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Dear Colleagues,
This month’s newsletter features our June 22 webinar, Bringing evidence closer to policymaking through stakeholder dialogues and citizen panels: lessons from the Partnership for Evidence and Equity in Responsive Social Systems. The webinar explored how different PEERSS country teams engage with stakeholders in different contexts, the value of ensuring tacit knowledge and citizen perspectives are captured in evidence products, and the challenges associated with stakeholder engagement. Read on to follow how PEERSS country team members are engaging in the Africa Evidence Network’s Evidence Capacities webinar series and to see what we (the Coordinating Organization team) are reading.
Sincerely,
PEERSS’ Coordinating Organization (Results for Development)
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Highlights from the PEERSS Learning Community
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Bringing evidence closer to policymaking through stakeholder dialogues and citizen panels: lessons from the Partnership for Evidence and Equity in Responsive Social Systems (PEERSS)
On June 22, PEERSS hosted a webinar aimed at exploring what we are learning about the role of stakeholder dialogues and citizen panels in policy development and broadly, how the policy process benefits from participatory engagement approaches.
IDRC Senior Program Officer Sana Naffa opened the webinar with brief background information about PEERSS. With expert and engaging facilitation by Dr. Rhona Mijumbi from the PEERSS Uganda country team, PEERSS country partners from Colombia (Dr. Daniel F. Patiño-Lugo) and Ethiopia (Firmaye Bogale) reflected on their experiences with stakeholder dialogues and citizen panels. Dr. Maritsa Bortoli from Instituto de Saúde and Daniela Fortunato Rego from the Ministry of Health in Brazil joined the panel to speak about a stakeholder dialogue manual they helped develop to support dialogues in Brazil and provide guidance for participants. The discussion highlighted citizens panels and stakeholder dialogues as key approaches for contextualizing evidence and ensuring different types of knowledge (e.g., tacit knowledge) are considered in the policy process. Panelists noted that meaningful stakeholder dialogues are a process that require expert planning and facilitation, rely on strong partnerships and relationships, and invite diverse opinions. Panelists also reflected on the challenge of assessing the impact of engagement approaches.
Finally, all together, the panel explored how partnerships like PEERSS, noted for its flexible funding and learning community are helping to build and strengthen evidence use systems.
Panel details:
Opening Remarks: Sana Naffa, Senior Program Officer, IDRC, Canada
Moderator: Dr. Rhona Mijumbi, Co-director, Center for Rapid Evidence Synthesis (ACRES), Makerere University, Uganda
Panelists:
- Dr. Daniel F. Patiño-Lugo, Co-Director, Unit of Evidence and Deliberation for Decision Making, University of Antioquia, Colombia
- Firmaye Bogale, Acting Director, Knowledge Translation Directorate, Ethiopian Public Health Institute
- Dr. Maritsa Bortoli, Director of Health Technology Center and Coordinator of Evidence Center, Instituto de Saúde, Brazil
- Daniela Fortunato Rêgo, Head of the Coordination of Evidence and Strategic Information of Health Management, Ministry of Health, Brazil
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Research for change in low- and middle-income countries | James Georgalakis
An anthropologist in Ghana, supporting communities to improve social protection systems, or a macro-economist in Bangladesh advising their government on informal work and labour regulation, is far better placed to understand these processes, both theoretically and practically, than any scholar of evidence informed policy in a university in the UK or the United States.”
This blog offers a framework for understanding knowledge translation in low- and middle-income countries and across different sectors and disciplines.
A policy analysis of policies and strategic plans on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health in Ethiopia
Recent progress for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health in Ethiopia has included greater alignment of policies, plans, and budgets. A recent review of 5 policies using the EquiFrame Framework yielded moderate scores in terms of their equity-related provisions, noting however that “most of the policies and plans fail to adopt equity consideration in the entire development and implementation lifecycle.” The authors advocate for the adoption of intersectionality in equity measurement within MNCH policies and plans, greater focus on cultural responsiveness, and greater disaggregation of targets and measurement tools to inform decision making for MNCH programs.
Taking a food systems approach to policymaking: A resource for policymakers
In 2021, the UN Food Systems Summit was called to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals by leveraging the many connections between food systems and global challenges, such as hunger, climate change, poverty, and inequality. By taking a food systems approach to policymaking, the Summit suggested, governments could harness the power of food systems to benefit people and the planet. These resources explore what policymakers should consider as they design policies—and associated means of implementation—to achieve multiple benefits across the food system. Drawing on existing studies, it provides examples of the impacts of policies and programs in five policy areas (cash and food transfers, food safety, road transport infrastructure, agricultural extension, and land tenure) on five food system outcomes (diets and food environments, agricultural production, livelihoods, gender equality, and environmental sustainability).
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First, catch up on the Africa Evidence Network’s Evidence Capacities webinar series. Webinar 3 features Ruth Stewart from the PEERSS South Africa country team, webinar 5 features Rhona Mijumbi from the PEERSS Uganda country team, and the most recent webinar (6) was moderated by Sandy Oliver from the PEERSS UCL-EPPI Center country team.
Next, make a plan to attend the final webinar (7) in the series titled, How to measure the impact of capacity development initiatives, and scheduled for July 20. Check back here for forthcoming registration details.
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