Reviews Hope to Answer Key Development Controversies

This article from SciDev.Net examines a strategy undertaken by the United Kingdom (UK) Department for International Development (DFID) to foster research in development-related areas beyond education, health, and sanitation. DFID is in the process of awarding 45 contracts to researchers as part of its programme "Systematic Reviews in International Development", which will pilot in-depth, rigorous systematic reviews on issues that do not normally receive such treatment. The questions driving the researchers applying for DFID contracts focus on 8 thematic areas: growth and investment, governance, fragile states, climate and environment, social development, human development, agriculture, and aid delivery. Six of the 37 awards handed out so far have gone to academic teams based in developing countries, and a further 4 include developing country collaborators.

Teams will use commonly accepted methodological tools to rigorously evaluate all the scientific evidence they can find. As indicated here, although such tools have been applied in reviewing interventions related to health, education, and sanitation, they have not been applied to other aspects of international development. The expected outcome is academic work that will undergo peer review and be published in academic journals - with an eventual database of knowledge on these issues, available to everyone. One purpose of disseminating information broadly within the public domain, such as nationally based work that is often seen as too "local" for journals, is to prevent repetition of research.

While systematic reviews can include such work and facilitate its sharing, challenges for translating research into action are outlined here. For instance, the reviews might be conducted by undergraduate students, who may not be able to command policymakers' respect. Also, these reviews are only effective if the people doing them establish a dialogue with users of those reviews - such as the policymakers.