Lead the way
We need to enhance and leverage the global evidence architecture
The Evidence Commission secretariat is actively pursuing stakeholder engagement and thought leadership opportunities to enhance and leverage the global evidence architecture with the following entities, in the following ways:
- WHO and UNICEF: need the funds to sustain rigorous approaches – in norms and standards, in technical assistance, and in evidence-related global public goods – and apply them across the full range of health and child well-being challenges we face
- Most other UN system entities: need to move away from an ‘expert knows best’ model for normative guidance and technical assistance and from an underinvestment in evidence-related global public goods
- e.g., UN’s ‘quintet of change,’ which is meant to support the UN’s transformation from 2021 to 2025, needs to be expanded beyond data analytics, behavioural/implementation research, and evaluation to include the many other needed forms of evidence
- e.g., reinvigoration of the UN Secretary-General Scientific Advisory Board, as mentioned in the UN Secretary General’s Our Common Agenda report, provides an opportunity to do better with an important independent expert panel, comprised of social as well as natural scientists
- World Bank: encouragement to invest in evidence-related global public goods
- Producers of evidence-related global public goods: need to improve prioritization, increase coordination, and foreground equity and context considerations in their work, and need the funds to maintain a suite of high-quality living evidence syntheses on priority topics
- Funders: need to invest in the global evidence architecture (and national evidence-support systems)
- G20: briefing note and advocacy effort focused on securing both a soft and hard commitment
If you are interested to learn more, then please contact evidencecommission@mcmaster.ca.
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