Evidence To Action Conference – Accra 2019

Evidence To Action Conference – Accra 2019

Theme of the Conference

The theme ‘’Responsibility and Accountability: Strengthening Evidence Generation and Use in Support of Africa Policy Reform and Development Agenda.’’

Aim of the Conference

The aim of the conference will be to identify and discuss accountability and responsibilities of stakeholders in the use of evidence to address developmental needs.

The Concept

“On 1 January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at an historic UN Summit — officially came into force. Over the next fifteen years, with these new Goals that universally apply to all, countries will mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind.

Sustainable development (SD) is defined in the Brundtland Report as “development that meets the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Thus, sustainable development is the organizing principle for sustaining finite resources necessary to provide for the needs of future generations of life on the planet.

This definition implies the two cardinal principles of leadership – Responsibility and Accountability. The responsibility and accountability all countries, poor, rich and middle-income to promote prosperity while protecting the planet.

For Development countries to be able to mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind, they should be able to provide leadership in the generating and utilization of evidence that are required for them to assess outcomes and impacts of development interventions and programs, capture the progress, success, and failures of its sustainable development interventions, inform all stakeholders for effective decisions making, strategic planning and risk management, provide accountability to its citizens and to contribute to the broader knowledge and learning in the field of sustainable development.

The type of leadership calls for the high-level responsibility and accountability from both policy makers, development professionals, researchers and evaluators and other stakeholders – that is the willingness to be responsible and accountable for the well-being of the larger community by making decision and developing policy and action that is based on well-informed evidence that are support by irrefutable facts and data. More and more global leadership are embracing the new concept of responsibility and accountability in terms of evidence generation and the use of in support of policy making and development action.

Africa countries cannot be passive spectators in the generating of evidence in their area of 17 sustainable Development Goals. We cannot wait for researchers and evaluators from the Developed countries to take the initiative and responsibility to generate the evidence that are needed to actively track and monitor our progress and attainment of the SDG Goals. There is a global responsibility for all global citizens to contribute to the global development agenda. The modern world is a global village, a global household, a global economic unit of the global community and to develop policies and development actions that contribute to the eradication of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, all should be demonstrate leadership, authority and accountability of the evidence generation and its use thereof.

Evidence Generation and Use in Support of Africa Policy Reform and Sustainable Development Agenda is a two-party proposition. The responsibility to provide the research and evaluation agenda and the resources requirement and the holding accountable of those entrusted with the resources to generate the sound, rigorous, and solid evidence that can be used for policy making and practices. While is the responsibility for policy makers and development professionals to demand solid, rigorous and sound evidence for policy making and action to contribute to the SDG goals and should be accountable of the use of these evidence at all time and provide resources needed, it is also the responsibility of researchers and evaluators to supply well documented and systematic reviewed evidence and be accountable to present research and evaluation results and findings in a manner, format, language and time needed and can be used by the policy makers and governments for effective decision making that “meets the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”