Policy Dilemma and the Role of Evidence in Policy Making
- Why Are Policies Made?
In generality, policies are made to standardized certain processes and procedures to operate in a well-defined environment to achieve certain outcomes. In the public domain when it comes to policy, we often think about lawmaking or legislative measures to achieve certain objectives, which are also considered as an important type of policy. However, policy measures can also be non-legislative in nature like strategies, resource allocation, program design with specific aims.
A policy has fundamental importance for organizations, institutions (public and private), and the development sector that meant to guide the decision-making process. However, in the context of development world policies are generally have a specific focus and are usually purpose-driven to address the issues at large in the specific area, region, or even at the country level.
2. How Are Policies Made?
Usually, the policy development is driven by several factors these include ideology, political convenient, experiences, need base, financial resources, implementation capacity, and evidence.
The ideology is a philosophy and set of principles that provide a base for planned action and it is perhaps the most influencing factor that guides the overall policy agenda for certain groups in the socio and political environment. similarly, the historical experience of decision-makers, parties, etc. also constitute the basis for policymaking. In the non-profit world, financial resources constraint play a key role in policy formation,
Broadly there are two methods of policy formulation.
2.1.Opinion Based Policymaking
The opinion-based policies are generally motived by what people believe to be the optimum way of achieving certain outcomes highlighted in the policy agenda. The decision-making process for such policies is often based on expediency, the ideology of decision-makers (based on historical experience), social and political conviction.
Such policies and policy options are usually very subjective in nature, developed without a well-defined mechanism and thought process. These policy options often start life in the planning meeting of opinion makers, political parties and reflect their experiences and intuition that they believe is of paramount importance to their ideology.
2.1.Evidence-based policymaking
The evidence-based policy (EBP) making process is more objective backed by either scientific or rigorous evidence (quantitative and qualitative). The EBP can help to inform policy development and implementation in several ways.
For instance, evidence can significantly contribute towards policy formulation and implementation therefore it has the potential to influence the policy-making process at different stages. For example in the implementation phase, evidence can inform the stakeholders to take corrective measures on what policy action to take to achieve intended objectives. Similarly, evidence from the evaluation of policies that encompasses the entire policy cycle can help to evaluate the effectiveness, relevancy and inform future consideration of policy options.
2. Why Did Policies Fail?
There are several reasons for the failure of policies that seed into policymaking and implementation cycle. The 2009 economics Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee in their award-winning book “Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (2011)” Identified Ideology, Ignorance, and Inertia as three main reasons for the failure of the policies.
Ideology drives a lot of policies; some people ignore ground-level realities and make policies just because they believe it and it fits with their identity and political spectrum.
The failure at policy making/ formulation is deeply rooted in policymakers’ lack of ability to identify the needs, the environment in which they operate, and financial constraints. the ambitious, unrealistic, politically motivated decisions play a key role in the failure of policies. Some people don’t want the inconvenience and lack of willingness to leave a comfort zone to achieve tangible results. As hard work is associated with changing ineffective existing policies ad thinking out of the box solutions at hand and this refers to Inertia at the level of the implementer.
Many policies fail during the implementation phase due to stakeholders and leadership issues (like lack of support and focus, expectations, diverse interests, etc.) The complexity (political) and uncertainty (resources, ambitious timeline) associated with the implementation of policies make it unmanageable for the stakeholder to achieve the desired outcome.
At the implementation level, the lack of hard evidence to access the working and effectiveness of the policies being implemented is also a key barrier. Sometimes policies are driven by certain agenda (e.g. political or contextual factors) and they don’t align with the needs of the targeted population, as a result, such policies have a very high chance of failure during the implementation cycle.
How Evidence Can Support Policy-Making?
Evidence is often thought of as the outcome of scientific research; though it can also be monitoring evaluation evidence collected through well-defined criteria or produced through statistical data.
In recent times EBP has been used in the decision-making process across the globe in the development and implementation of projects, programs, and policy-driven initiatives e.g. In Zambia , the government has successfully tested and applied randomized evaluation in schools i.e. Teaching at the Right Level” to design its education learning programs. Similarly, researchers in Ghana, Kenya, and India used randomized evaluation to test why children left behind in schools and thereby devised cost-effective policies based on learning groups instead of age group.
In the health sector, EBP also contributed significantly to reduce infant deaths e.g. Government of Tanzania implemented various data-driven evidence-based policy reforms that contributed towards the reduction of over 40% in infant deaths in two pilot districts.
Despite EBP’s importance, there are certain pre-requisite associated with the adaptation of EBP into the decision-making process. One of these is a good supply of quality evidence, that can be generated through robust policy-relevant research, monitoring, and evidence collected through specific evaluation. However, It’s not all about having good quality evidence, but how these pieces of evidence can be communicated to the policymakers and in turn how these are incorporated into the decision-making process. At the same time, it is also important for policymakers to consider contextual factors that may influence the evidence.
In the resource constraint world, there is a need for an integrated approach (from policy formulation, implementation, and review) within the development ecosystem to promote, test, and scale-up EBP to achieve the Universal agenda of sustainable development. One solution could be to gather evidence through a Randomized Evaluation Design or also called Randomized Control Trial (RCTs) to measure the effectiveness of a development policy measure implemented in the field. In 2019 Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) cofounders Abhijit, Esther Duflo, and affiliate Michael Kremer were awarded the 2019 Nobel prize in economic science for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. The RCT approach can be tested and replicated on small initiatives across the development arena.
