Abstract
The use of evidence in policymaking is often argued to improve accountability, effectiveness, and stakeholder involvement in policy decisions. The features of this practice, however, remain vague in the discourse of evidence-based policymaking, with the risk of obscuring important governance and legitimacy implications. In programme planning and evaluation especially, the use of evidence can be critical to translate technical measurements of policy achievements into political values for shaping future policy directions. This chapter presents a case study from Ghana to discuss how institutionalized evidentiary practices used in policy review affect aspects of governance. Drawing on interviews, we reflect on how the evidence review process—agreed in collaboration with development partners—links to the evidence advisory system and the accountability systems in place. We find that the uses of evidence promoted by international donors actually creates disconnect with the national accountability system in place, with implications for democratic governance.
Highlights
This chapter explores some of the governmental implications of particular uses of policy relevant data and evidence for health policymaking in Ghana
These are established at the national level within the four-year Health Sector Medium Term Development Plan (HSMTDP) and areformulated each year with the programme of work (POW) that the Ministry of Health (MoH) prepares in line with the objectives of the national health strategy as set in the HSMTDP.3
We have explored the implications of the use of evidence for democratic decision making by looking at the accountability structures in Ghana
Summary
In order to investigate the practical applications of evidence use in policy evaluation in Ghana, and its links to accountability, this paper combines theoretical and empirical considerations as follows: First, we briefly review theoretical arguments drawn from public administration and policy studies to understand how the concepts of accountability and evidence use have been associated in governance and policymaking studies. We investigate such association through empirical analysis of health policy in Ghana. Data analysis partly benefitted from the use of qualitative tools, such coding using the Nvivo qualitative software package, and from the triangulation with other sources of data including official documents
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