Policy analytical capacity and evidence-based policy-making: Lessons from Canada.

Evidence-based policy-making represents a contemporary effort to reform or re-structure policy processes in order to prioritize evidentiary or data-based decision-making. Like earlier efforts in the “policy analysis movement,” its aim is to avoid or minimize policy failures caused by a mismatch between government expectations and actual, on-the-ground conditions through the provision of greater amounts of policy-relevant information. A significant factor affecting the ability of policy-makers to engage in evidence-based policy-making pertains to both governmental and non-governmental “policy analytical capacity.” That is, governments require a reasonably high level of policy analytical capacity to perform the tasks associated with managing the policy process in order to implement evidence-based policy-making and avoid several of the most common sources of policy failures. Recent studies, however, suggest that, even in advanced countries such as Canada, the level of policy analytical capacity found in many governments and non-governmental actors is low, potentially contributing to both a failure of evidence-based policy-making as well as effectively dealing with many complex contemporary policy challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]