ILO Research Department Training

Evidence Based Policy Making: Is it always easy to distinguish evidence from opinion?

The ILO will provide a five days-training for its constituents; government, trade unions and employers’ associations on Evidence Based Policy Making where participants will learn analytical tools and methods to evaluate evidence on several topics of the world of work.

Policymaking nowadays is increasingly based on ideologies, opinions, anecdotes and political calculations, not always easily distinguishable evidence and facts on employment and labour market issues. Policymakers, like most of us are inundated with deliberate disinformation and misinformation spread through social media platforms and the internet. This makes it difficult to navigate through inaccurate, misleading, and contradictory information and make them open to manipulation in a world rich where reliable evidence on the world of work is not always obvious.

This is why ILO is embarking on building capacities of policymakers on how to better use evidence for policymaking on issues on the world of work, advocacy and policy development.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security of Türkiye together with ILO for Türkiye Ankara Office and the Research Department are organizing the Türkiye National Training on Evidence-based Policymaking for Decent Work from 8-12 May 2023 in Ankara. This training was requested by the Ministry of Labour in order to build capacities of governments and social partners (trade unions and employers associations) in the country to better use evidence (research, data, best practices) in policy development, policy advocacy or policy influencing on decent work issues.

The training covers various research methods, analytical tools, databases, interpretation of data, evaluating evidence, synthesizing evidence and how to better communicate evidence. These methods are applied to several topics such as informality, social protection, minimum wage, migration movements, platform workers, among others. This training will help participants draft a policy brief on a topic selected by themselves and present it to their audience. There are 26 participants from various directorates of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, trade unions, and employers’ associations