Allowing ‘revisibility’ in decisionmaking

This is a joint post with Heather – fifth in our series on decisionmaking

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Throughout this series of posts (1, 2, 3, 4), we have considered two main issues. First, how can evidence and evaluation be shaped to be made more useful – that is, directly useable – in guiding decision-makers to initiate, modify, scale-up or drop a program? Or, as recently pointed out by Jeff Hammer, how can we better evaluate opportunity costs between programs, to aid in making decisions. Second, given that evidence will always be only part of policy/programmatic decision, how can we ensure that decisions are made (and perceived to be made) fairly?

For such assurance, we primarily rely on Daniels’ framework for promoting “accountability for reasonableness” (A4R) among decision-makers. If the four included criteria are met, Daniels argues, it brings legitimacy to deliberative processes and, he…