From research to policy: using evidence from impact evaluations to inform development policy

Recent years have seen a tremendous growth in impact evaluations of development policies, and an increasing trend towards considering rigorous evidence while making policy decisions. But there is much greater scope for incorporating results from impact evaluations into policy decisions, even in the presence of political and administrative constraints. We discuss how evidence is currently incorporated into policymaking, the constraints on greater adoption of evidence-based policy, and suggest specific ways that stronger policy-research partnerships can help overcome these constraints. Recognising that there are many different channels to influence policy, we provide examples from the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab's (J-PAL's) policy outreach work in the hope that this paper can help in greater sharing of best practices from the impact evaluation field on how best to use evidence to inform policy.