A new resource from the RAPID group at the Overseas Development Institute: a synthesis report on more than 18 months of research on how civil society organisations make use of evidence to influence policy. From their website:

Civil society organisations (CSOs) make a difference in international development. They provide development services and humanitarian relief, innovate in service delivery, build local capacity and advocate with and for the poor. Acting alone, however, their impact is limited in scope, scale and sustainability. CSOs need to engage in government policy processes more effectively.

With increased democratisation, reductions in conflict, and ...   more »

Do you know what you know? As researchers we are faced with a great challenge: the more knowledge we acquire the more difficult it becomes to manage and learn from it. Knowledge management tools and techniques exist to help us solve this problem. Most importantly, they can they can help us share with others what we have learned and learn from other's research and experiences.

For an institution, knowledge management is crucial. High turnover of staff often leads to a loss of more than just labour: know-how. Knowing how to learn from others and share what we know is critical ...   more »

Often we find that in participatory processes, robust statistical analysis finds little support. No wonder econometricians are rarely seen in a workshop drawing on flip charts or assigning values to people and things with coloured pebbles. However, new work on how statistical methods and participatory approaches can be integrated is increasingly available. Barahona and Levy's paper is based on participatory surveys used to evaluate free agricultural inputs to smallholder farmers in Malawi. The paper describes a methodology that integrated statistical principles into the design of the participatory tools to be used in the workshops at the village level.

In a ...   more »