Hello, Bonjour, Olá!
Evidence does not become useful simply because it has been produced. It needs to be visible and accessible, but there are other questions too. Who gets to contribute to the knowledge we rely on? Whose experience is reflected in it? And what happens once that evidence reaches the people making decisions?
This month, those questions take us in several directions. We discover how Free Knowledge Africa is working to preserve African knowledge and make it easier to find, and look at South Africa’s first Femicide Review Pilot, which is examining concluded cases to draw lessons for prevention and response. We spotlight David Baganda, who is a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, Social Scientist and Executive Director of DAVSPE Research and Visual Art Centre Co. Limited and meet the 2026/27 Africa Evidence Youth League cohort as they begin their journey with the Network.
Our Africa Evidence Radar looks at what African teams are keeping “living” as new research emerges. Beyond Africa, an education programme in the Dominican Republic shows what can happen after an evidence-informed policy decision is made: the government took a promising intervention nationwide, but implementation fell sharply when it moved into routine delivery.
And in our community blog, Claude Fotso returns to the African proverb of the lion and the hunter, asking whether the people closest to implementation have enough room to shape the knowledge that informs decisions.
These stories invite us to look beyond whether evidence is produced or shared, and to ask who gets to shape it, whose knowledge is included, and what happens when evidence meets decision-making and practice.
Happy reading!
“Le soleil n’ignore pas un village parce qu’il est petit.”- African Proverb
