How to avoid the winner’s curse: lessons for a new nutrition policy

Putting on a play: how to moderate a public meeting

Simon recently made a speech on bridging research and policyat the event to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Overseas Development Institute.  He spoke alongside Vince Cable, Lord Adair Turner, Alison Evans and John Howell.

In Simon's presentation to this meeting he did the following things:

1. Drew some connections between the Think - Tanks world and the communicators world, around the theme of policy entrepreneurship;
2. Discussed how the development challenge and narrative is changing, post crisis and in the face of climate change and other new issues;
3. Identified five paradoxes facing communications in that context; and
4. Proposed some guiding principles, in the form of a ten point programme.

Bridging research and policy is a topic of growing practical and scholarly interest in both North and South. Contributions by four experienced practitioners and in four papers by researchers illustrate the value of existing frameworks and add four new lessons: the need for donors and research foundations to foster research capacity and to protect it from political interference; the need for researchers to use detailed case material in order to inform high-level policy debates within and across national boundaries, often by working in cross-country teams; the importance of presenting research results in such a way that they cannot be over-simplified; and the value of creating alliances between researchers and civil society advocacy groups. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd................ (see link in title for full article)

Bridging Research and Policy, Journal of International Development, Volume 17 Issue 6, Pages 713 - 725

Bridging research and policy is a topic of growing practical and scholarly interest in both North and South. Contributions by four experienced practitioners and in four papers by researchers illustrate the value of existing frameworks and add four new lessons: the need for donors and research foundations to foster research capacity and to protect it from political interference; the need for researchers to use detailed case material in order to inform high-level policy debates within and across national boundaries, often by working in cross-country teams; the importance of presenting research results in such a way that they cannot be over-simplified; and the value of creating alliances between researchers and civil society advocacy groups................ (see link in title for full article)

Researchers and NGOs: Working Together, BONDBritish Overseas NGOs for Development Newsletter, November 2004, with J. Court

Consider what UK development researchers and the UK NGONon-governmental organisation community could do together, working with partners in the developing world

Global Knowledge Networks and International Development, (Ed with D. Stone), (2005) Oxofrd: Routledge

This volume provides a coherent examination of how, why and to what extent research informs policy in the field of international development

Bridges across boundaries: Linking research and policy in international development ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) Opinion 20, July 2004

Think-tanks need to work together across national boundaries if they are to influence policy-making internationally. ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) is helping to pioneer a new way of doing this, using a model known as ‘policy code-sharing’. It is especially difficult to bridge the gap between research and policy when any change to policy needs decisionmakers in many different countries to agree. This is the case with many policies related to international development: anything to do with trade or international finance, issues governing the structures of overseas aid, measures to improve the effectiveness of international institutions – an endless list................. (see link in title for full article)

Conditionality or Contract: Perspectives on Partnership for Developmentwith Roger Riddell, in Burnell, P and Morrissey, O (eds), Foreign Aid in the New Global Economy.  Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham.  2004.

The recent UK White Paper makes an admirable commitment to the idea of partnership, as the keystone of a new aid relationship with countries committed to poverty reduction and good governance. The concept is a difficult one, however, open to multiple interpretation. Genuine participation means joint ownership, with mutual rights and obligations; and it implies a contractual relationship, with procedures for redress in case of default. Other donors, notably the EU, have travelled this road with mixed success and much back-sliding. Can DFIDDepartment for International Development learn from their experience? Can it devise its own institutional innovations to build true partnership?

How Can Researchers Be “Policy Entrepreneurs”? summary of presentation at EADI Directors’ Meeting, 6 September 2003, in EADI Newsletter, 2-2003, p4

An important report this year concludes that researchers are often very bad at communicating to the people who make decisions what they know and what they think should happen. We speak naively of policy issues (says the report), we demonstrate little or no awareness of current policy, we are over-technical and sometimes we need drastic editing to make ourselves readable and understandable to key players................. (see link in title for full article)

"Country Programme Evaluation: A State of the Art Review" (with T Conway) in Evaluating Country Programmes, Vienna Workshop 1999.  OECD/DAC 1999

See also Country Programme Evaluation: Synthesis Report from the Workshop in the same edition

This publication provides a unique overview of approaches and methods for country programme evaluation. It contains i) an analytical review of the workshop's main findings; ii) an overview of the state-of-the-art approaches and methodologies used for country programme evaluations; and iii) the case studies, which were presented and discussed at the workshop.

'Does European Aid Work?  An Ethiopian Case Study', in M. Lister (ed), European Union Development Policy, MacMillan Press, London, 1998

European aid is a business whose future is hotly debated. ’Maximalists’ would like to see growth in community action at the expense of national action, with deepening and possible geographical widening of Lomé relationships, accompanied by greater political accountability. 'Minimalists' would abandon the idea of contractuality and partnership with Lomé countries, and renationalise aid wherever possible. In adjudicating between these competing visions, issues of aid quality are central, taking quality to mean not just the long term development impact of aid, but also its effectiveness in meeting short term objectives, and its implementation efficiency. An evaluation of EUEuropean Union aid to Ethiopia, valued at close to $US 2.5 billion dollars over eighteen years, throws light on the issue of aid quality. Some aid, perhaps most, 'worked'; but some did not - for reasons partly internal to Ethiopia and partly internal to the EU. The EUEuropean Union programme has improved markedly but could improve further: a seven point action programme is proposed to enable the EUEuropean Union to achieve an objective driven strategy. A shift of resources from national action to community action would then be justified, capitalising on the economies of scale and the scope for more effective policy dialogue. A European Development Agency would also become an attractive idea.