Building capacity for evidence-informed policy-making: the need to connect supply with demand for evidence

This chapter discusses the need to connect supply with demand of evidence in a complex political context characterised by a global over-supply of knowledge. The chapter discusses the contribution that evidence-informed policy-making can make to good public governance, which requires building new skills and capacity in the public sector. There is a need to address the elusive connections between evidence and policy-making, while acknowledging the importance of cognitive constraints and bias. This highlights the rationale for focusing on the demand of evidence, at the level of individual skills, as well as at the structural and organisational levels.