Global Evidence Commission update 2024 Building momentum in strengthening domestic evidence support systems, enhancing the global evidence architecture, and putting evidence at the centre of everyday life

The Global Commission on Evidence, an international project of EBPM (Evidence-Based Policy Making) managed by McMaster University, which is also known as the birthplace of EBM (Evidence-Based Medicine), is an international initiative aimed at promoting the use of evidence (scientific basis) to address social issues worldwide. This commission was established in 2021 in the face of globally significant challenges such as pandemics and climate change. The importance of providing reliable evidence was re-recognized due to the frequent delays and inefficacies in responses caused by insufficient evidence-based policies.
 
Currently, 21 countries and 90 international organizations are participating in this project. However, until April 2024, Japan had no involvement. In May 2024, the Implementation Council, a working group of the Global Commission on Evidence, was held, and I (Prof. Koichi MIYAKI, MD, PhD) and Dr. Yohei Kobayashi, a senior researcher at Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting, participated as Japanese members for the first time. We were officially recognized as members from August of the same year.
 
The commission created a full report in 2022, which was subsequently updated in 2023 and 2024 and published on the official website in multiple languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish), but there was no Japanese version. Recently, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ Administrative Evaluation Bureau decided to translate it, with me (Prof. Miyaki) and Dr. Kobayashi supervising the translation. This book is the Japanese version (2024 revised edition) and is available for free on both the project’s official page and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ Administrative Evaluation Bureau page (URLs are listed under “Related Information” below).
 
The commission aims to provide highly reliable evidence in policy-making and solving social problems to enable more effective and fair decision-making. The main goals are as follows:
 
Formalize and strengthen domestic evidence-support systems
Supporting each country to strengthen its own evidence systems to effectively provide the necessary information for policy-making and problem-solving. This enables policymakers to make swift decisions based on evidence.
 
Enhance and leverage the global evidence architecture
Establishing a cooperative framework between countries and international organizations to share and utilize evidence from a global perspective, supporting consistent responses to global issues (such as climate change and infectious diseases).
 
Put evidence at the centre of everyday life
Promoting education and information provision so that citizens can use evidence in their daily lives for decision-making and problem-solving. This aims to foster a culture of evidence-based decision-making throughout society.
 
We hope that this translation of the report will help people understand the international trends in EBPM (Evidence-Based Policy Making).
 

(Written by MIYAKI Koichi, Project Professor, Graduate School of Public Policy / 2024)