Turner Ellen, Lokot Michelle, Lange Isabelle L, Wake Caitlin, Roberts Bayard
Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
National Institute of Teaching, Blackburn, UK.
J Int Humanit Action. 2024;9(1):17. doi: 10.1186/s41018-024-00160-x. Epub 2024 Dec 28.
In the last decade, there has been a push for greater evidence-based practice within the humanitarian sector, alongside an increasing turn towards localising humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian actors and organisations have been increasing their production and use of evidence, while also being encouraged to reflect more critically on power hierarchies and decolonise humanitarian aid. This paper explores the intersection of these two narratives, examining how the use of evidence in humanitarian decision-making fits within a localisation agenda. Based on interviews with humanitarian health practitioners located globally, we examine how evidence is defined, and how it is used, including to inform both hierarchical and bottom-up approaches to decision-making. We find clear hierarchies about what counts as good evidence, with a weighting towards randomised-controlled trials, and that the perspectives of populations most affected by crises and the expertise of local actors were not routinely seen as central forms of evidence. Narratives about needing to build the capacity of local actors persist, alongside the notion of evidence as objective. We suggest that a disconnect exists between humanitarian discourses about evidence and localisation, arguing for the need to view evidence as political and influenced by researcher positionality This suggests that more consideration of locally-driven knowledge is needed and will strengthen humanitarian decision-making. We argue that a distinction between evidence and localisation does a disservice to both agendas and that finding synergies between these concepts would strengthen both.
在过去十年中，人道主义部门一直在推动更多基于证据的实践，同时越来越倾向于将人道主义援助本地化。人道主义行为体和组织一直在增加证据的产出和使用，同时也被鼓励更批判性地反思权力等级制度，并使人道主义援助非殖民化。本文探讨了这两种叙事的交叉点，研究了人道主义决策中证据的使用如何与本地化议程相契合。基于对全球人道主义卫生从业者的访谈，我们研究了证据是如何被定义的，以及它是如何被使用的，包括为等级制和自下而上的决策方法提供信息。我们发现，关于什么算作好证据存在明显的等级制度，倾向于随机对照试验，而且受危机影响最大的人群的观点和当地行为体的专业知识通常不被视为核心证据形式。关于需要建设当地行为体能力的说法依然存在，同时存在证据是客观的这一观念。我们认为，关于证据和本地化的人道主义话语之间存在脱节，主张有必要将证据视为政治性的，并受研究者立场的影响。这表明需要更多地考虑当地驱动的知识，这将加强人道主义决策。我们认为，区分证据和本地化对这两个议程都不利，在这些概念之间找到协同作用将加强两者。
