Over 200 international participants joined PEP for the 2023 PEP Annual Conference
May 29-June 9
Over 200 individuals from across the globe gathered virtually for the PEP Annual Conference. Participants included researchers, practitioners, international experts, representatives from donor and international organizations, and policy influencers.
PEP, remaining committed to its mission of offering training and peer-review opportunities while acknowledging persisting travel restrictions and environmental concerns associated with physical meetings, hosted the annual conference online. The event included half-day sessions from May 29 to June 9.
After two weeks of invite-only activities, the conference culminated in the 2023 International PEP Policy Conference: Increasing participation of Southern researchers in development economics policy and debates, focused on examining concrete actions that can improve Southern participation in global development policy discussions. (see below).
The 2023 Conference benefitted members of 13 teams of local researchers in 11 developing countries currently supported under four ongoing research initiatives:
The event was also possible thanks to ongoing support from the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC).
Conclusions...
To help create more effective policies, multilateral development banks should outsource more of their research to Southern countries, as Southern researchers can provide local expertise often missing from non-local analysis.
"What researchers from the South bring to the table, which is very important, is the local context and the local nuance of the local institutions, and I think that Washington-based institutions now understand that they need to capture the nuances of the political context of each individual country if their policy prescriptions are going to be useful and that one size does not fit all."
— Santiago Levy
Establishing channels for dialogue and learning among think tanks can improve the participation of Southern researchers by fostering communication, idea exchange, and mutual learning.
"At Southern Voice... providing a platform for engagement makes it crucial in having think tanks actually talk to each other as well as share a platform where they can exchange views. We are able to learn from each other and to educate each other on what is happening back home in where we are from."
— Rose Ngugi
There is a need for the field of development economics to expand its criteria for what it values and rewards, recognizing and valuing more diverse viewpoints and contributions from underrepresented researchers.
"As economists, we have to broaden the space of the reward function in which economists operate. Is it open to new ideas? Is it open to younger researchers? Is it open to women and marginalized researchers to the extent that we would like it to be?"
— Rohinton Medhora
It is clear that increasing women's participation and representation in policy discussions is important and beneficial, as demonstrated by the prompt and effective response to the Covid-19 crisis across women-led countries.
"Right at the beginning of the pandemic, when there were lots of uncertainties, what countries that had a very important response and fast response to the Covid-19 pandemic right in the beginning had in common was women's leadership."
— Ana Kassouf
…and next steps
PEP should champion affirmative action within institutions and governmental partnerships to address gender disparities in policy dialogues.
"PEP can be exercise a lot of leadership in terms of affirmative action in all the projects that PEP engages with. Make sure that there is gender balance in the dialogue that is carried out between PEP and government, give more fellowships, ensure that there's opportunities for women to participate in the policy debates."
— Santiago Levy
Decision-makers in the field can be instrumental in driving substantial changes and increasing the participation of Southern researchers by, for example, restructuring incentive systems.
"Science funding research agencies have made it a condition in many cases of their funds that the research must be published in Open Access journals, and that's made a huge difference in the way research is published and disseminated. One might think of the equivalence in the development economics research space where we condition our grants. You change the incentive structure, and if there's one thing that economists understand, it's incentive structure."
— Rohinton Medhora
