At the initiative of the Harvard Kennedy School Azerbaijani alumni community, on May 26, a training workshop was organized for Azerbaijani civil servants on the topic “Using Evidence to Drive Policy Decisions”.

Teddy Svoronos, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and Faculty Director of Training at the Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) discussed the importance of using data and evidence when making policy decisions at a lecture for employees of various public institutions in Azerbaijan. Professor Svoronos covered broad themes around evidence use such as using data to allocate resources, the importance of thinking of counterfactuals in establishing impact, and examining prior assumptions and beliefs when approaching evidence. To learn more about EPoD’s capacity building program, please visit their website: https://epod.cid.harvard.edu/capacity-building

The lecture included audience engagement through Zoom as well as real-world examples of evidence in policymaking.