Generating knowledge and building networks for science advice in emergencies

 

This essay will present the problem of territorial inequality in Panama from a multidisciplinary perspective, a case which also applies to other middle-income countries. Territorial inequality is here defined as the pressure generated by asymmetries in access to territory due to sociocultural and socioeconomic causes. The concept of territorial inequality has the virtue of horizontally incorporating economic, social, and environmental criteria. With the help of history, these forces have ended up anchored in city-space; lack of access to property, unequal urban infrastructure investment in impoverished areas, dominant patterns of urbanization that portray the poor as clients of corporations instead of other more constructive ways like that of empowered citizens. The phenomenon of inequality has become more important after the Covid-19 crisis as new barriers have risen without the extinction of the old ones. Pressure has mounted on the economic system due to government debt and fewer resources. The same applies to the private sector. These dynamics make centrality- the importance of an urban center when compared to the peripheries- even more vital, aiding the process of social and economic stratification.

This paper explores how is evidence gathered, transformed, and selected during the current COVID-19 crisis, employing Panama’s housing ministry as a case study. We wish to better understand evidence pathways and provide strategies for increasing scientific evidence uptake. Our research strategy was organized into a three-step sequential model: 1. The evidence-gathering phase: we studied Covid-19’s effects on households by deploying 135 surveys (n=135). 2. The evidence transformation phase: studying housing sector evidence assembled by different ministry divisions via 12 surveys and interviews with ministry personnel (n=12), and 3. The evidence selection phase: studying evidence employed by decision-makers, through a semi-structured interview with the housing minister (n=1). Results show that evidence pathways depend on social phenomena, including internal and external political power negotiations, social class identities, and representations of the role of government.

The Covid-19 pandemic has, in general, been transformative for how ‘knowledge’ and ‘evidence’ are perceived both by policymakers and the public, and the role that it does/could play in the formation of public policy. It has likewise been a challenge for many knowledge producers who experienced or witnessed what it was like for experts to provide science advice in a crisis. The renewal of IDRC funding IDRC to INGSA at this early stage of the pandemic enabled INGSA to pivot strongly to supporting the pandemic response, while gleaning critical information in real time that will underpin the next stages of development in the field of science advice and science diplomacy.

This progress report is the first in a planned series of reports and studies stemming from the INGSA evidence-to-policy tracker, an online and participatory data collection tool established at the outset of the global pandemic. The specific aim of the tracker is to capture the contexts and processes behind recorded policy changes, especially with respect to the mobilisation and transfer of supporting evidence and expertise. This initial progress report is based on a subset of twenty-two cases, with two of these examined in more detail by way of illustration (DRC and Sri Lanka). These cases are exploratory and illustrative, rather than comprehensive. They were chosen for regional and institutional diversity and for the sufficiency of available data at the time of writing. They complement existing published research and the work of our partners. A typology of six initial pandemic response strategies was identified and then used as the basis for cluster analyses of policy choices within the subset of cases. Preliminary findings suggest that the choice of strategy provided an initial, but evolving, template for how evidence/expertise were mobilised within distinct institutional contexts. This preliminary report will help guide case selection for a series of in-depth case studies to be developed over the course of 2021. The choice of detailed case studies is not limited to the subset used in this illustrative and exploratory report.

Science advice to inform policymaking at multiple scales has experienced a surge in interest and activity in recent years. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic shone a stark light on the processes by which national governments and the multi-lateral community obtain scientific knowledge for decision making, there was a growing interest in the systems and processes of evidence development and expert interpretation. From both supply and demand perspectives, science advice for policy has come to be seen as both informing policy solutions and underpinning the public trust necessary to implement them successfully. While formal processes of science advice emerged after the Second World War, their initial purpose tended to support national defence and security interests. Over time, science advice has come to support wider developmental and environmental interests through advice on understanding complex systems, social policy, data, technology, and innovation. There is a growing recognition of the need for science-policy interface mechanisms at regional and global scales to support collective action on issues of common concern as the interdependencies of complex policy issues are better understood.