Put evidence at the centre of everyday life
We believe we can go farther, faster together by engaging citizens, citizen leaders, and citizen-serving non-governmental organizations in putting evidence at the centre of everyday life.
Here is the core recommendation from our report related to citizens (recommendation 13).
Evidence in everyday life — Citizens should consider making decisions about their and their families’ well-being based on best evidence; spending their money on products and services that are backed by best evidence; volunteering their time and donating money to initiatives that use evidence to make decisions about what they do and how they do it; and supporting politicians who commit to using best evidence to address societal challenges and who commit (along with others) to supporting the use of evidence in everyday life. Government policymakers, among others, need to ensure that citizens have access to best evidence, evidence-checked claims, and simple-to-use evidence-backed resources and websites to make informed choices at all times, not just during global crises. They also need to help build citizens’ media and information literacy, provide the transparency needed for citizens to know when decisions, services and initiatives are based on best evidence, and more generally create a culture where evidence is understood, valued and used.
Another core recommendations relevant to multilateral organizations is recommendation 15 (news and social media platforms). To find out about all 24 of our recommendations, see section 7.2 from our report.
Stay connected with the Evidence Commission to keep up-to-date with our work.
Using evidence in everyday life
- Read the citizen brief
- Read insights from a group of citizens
Evidence Commission report
Key citizen-related sections:
- 3.6 - Citizens and the context for their use of evidence
- 4.9 - Contexts that shape how evidence is viewed
- 4.10 - Indigenous rights and ways of knowing
- 4.11 - Misinformation and infodemics
- 5.3 - Strategies used by evidence intermediaries
Other key sections that offer context:
- 1.7 – equity considerations
- 2.1 – ways of looking at challenges
- 3.2 - Four types of decision-maker and how each may approach decisions
- 4.1 - Forms in which evidence is typically encountered in decision-making
- 4.4 - Interplay of local and global evidence
Read our FAQs on evidence in everyday life