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Over the past decade there has been a growth of UK food charity and in turn the growth of supermarkets’ partnerships with food charities; this policy and practice paper explores these relationships, based on our findings from the 2021 project, ‘Supermarket corporate social responsibility schemes: working towards ethical schemes promoting food security’. We review the project’s findings, present practical recommendations, and identify lessons that can be applied to the current cost of living crisis.
Achieving prosperity for all within planetary boundaries requires that governments take wide-ranging transformative action, but achieving ‘triple-wins’ by joining up policies across economic, social and environmental realms can be challenging. A companion analysis undertaken under the ODI Nexus project () analysed key indicators in these realms in lower income countries and identified the Dominican Republic, Sri Lanka and Thailand as front-runners in achieving more holistic development outcomes. Looking deeper at these case studies, we sought to identify national policy interventions that struck a balance between the different realms of development and explored the policy development, legislation and implementation processes required for integrated transformational policy to succeed.
In each we found national-scale, triple-win policies led from the president’s or prime minister’s office. These policies can usually be traced to specific political moments that forced a reckoning with the failures of previous development policy, often resulting in radical change of direction in development planning. Yet, despite the existence of triple-win policies, as of 2019, there was limited evidence of triple-win outcomes being achieved. Instead, the case study countries typically performed well in one or two realms, often to the detriment of progress in the other(s).
We present potential reasons for the lacklustre impact of these policies and conclude with suggestions for future work to outline where in the policy landscape it may be possible to enact transformational nexus policies and how to support them to achieve their outcomes in the timeframes required to ensure equitable prosperity within planetary boundaries.
This paper discusses the findings of a research project on disability and leadership in the voluntary sector. It describes findings from interviews with disabled leaders in voluntary organisations, identifying key themes around stigma and disclosure; inclusion in the workplace; learning from disabled leaders; and capacity and confidence.
Background
Understanding knowledge utilisation in policymaking is a core task for the social and political sciences. However, limitations and biases abound in commonplace approaches to measuring such use. Consequently, we have little systematic evidence of the extent to which knowledge sources are used in policy decisions.
Aims and objectives
This article discusses existing approaches to studying knowledge utilisation and introduces the analytical approach, Knowledge Utilisation Analysis (KUA), which harnesses the growing quantities of documents available online.
Methods
KUA offers a four-step procedure that enables researchers to systematically compare policy documents with knowledge sources and measure the degree to which policy decisions follow or contradict relevant knowledge.
Findings
The article showcases KUA in a study of Danish primary education and active labour market policies from 2016 to 2021. By analysing 1,159 documents, KUA is leveraged to study levels of knowledge utilisation across policy areas, research methods, and provider types.
Discussion and conclusion
KUA contributes methodological innovation to measuring knowledge utilisation by systematically matching knowledge sources with policy decisions. KUA can, thereby, enhance empirical research on the relationship between knowledge and policy.
This commentary responds to points raised by Sanders et al in ‘Consent, assent and randomised evaluations’ (Evidence & Policy, XX(XX): 1–12,
On 6 December 2022, Jakarta passed a controversial law criminalising extramarital sex within Indonesian territories. In this policy article, in response to Indonesia’s recent criminalisation of extramarital sex, the author problematises how such legislation compounds domestic sex workers’ encounters with poverty. Then, the author visits Indonesia’s minimum tolerance of prostitution, arguing how such an impractical policy hinders Jakarta from eradicating the socioeconomic root causes of prostitution. Next, the author suggests policy directions that Jakarta should take into account in order to deconstruct the problems of underprivileged, marginalised and impoverished women and girls entering the sex industry. Here the author emphasises that Indonesia can deny the recognition of prostitutes, but it has to recognise prostitutes as local citizens. Therefore, social protection schemes designated for domestic citizens should be made accessible on a gender-blind basis, regardless of beneficiaries’ socioeconomic backgrounds.
This paper explores the dynamics behind two grant-making trusts that are choosing to spend out and close this decade. It embeds these accounts in the wider context of grant-making practice and the emerging trends to spend more, give more flexibly and shift power in philanthropy. It provides a set of questions about spending out for people involved in philanthropy to consider in research and practice.
