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Capacity building rule 4: measure whether anything has been learnt
http://www.morguefile.com I suspect that one reason that bad capacity building programmes have persisted for so long is that monitoring and evaluation of capacity building has been so poor. It is...
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Experimental methodologies… and baby pandas
Another week, another blog pointing out that RCTs are not the ‘gold standard’ of evidence despite the fact that NOBODY is saying they are. To be fair to the blogger, he is simply summarising a paper...
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Implementation science: what is it and why should we care?
The 30 participants were mostly members of DFID’s Evidence into Action team plus a few people who follow me on twitter – admittedly not a very rigorous sampling strategy but a useful quick and dirty...
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Scottish independence and the falacy of evidence-BASED policy
As I may have mentioned before, I am a proud Scot. I have therefore been following with interest the debates leading up to the Scottish referendum on independence which will take place on the 18th...
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Science to the rescue: does investment in research drive international...
Meanwhile, at the Kardashians… The assertion that research/science* are crucial drivers of development is made so frequently that you could be forgiven for assuming that this is a proven fact. However,...
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Science to the rescue: the big tech transfer myth
This is part 2 of a series of blogs – read part 1 here. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, DFID’s recent lit review on links between science and development started by figuring out how people think...
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Science to the rescue: human capital
To recap, I am running a series of blogs summarising the recent DFID literature review on the impact of research on international development. If you want to start at the beginning click here. Today I...
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Science to the rescue: new products and technologies
This is part 4 of a series of blogs – if you want to start at the beginning click here. Many development funders, particularly private foundations, state that their investment in research aims to...
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Science to the rescue: evidence-informed policy
In part 5 of my series of blogs on research and international development (to start at the beginning, click here) I return to familiar territory: evidence-informed policy and practice. Investments in...
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Science to the rescue: doing the sums
In this final episode of my blog series on research and international development (to start at the beginning click here) I will consider the evidence on the economic returns to research investment. Of...
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Ebola-related rant
©EC/ECHO/Jean-Louis Mosser Warning: I will be making use of my blog for a small rant today. Normal service will resume shortly. Like many others, I am getting very cross about coverage of Ebola. The...
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The politics of evidence supply and demand
I have written before about the separate functions of evidence supply and demand. To recap, supply concerns the production and communication of research findings while demand concerns the uptake and...
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Beneficiary feedback: necessary but not sufficient?
One of the things I love about working in DFID is that people take the issue of beneficiary* feedback very seriously. Of course we don’t get it right all the time. But I like to think that the kind of...
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The arrival of mini-evidence!
Readers, I have to confess that I have been keeping a secret from you; for the last nine months, in my spare time, I have been growing a human! I didn’t want to mention it before because I was feeling...
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Does public (mis)understanding of science actually matter?
Babies suffer through a lot of bogus treatments for the sake of placebo-induced parental reassurance. So, as regular readers know, I have recently become a mum. As I mentioned in my last post*, I was...
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Doh!
Just a very quick post to say sorry that I accidentally published my previous post before I had actually finished writing it! So those of you following me on email will have got an incomplete version...
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Summer reading
I am currently making the most of my maternity leave by swanning around Europe in a campervan for 6 months. I have been thinking about a couple of new blogs which I will try to publish shortly – but...
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Race for impact in the age of austerity
I have recently been pondering what the age of austerity means for the development community. One consequence which seems inevitable is increasing scrutiny of how development funds are spent. The...
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Impact via infiltration
Two blogs ago I linked to an article which I attributed to “the ever-sensible Michael Clements”. Shortly afterwards @m_clem tweeted: .@kirstyevidence compares @JustinSandefur to @jtimberlake —but me,...
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Guest post: Louise Shaxson on advising governments… and ugly babies
I have known Louise Shaxson for many years and have always valued her advice and insight. However, when she wrote to me recently to tell me that she had written a blog about how to talk to new parents...
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