Disclaimer

This publication has been produced with the financial assistance of the Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development (PSPPD), located in the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME), and is a product of the strategic partnership between South African government and the European Union. The content of this publication can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the DPME or the European Union. For researchers to be able to advocate for policy-makers to use evidence to inform policy, they need to understand policy-making processes and policy-makers, including their priorities, political agendas, individual passions and goals, and time constraints. They also need to present their research findings in a way that is easily applicable to ensure they are optimally used within the policy arena. Likewise, policy-makers need to be able to understand and value the evidence that research can bring to their decision-making processes.

Supporting effective supply of research to policy-makers is important — but such efforts will not lead to evidence-based policy-making unless there is also demand for research from policy-makers. Providing the opportunity for policy-makers to gain the requisite skills and knowledge for understanding and engaging with quantitative research methods is vital to strengthen their position by being better able to generate policy responses geared towards addressing critical social problems.

Creating platforms for improved engagement and knowledge sharing, better accessibility of research, and capacity building of both parties to, among others, develop their critical thinking and support a change in practice, has been a core objective of the PSPPD since its inception.

Part of its strategy has been to demonstrate the value offered by data to policy-makers on the one hand, while supporting researchers with the technical skills needed to translate this data into accessible evidence, such as training on how to write policy briefs, which synthesise research findings and present policy implications and recommendations and can therefore serve as an excellent tool for facilitating evidenceinformed policy-making. In choosing an approach to capacity building, the focus should be on evidenceinformed policy, which implies a change in behaviour or culture, rather than policy influence, to affect