The Adbul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Cape Town in collaboration with the Rwanda’s Ministry of Finance organized a workshop on policy-making in Kigali.
The initiative is aimed at building capacity in understanding methods of impact evaluation and learning to critically use evidence in policy decision-making process.
Richard Mushabe, Director of Policy Evaluation and Research at the Ministry of Finance on March 11, 2014 hailed the initiative saying it comes at a time when the country is committed to implementing effective ways of reducing poverty, as enshrined in EDPRS2.
“Rwanda has long been committed to following an evidence-based approach to policymaking and welcomes the opportunity to make improvements in social programs based on scientific evidence,” Mushabe said.
This capacity building initiative provides an opportunity for government to initiate evidence-based policymaking in priority areas of the second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS 2) implementation.
As powerful instruments for enhancing policy effectiveness, impact evaluations are increasingly being used for diverse purposes including strategic learning, transparency, accountability, program design, and policy formulation.
As demand for rigorous analysis rises, it is important to build government capacity in collecting, critiquing, and taking decisions upon the relevant research.
The capacity building workshop is in line with last year’s Memorandum of Understanding signed between MINECOFIN and J-PAL following the Evidence to Policy— Decision Science Symposium held in May 2013.
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