How Civil Society Organisations Use Evidence to Influence Policy Processes: A Literature Review

This paper is based on an annotated bibliography of over 100 documents on how civil society organisations use evidence to influence policy. It summarises key debates, findings and conclusions from the literature, and points both to gaps and to new directions for future work. Does evidence matter to community service organisations (CSOs) work? If so, how, when and why? Can use of evidence improve the legitimacy and effectiveness of CSOs? This paper attempts to respond to these questions by bringing literature on the use of evidence in policymaking together with that on civil society organisations in international development.

According to the paper, there is an increasing emphasis on the concept of civil society. This is not surprising, since the sector has seen unprecedented growth. Community service organisations in Ghana, Zimbabwe and Kenya now provide 40% of all healthcare and education. Bolivia saw the number of registered non-governmental organisations (NGOs) rise from 100 in 1980 to over 1,000 in 1999. Development NGOs have an annual global budget of approximately US$5.5bn. It is thus not surprising that they have attracted increasing policy and research attention.

The researchers found that the way CSOs use evidence tends to be important in different ways:

• In influencing agenda setting, CSOs may use evidence to build momentum behind an idea until it reaches a 'tipping point'. They may need to crystallise a body of evidence as a policy narrative to create a window for policy change. A key factor here is the way evidence is communicated.
• In influencing the formulation of policy, evidence can be an important way to establish the credibility of CSOs. The quality of the evidence they use may reflect upon their own reputation, and CSOs may need to adapt the way they use it to maintain credibility with local communities and with policymakers, combining their tacit and explicit knowledge of a policy context. Here, the quantity and quality credibility of the evidence that CSOs use seems to be important to their policy influence.
• In influencing the implementation of policy, evidence is critical to improving the effectiveness of development initiatives. Capitalising on the practical knowledge and experience of many CSOs can require careful analytic work in order that it is possible to understand how technical skills, expert knowledge and practical experience can inform one another. The key to influencing the implementation of policy is often making such evidence relevant across different contexts.
• In influencing the monitoring and evaluation of policy, it is often important to manage and present evidence clearly. Whether developing evidence internally, through participatory processes or facilities for institutional memory, or garnering the interest of the media or other external groups, communicating evidence in a clear, conclusive and accessible way seems to be critical here.

The critical crosscutting issue that CSOs must negotiate in order to influence policy effectively is political context. Evidence must be relevant, appropriate and timely, in a specific social, political and economic context. Furthermore, the position that a CSO holds within a particular political system, and its relationships with other actors, affects the ways it can use evidence and the likelihood of it achieving policy influence. More broadly, however, CSO engagement will very much depend on the nature of the political context (extent of democracy) as well as the specific policy stance a government takes on a specific issue.

Seven main objectives towards which CSOs could use evidence to improve their chances of policy influence:

• Legitimacy: Legitimacy matters for policy influence. Evidence can be used in particular to enhance the technical sources of CSO legitimacy, but also representative, moral or legal legitimacy. Making legitimacy explicit can help others make decisions as to whether they wish to endorse CSO work. A more general point linked in with this is that CSOs are more likely to have an impact if they work together.
• Effectiveness: Evidence can be used to make CSO work more effective. Gathering evidence can be a tool for CSOs to evaluate and improve the impact of their work, share lessons with others, and capture the institutional memory and knowledge held within organisations.
• Integration: There is often a disconnection between CSO work on implementation or service delivery and the rest of the policy process. CSOs can have greater influence if they find better ways to turn their practical knowledge and expertise into evidence that can be used to inform other parts of the policy process (agenda setting, formulation and evaluation). This could also help improve the learning which occurs across CSOs.
• Translation: Expert evidence should not be used to 'trump' the perspectives and experience of ordinary people. CSOs should find ways to turn people's understanding into legitimate evidence, and of combining community wisdom with expert evidence.
• Access: Access to policymaking processes is vital for CSOs. Examples in this paper indicate that the question of CSO influence is often one of whether they are included in policy processes and can respond accordingly. Evidence can help CSOs gain better access to policy arenas. Using high-quality and uncontested evidence can allow even politically radical CSOs be included fully in policy debate.
• Credibility: Evidence must be valid, reliable and convincing to its audience. CSOs may need to adapt for different groups the kind of evidence they use - the same evidence may be credible to some but not to others. Credibility can depend on factors such as the reputation of the source and whether there is other accepted evidence which substantiates it.
• Communication: Evidence must be presented in an accessible and meaningful way. The most effective communication is often two-way, interactive and ongoing.