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Project

Generating knowledge and building networks for science advice in emergencies
 

Indonesia
Malaysia
Nepal
Philippines
South America
Thailand
Viet Nam
Project ID
109484
Total Funding
CAD 745,600.00
IDRC Officer
Matthew Wallace
Project Status
Completed
End Date
Duration
30 months

Programs and partnerships

Foundations for Innovation

Lead institution(s)

Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic, like climate change and other major threats, is pervasive worldwide. This recognition is at the core of the UN’s 2030 Agenda and embedded within each of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Read more

The COVID-19 pandemic, like climate change and other major threats, is pervasive worldwide. This recognition is at the core of the UN’s 2030 Agenda and embedded within each of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet a clear understanding of our shared threats and the means to mitigate them is less well developed. This is in part because the required structures for government science advice are often weak or absent, particularly in the Global South.

Since 2014, the International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA) has been at the vanguard of global efforts to instil evidence-based policymaking by drawing on national science systems as a major part of efforts to advance the SDGs. These efforts included a three-year IDRC-funded initiative from 2017 to support research, training, and networking in the Global South, under the auspices of the International Science Council. In 2020, INGSA’s work has taken a new and urgent turn in the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic, acting as a conduit between national public health agencies and research organizations and establishing a platform of information sharing and data collection about how related policy decisions are being made.

This project will build on INGSA’s earlier work involving the Global South and on its initial efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will focus on ideas, institutions, individuals, and modes of integration that can greatly enhance how science advice occurs in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, with an emphasis on responses to the pandemic and to emergencies more generally. It will support a comprehensive comparative study of COVID-19 responses through original research, including the creation of a new global platform for tracking related policies as well as “deep-dive” case studies. This will help governments better prepare for transnational crises by using high-quality scientific evidence.

In parallel, the project will pilot a regional network of high-level science advisors linked to a policy intelligence platform for Southeast Asia and explore scaling out possibilities for other regions. Finally, it will rely on INGSA’s three regional chapters in Asia, Latin America, and Africa to generate new knowledge and regional insights, promote science advice to policymakers, and integrate information across regions, with an early emphasis on COVID-19.

Research outputs

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Article
Language:

English

Summary

This essay will present the problem of territorial inequality in Panama from a multidisciplinary perspective, a case which also applies to other middle-income countries. Territorial inequality is here defined as the pressure generated by asymmetries in access to territory due to sociocultural and socioeconomic causes. The concept of territorial inequality has the virtue of horizontally incorporating economic, social, and environmental criteria. With the help of history, these forces have ended up anchored in city-space; lack of access to property, unequal urban infrastructure investment in impoverished areas, dominant patterns of urbanization that portray the poor as clients of corporations instead of other more constructive ways like that of empowered citizens. The phenomenon of inequality has become more important after the Covid-19 crisis as new barriers have risen without the extinction of the old ones. Pressure has mounted on the economic system due to government debt and fewer resources. The same applies to the private sector. These dynamics make centrality- the importance of an urban center when compared to the peripheries- even more vital, aiding the process of social and economic stratification.

Author(s)
García de Paredes, Pablo
Article
Language:

English

Summary

This paper explores how is evidence gathered, transformed, and selected during the current COVID-19 crisis, employing Panama’s housing ministry as a case study. We wish to better understand evidence pathways and provide strategies for increasing scientific evidence uptake. Our research strategy was organized into a three-step sequential model: 1. The evidence-gathering phase: we studied Covid-19’s effects on households by deploying 135 surveys (n=135). 2. The evidence transformation phase: studying housing sector evidence assembled by different ministry divisions via 12 surveys and interviews with ministry personnel (n=12), and 3. The evidence selection phase: studying evidence employed by decision-makers, through a semi-structured interview with the housing minister (n=1). Results show that evidence pathways depend on social phenomena, including internal and external political power negotiations, social class identities, and representations of the role of government.

Author(s)
García de Paredes, Pablo
Report
Language:

English

Summary

On the 28th of July 2021, the Southeast Asia Science Advice Network (SEA SAN) and the International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA)-Asia Regional Chapter co-organised a webinar entitled “Rebuilding Public Trust in Science” to examine the growing issue of declining public trust in science, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to highlight the value and importance of rebuilding that trust for the effective management of current and future crises.

Author(s)
INGSA-Asia
Report
Language:

English

Summary

The Covid-19 pandemic has, in general, been transformative for how ‘knowledge’ and ‘evidence’ are perceived both by policymakers and the public, and the role that it does/could play in the formation of public policy. It has likewise been a challenge for many knowledge producers who experienced or witnessed what it was like for experts to provide science advice in a crisis. The renewal of IDRC funding IDRC to INGSA at this early stage of the pandemic enabled INGSA to pivot strongly to supporting the pandemic response, while gleaning critical information in real time that will underpin the next stages of development in the field of science advice and science diplomacy.

Author(s)
INGSA
Brief
Language:

English

Summary

This progress report is the first in a planned series of reports and studies stemming from the INGSA evidence-to-policy tracker, an online and participatory data collection tool established at the outset of the global pandemic. The specific aim of the tracker is to capture the contexts and processes behind recorded policy changes, especially with respect to the mobilisation and transfer of supporting evidence and expertise. This initial progress report is based on a subset of twenty-two cases, with two of these examined in more detail by way of illustration (DRC and Sri Lanka). These cases are exploratory and illustrative, rather than comprehensive. They were chosen for regional and institutional diversity and for the sufficiency of available data at the time of writing. They complement existing published research and the work of our partners. A typology of six initial pandemic response strategies was identified and then used as the basis for cluster analyses of policy choices within the subset of cases. Preliminary findings suggest that the choice of strategy provided an initial, but evolving, template for how evidence/expertise were mobilised within distinct institutional contexts. This preliminary report will help guide case selection for a series of in-depth case studies to be developed over the course of 2021. The choice of detailed case studies is not limited to the subset used in this illustrative and exploratory report.

Author(s)
INGSA
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