our most crucial lesson is that progress in EIP takes a village. It requires the collective action of policymakers, researchers, knowledge translators, community members, funders, and learning partners like R4D. As we look ahead to future partnerships, we are eager to continue exploring how best to support the EIP village in driving change forward as it strives to help governments make evidence-informed, equitable policies that improve the lives of all.