Evidence-Based Development Policy

Evidence-based development policy is the episode’s practical ideal in Piles of cash and a town of solutions in Kenya, Nigeria (Summer School): use measured results to decide which poverty, education, health, and entrepreneurship interventions deserve support. The source connects that ideal to Randomized Controlled Trials in both Nigeria and Kenya.

The concept is not simple technocracy. [[YouWinProgram|YouWin]] produced measurable job effects but lost continuity after political change, while Busia studies generated global knowledge that did not always translate directly into Kenyan policy. Evidence must therefore survive politics, institutions, financing, and Development Research Ethics.

Key Claims

• Randomized evidence can show that intuitive interventions fail, as in the average textbook result.
• It can also identify high-return interventions, as in the deworming and entrepreneur-grant cases reported by the source.
• Policy uptake depends on government relationships, trust, institutional continuity, and incentives.
• Nobel recognition can make governments more willing to consider data, but it does not guarantee implementation.

Connections

• World Bank, David McKenzie, Michael Kremer, Abhijit Banerjee, and Esther Duflo - institutional and research context.
• Scientific Self-Correction and Observation Before Inference - broader knowledge-quality frames.
• Direct Entrepreneur Grants, Remedial Education Targeting, and Deworming as Human Capital Investment - examples.