Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnographic research about evidence-based development and emic concerns, this presentation offers an interrogation regarding the power of quantitative indicators to shape anti-poverty policymaking around the world.

Paper long abstract:

The last decades have witnessed the growth of "evidence-based development". This is the movement to reduce global poverty by producing evidence about the effectiveness of development programs and using that evidence to shape policymaking. It centers around the question of "what works to alleviate poverty" and on the randomized evaluation as the preferred methodology for producing knowledge. In 2019, three economists who spearheaded this movement were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for their research findings which "have dramatically improved our ability to fight poverty in practice". This presentation complexifies the certainty stated in this Nobel Prize’s announcement. Based on ethnographic research across the USA, Kenya, and India, my presentation shows how practitioners of evidence-based development themselves grapple with this question of "What difference, if any, did our work make in the world?” I examine the contrast between the enthusiasm of my interlocutors for the randomized evaluation taken to measure causal impact with the highest degree of certitude and the more difficult task of assessing the policy impact of evidence-based development. By weaving together vignettes that tell about collaborations with governments or suspicions about what kind of evidence an NGO van is moving around in western Kenya, I show that a central question for those who practice evidence-based development is “What does evidence manage to do?” My interlocutors’ experiences exhibit a sincere hope in evidence-based policy at the same time that they qualify the “power” of that evidence to reconfigure livelihoods worldwide.