Using Evidence to Inform Policy

This report is based on the ‘Impact and Policy Conference: Evidence in Governance, Financial Inclusion, and Entrepreneurship’ held in 2012, Bangkok. The three-day conference evaluated innovative strategies and their impact in helping small business grow, increasing government responsiveness, protecting marginalized communities, and providing better financial services to the poor. The report summarizes each evaluation with highlights of the intervention, the results, and key messages. It also contains several research insights, providing additional background details on the intervention, the practitioners they partnered with, and in some cases a discussion of related evidence. It covers the following topics in detail:

• Small and medium-sized enterprises with a discussion on access to finance, human capital and job creation, and access to markets and technology;
• Governance and post-conflict resolution with a focus on the impact of access to information on constituents’ voting and responsiveness of politicians, improving the ways of targeting of social programs by involving the community in the process, and an evidence-based approach to policy making;
• Financial inclusion with a discussion on the impact of microcredit, access to savings services and improving financial capabilities of marginalized clients, managing risk due to uncertainties, and new payment channels through technology.