Evidence-based information practice in developing countries: issues and contexts

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for inviting me to speak here this afternoon and to speak about a subject that is relatively new in information science: that of evidence-based information practice in relation to policy formulation and research.

I will give you a brief overview of my presentation this afternoon. I will start with an introduction and touch on establish definitions of evidence-based librarianship and information practice. I will talk about emerging approaches and discuss issues and context, particularly in developing countries. I will also talk about the role of information professionals in this policy-research cycle that we have talked about for most of this morning, and then discuss a few applications and some strategies for intervention before finally concluding.

As I stated earlier, evidence-based librarianship is a relatively knew subject. In Australia and Canada it is more established and is said to date back seven years. In developing countries it is even newer and as I discuss the challenges later on, you will see that some of these challenges are related to that newness. The process of evidence-based librarianship is constantly changing, even its name is changing. Because it has not yet found its own place, it is therefore difficult to talk about it influencing something such as policy formulation.

Sometimes you wonder whether this is research-informed practice or it is really talking about supporting clients in their practice. There are questions of relevance, and whether it is relevant to the practitioners or to the clients. As I will come into later, this issue also touches on questions about our practice and about research itself.

There are a number of definitions that have emerged of evidence-based information practice. The first one comes from Australia, from Elderedge, who talks about it as: 'merging scientific research with pressing need to solve practical problems' (Elderedge, 2000). The second definition is from Andrew Booth, who has also written a lot about this question of evidence-based information. He holds that evidence-based information practice is: 'an approach to information science that promotes the collection, interpretation and integration of valid, important and applicable user reported, librarian observed and research derived evidence' (Booth, 2000). What is that in English? It is a very long definition, but because it is an evolving subject, definitions keep emerging. A more common definition is one that says that evidence-based information practice is a means to improve information practice by asking questions, as well as finding, critically appraising and incorporating research evidence from library science into daily practice and - I would add - into decision-making processes.

However, there are various steps that make it easier to manage this, and which for me offer a better understanding of what evidence-based information practice is about. This first one is problem-specification (clarifying the problem or clarifying the question), the next step involves searching the literature, then filtering results (evaluating them for validity and assessing relative value) and finally, critical appraisal. Related to that are issues of implementation. The implementation process includes applying the results that you have found and evaluating those results.

As you can see it is still complicated, but those five steps make it easier for me to manage and to understand what evidence-based information is, so that it is easier to talk about how we can apply it in the research process and in policy formulation. Those two issues of implementation are critical to those five steps in order to place it and use it effectively.

There are two emerging approaches to evidence-based information practice. The first one is one that I call 'internal', which relates to researching practice within library and information centres themselves, looking at how their practice and how they use research to improve their practice. The second one is one that looks at the 'external', at ways of intervention to improve the practice of information management in a subject field, for instance in health or in agriculture. Both of these approaches are integral to information practice. Both reinforce each other and need to be engaged.

The focus of this presentation for me, however, is on the latter. I will touch on both aspects but I will spend more time talking about the second (applied) approach, which focuses on intervention to improve practice and to input into policy-making processes as well as into research. However, it is important to note that not all information is evidence.

This brings me to the critical question of information management and evidence. When does information become evidence? For me, information becomes evidence when it is applied just-in- time to a problem in order to find a solution. That is when information turns to evidence. In this context, it is clear that information management is crucial to the whole process of gathering and applying evidence in the policy formulation process. Information does not just appear and in order to be able turn it into evidence - just in time and in an appropriate format - it has to be managed in a certain way that allows for ease of access and use.

What are some of the emerging trends? Literature on evidence-based information practice in developing countries, and particularly in Africa, was difficult to locate in the process of preparing for this. But there is an increasing call in the literature for evidence-based information practice in the health sector. There is also a growing call in the agricultural sector and in development and research. In the post-World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) era, there is an even greater call for information professionals and library professionals to be involved in inputting information and evidence into government policy-making processes and research.

So I asked myself, if it is so important, why is there an apparent lack of evidence of application? I could not locate answers to that. It could be that it is technical, in that none of the major indexing institution might not be covering what is happening in developing countries. Could it be that it is not an area of practice in developing countries and that we are not using evidence-based information to inform policy? Could it be that evidence-based information practice is happening in developing countries, but it is happening away from the print radar and is happening perhaps in oral tradition? Perhaps it is happening in areas that we are not considering to be formal information and therefore are not consulting, and are excluding? There is a need, ladies and gentlemen, for evidence on where evidence-based information practice is happening in developing countries.

So we have said that it is important, and we have said that it is not there. Is it required? I would put it to you that it is important for policy-making, it is important for decision-making, and it is important that the scarce resources used in research and in policy-making are informed by evidence. Development issues need it, quality of life issues need it, but why is it not happening? Or why are we not locating it?

There are several reason s why we can not locate it. I will give those reasons in forma of answers. Could it be that the issues and the contexts in which the whole arena of information happens in developing countries spreads across print and orality? Could it be that the method and the context within which we operate do not tally? Could it be that the methods that we use to gather information (and from which we then try to gather evidence), and the context within which we are operating do not relate. Furthermore, how much do we consider the issues of indigenous knowledge? Does indigenous knowledge exist? Have we brought it into public spaces? How do we tap into tacit knowledge that sits in many spaces that our formal research does not reach, but which is critical for the people for whom that policy is being generated? How do we keep the age-old practices of reflective practice over many years of research and many years of working in our organisation? What forms of knowledge need to be used? Do we limit ourselves only to that which we consider objective, and thereby exclude a lot of what we may consider to be not so objective? Do we have instruments for measuring whether they 'subjective' , 'oral', information?. Do we consider, perhaps, the context within which we operate, the context of orality, the contexts of indigenous knowledge? Have we considered the impact of the dislocation between practice and policy application? And in the process have we considered our paradigms of operation? Ladies and gentlemen I warned you at the beginning that I am going to ask more questions than I will provide answers.

In all this, what then is the role of the information worker? By the time I got here I wondered whether there really was a role, because it feels as though there are so many issues and contexts and things that do not seem to locate and yet, at the same time, we have information workers and librarians who must operate in the information environment, and provide information for policy-makers and provide information for research. How do they do this? I looked at the first slide that the last presenter used about the policy-research cycle and I was looking for a place or entry point for information and I could not find it. In my mind, I located it in the middle of that research cycle, because it affects all the six steps outlined.

I think that the difficult question in locating myself and my work, is 'in this dichotomous environment in which we operate, how do we do reconcile evidence and orality?' One of the most important things is the issue of managing information to ensure that it is available, timely, appropriate and in a useable state. This is something that information professionals have been schooled and trained in and have practiced for many years. But what do we do with fluid information located in orality and yet critical for policy formulation?

A second one is all about developing networks and frameworks within which you can collaborate with other stakeholders for problem definition, information access, and application to research. The third one is aligning the training that we receive in formal education with the skills that we need to develop to allow us to tap into oral culture, indigenous knowledge and tacit knowledge that is located away from the public information that perhaps we work with, particularly in academic libraries.

I found a few examples where efforts had been made to formally incorporate evidence-based information practice, which would perhaps bring together research and policy. One of them, which I was informed about by a colleague, is a workshop that took place in Cameroon in July 2006, in which an economist brought together researchers, policy-makers and information professionals to work out mechanisms of linking information and research with policy-making in Cameroon. There has also been some work done by IFLA, in which an information colloquium across a number of nations sought to work with information professionals in different subject fields in the area of information literacy. An information literate person is someone who knows when information is needed, so when we see a policy development cycle that does not have a place for information intervention, can we say that the policy-makers are not information literate? It will be interesting to see at the end of this information literacy colloquium whether at the end of that process, we will be able to see that we have information literate policy-makers in developing countries. Another example that I came across was one in which Kaniki (20006) called for the involvement of librarians in work with indigenous knowledge and in looking at how that work can then be translated into policy formulation in the context of South Africa.

All of those are preliminary activities, looking at how we can work to influence policy, but there has been no work that shows how information workers have provided information for policy formulation. What are some of the things that can be done to bring evidence-based information into policy formulation cycle? What are the innovation strategies?

One strategy that I would suggest is to gather evidence, thru research of the whole practice of evidence-based information. How is this going to be applied in developing countries? The contexts differ from the way that it is practiced in developed countries. We work a lot with information that is not in the public sector, and we work a lot with indigenous knowledge. How will that be interacted with? Secondly, there are some fields that lend themselves to evidence-based information and their content is easily used to influence policy, for example, in the health sector, in the information sector, in agriculture and in economics.

A third intervention strategy is to create a framework for access to indigenous knowledge. I cannot over-emphasise that point because in Africa, for example, a lot of information on health matters, on agriculture and on the environment, lies within indigenous knowledge. Systems and policies are created with complete disregard to this and then we wonder why things do not work. I put it to you that there is a role there for information workers to find ways of creating frameworks that will enable them to tap into indigenous knowledge. We need to work together to find an entrance point for information, one that is informal and which enables all the information to be central to the whole policy formulation process. There is a need to return to information science.

A fourth intervention strategy that we could consider would be to deliberately make formal academic research easily accessible within developing countries. We talked a lot yesterday about institutional repositories. These could be a channel for sharing formal research.

A fifth strategy is to revisit the whole training process. Are information professionals really trained in this area? Could we perhaps provide this in our curriculum? Could we perhaps provide continuing professional education to sharpen their skills to work in this area?

A sixth strategy might be to find an advisory role for those information professionals who understand this type of working - perhaps an advisory role to government.

A further strategy is to work on building a tradition of linking practice with research so that they both inform policy.

Finally, we need to return to funding library and information science programmes and practice to train and sharpen the skills of information professionals to work in the area of policy influence and development research.

In conclusion, there is a role for information professionals and their role is to inform and to identify intervention strategies or niches, just-in-time, in order that the information provided is relevant and timely. Secondly, they play a key part of the research and policy formulation strategy and cycle. Thirdly, the information, policy formulation and research cycle itself is intricate, so that negotiating a space on that cycle is a skill that information professionals need to develop. Fourthly, information professionals need to engage with each other, but also with researchers and with policy-makers, about ensuring that information is informing the policy formulation process. Fifthly, there is the whole question of information science - its meaning in developing countries, its application in policy formulation and where it fits in - and we need to engage with that. We also need to engage with indigenous knowledge issues. Finally, issues of training and funding need to be part of the strategic direction to ensure that information professionals are kept at the cutting edge of supporting policy formulation and research in developing countries.

Thank you.