This study assessed the use of evidence in policy and legislation by African Parliaments. The research interviewed 109 Members of Parliaments from across 10 African countries who answered questions on their use, barriers, and successes of using evidence to inform their legislative and policy-making functions. Key findings of the report are as follows:
- About two-thirds (56%) of respondents rated their current use of evidence in Parliament as ‘high’ or ‘very high’
- Parliamentarians identified online/virtual (96%), internal (95%), and external (93%) as the leading sources of evidence they commonly use
- Majority of parliamentarians (99%) cited virtual/online source as the easiest to access; followed by internal sources (97%), and external sources (81%).
- However, 19% said it was not easy to access evidence from external sources. Similarly, 3% and 1% said it was not easy to access evidence from internal and virtual sources respectively.
- Majority of parliamentarians (97%) indicated that evidence from both internal (within Parliament) and virtual/online are most useful, while 96% indicated that external sources are useful
- Of the many types of evidence, Parliamentarians most prefer research reports, administrative or investigative committee reports
- MPs rated research, administrative, and special investigative reports as the top three most important types of evidence
- 77% of the respondents said they have ‘resource challenges’ when accessing evidence.
- 70% of respondents cited a lack of skills and capacity as another barrier to accessing evidence.
- The major obstacles cited by Parliamentarians to the use of evidence in legislation and policy are: Limited ICT tools and connectivity; administrative bottlenecks; limited financial and resources to conduct, subscribe and access wide range of evidence; politics of using evidence and party position/loyalty and limited skills and capacity to source, generate and use evidence.
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E-TOOLKIT ON HOW TO SOURCE AND STRENGTHEN THE USE OF EVIDENCE
This Toolkit is designed to help MPs and their staff to generate and source for evidence to inform legislative and policy-making functions. The toolkit is intended to be a quick reference guide for MPs and their staff because as busy people who often do not have time to read documents that are bulky. The Toolkit provides easy and quick reference in their effort to apply evidence to their daily functions of legislation and policy-making.
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INVENTORY OF EVIDENCE INFORMED POLICY MAKING (EIPM) ORGANISATIONS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
This document contains a mapping of some organizations working in the space of democracy, governance and evidence use among policy-makers in Africa. It is intended to support Parliamentarians, staff of Parliamentarians, think tanks and other organizations working on evidence-based policy-making on potential organisations they can collaborate with or source for evidence or research materials that can be used to support legislative and policy-making functions.
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E-TOOLKIT ON APPLICATION, UPTAKE AND USE OF EVIDENCE FOR PARLIAMENTARIANS IN AFRICA
The Toolkit is divided into seven parts. The first part briefly describes the evidence-informed making cycle. This is followed by a discussion on the sources of evidence available to Parliaments. Section three talks about the types of evidence. In section four we outline how to develop an evidence-search strategy. Section five focuses on how to assess the quality of evidence. In section six, we highlight factors that shape evidence uptake. The last part – section seven delves into the core of the toolkit – how evidence is applied to the work of Parliaments.
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USING EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT LEGISLATIVE, OVERSIGHT FUNCTIONS AND POLICYMAKING: Lessons from three cases in Africa
The case studies presented in the report were prepared to underscore specific cases where data has been used to inform policies and laws. The case studies were from Ghana, Uganda and Sierra Leone. In addition to these three cases, two other sources were drawn from literature to enrich the discussion on the use of evidence to inform and improve policies and legislations in Africa. The two books are summarized under Section V, in support of the cases.
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E-TOOLKIT FOR USAID MISSIONS: Best Practices on How USAID Missions Can Work Effectively with Parliamentarians and Staff in Africa to Apply Evidence to Policy-Making
This toolkit is a resource to USAID leadership and technical staff on how to work effectively with parliamentarians and staff. This serves against the necessary backdrop on the growing recognition of the importance of evidence in national decision-making and the crucial role of parliamentarians and their staff in ensuring that evidence-based approaches are used for strengthening oversight, budgeting resource appropriation, legislation, and policy making across all sectors.