08/10/2025 – The Evidence Hub of Latin America and the Caribbean (Hub LAC) and On Think Tanks (OTT) are pleased to announce the launch of a new edition of Evidence Week, taking place from 13 to 17 October 2025. The initiative will bring together professionals, organisations and institutions committed to strengthening evidence-informed public policy (EIP) across the region.

Under the theme “Evidence-Informed Policy in Motion: Listening, Innovating, and Transforming”, Evidence Week 2025 will offer a diverse and collaborative space to share experiences, foster learning, and debate the role of evidence in decision-making in a world shaped by misinformation, multiple crises, and rapid technological change.

This year’s programme includes nearly 30 events organised by more than 40 institutions, including think tanks, universities, civil society organisations, public agencies, and international organisations, across nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Most activities will be held online, with sessions in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, enabling diverse audiences to participate from different parts of the world.

“This week is a unique opportunity to connect those who generate, use, communicate, and fund evidence, and to imagine together how we can strengthen and innovate decision-making processes in our contexts,” said Carolina Beidacki from the coordination team at HUB LAC.

Meanwhile, Enrique Mendizabal, Founder and Director of On Think Tanks, highlighted that “Evidence Week demonstrates the value of collaboration across sectors and territories. Each edition expands the community working to advance evidence-informed policy and brings us closer to a future where decision-making is more inclusive, effective, and sustainable.”

In addition to serving as a meeting point for those working in the field of evidence, the Week aims to bring these discussions to new audiences and to strengthen a regional community committed to more inclusive, effective, and sustainable policymaking.

The full programme, which includes conferences, panel discussions, workshops, debates, and case presentations, also features additional activities taking place throughout the month to further advance evidence-informed policymaking in the region. The full calendar is now available on the official website: https://semanadelaevidencia.org.

About Evidence Week

Evidence Week is organised by On Think Tanks (OTT) and the Evidence Hub of Latin America and the Caribbean (Hub LAC), an initiative established in 2022 to promote connections and strengthen the use, production, and brokerage of evidence in social policy decision-making in the region. This year, Evidence Week is supported by an organising committee that is helping to expand outreach and enhance the impact of the programme.

More information and full event calendar: https://semanadelaevidencia.org
Press contact: info@semanadelaevidencia.org

Event held for the first time in West Africa strengthens South-South cooperation and explores the art and science behind evidence-informed public policy

From September 30 to October 2, Veredas’ Executive Director, Ingrid Abdala, and Laura Boeira, Head of Partnerships and Networks at the Institute and Director of Hub LAC, took part in Evidence 2025 — the leading African conference on the use of evidence in public policymaking.

The event, held in Cotonou (Benin), was a joint initiative by the African Center for Equitable Development (Aced) and the Africa Evidence Network (AEN). It marked a milestone as the first edition hosted in West Africa, aiming to create a space for dynamic exchange, mutual learning, and co-creation of evidence-informed actions across the African continent and beyond.

Under the theme “Engage, Understand, Impact”, Evidence 2025 brought together around 200 policymakers, researchers, professionals, and civil society representatives to foster collaboration and evidence-informed decision-making across Africa.

Hub LAC Experience: Mapping Actors in Evidence-Informed Policymaking Across Latin America and the Caribbean

Representing Hub LAC, Ingrid Abdala joined the panel “HubLAC Mapping: Building a Living Knowledge Base to Strengthen Evidence-Informed Policymaking in Latin America and the Caribbean” to share learnings and some preliminary results from the Hub LAC Mapping 2025.

The initiative aims to map individuals and organizations that are part of the Evidence-Informed Policy (EIP) ecosystem in the region. This mapping is the first step in a broader research effort that will culminate in a report to be released at the end of this year. Its goal is to better understand who is promoting the use of evidence in policymaking, as well as to strengthen and update the Hub LAC’s collaboration network.

Ingrid highlighted the diverse and hands-on event program, which included discussions on leadership, evidence governance, mentoring, and sessions dedicated exclusively to training.

“It was a very special and timely moment to present our results, especially because we were in Benin, a Francophone country. People were very interested in the data and in what we are building, which created a very positive connection. From that exchange came the opportunity to share our materials so that, once translated, they can carry out a similar mapping in their region. This experience was not only enriching but also important for the Hub, since French is still an area we need to strengthen. As we don’t yet have the form available in that language, thinking about translating it could open new opportunities for collaboration with Francophone countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, expanding the reach of the mapping.”

Evidence Week 2025

Next week, from October 13 to 17, the Semana de la Evidencia – Evidence Week 2025 – will take place — a decentralized platform featuring a wide range of events focused on strengthening Evidence-Informed Policies through experiences from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Under the theme “Evidence-Informed Policies in Motion: Listening, Innovating, and Transforming”, Evidence Week 2025 offers a diverse and collaborative space to share experiences, generate learnings, and discuss the role of evidence in decision-making in a world shaped by misinformation, multiple crises, and technological transformation.

On October 15, we will officially launch the Hub LAC Mapping. Inspired by PACE and EVIPNet, the initiative seeks to provide a clearer picture of the actors, their capacities, and existing gaps — as well as to promote collaboration opportunities, resource mobilization, and a more inclusive use of evidence in public policy.

📌 Simultaneous translation will be available.

Don’t miss it!

Register here

Hub LAC and Instituto Veredas actively participated in the Cape Town Consensus, an international event held in Cape Town, South Africa, from June 23 to 27. The meeting marked a historic moment for the global ecosystem of Evidence-Informed Policies (EIPM).

Organized by the Pan-African Collective for Evidence (PACE) and the African Centre for Evidence Synthesis (ACRES), the event brought together representatives from various countries and institutions to discuss and build a Collaborative Evidence Synthesis Infrastructure (ESIC Roadmap), aimed at shaping more effective, fair, and data-informed public policies.

Representing Instituto Veredas were Laura Boeira, Executive Director, and Danilo Castro, Communications Coordinator. “The ESIC Roadmap is the final document validated at this event, but it was the result of work that began six months earlier. From now on, we will guide investments toward this global evidence synthesis infrastructure, especially by strengthening leadership from the Global South in these initiatives,” said Boeira.

For Danilo, who also works in the field of social participation in Brazil, the event was an opportunity to contribute with a focus on citizen oversight. “We took part in working groups where we were able to share insights on evidence communication and, above all, on the relationship between the evidence ecosystem and public policy councils, drawing from Brazil’s experience with our Social Participation System, which is highly respected around the world,” he said.

Structured funding

For the first time, the world now has a structured global funding initiative to integrate and strengthen the different actors working in this field. The project has an initial budget of £45 million (approximately R$325 million), provided by the Wellcome Trust, a UK-based institution that supports scientific research. This investment will be used to develop structures, platforms, and collaborative networks that facilitate the use of evidence in public decision-making, with a special focus on contexts of high social and institutional inequality over the next five years.

The strength of the Global South

The participation of the Global South — including Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean — was one of the highlights of the event. These regions are expected to play a direct role in the governance of the process. The initiative represents a paradigm shift in the international debate, decentralizing knowledge production and promoting greater equity in evidence-informed policymaking. “We have much to learn, but also much to teach and share about what we’re doing here,” said Tamille Dias, General Coordinator of Evaluation and Evidence at Brazil’s National School of Public Administration (ENAP), who also attended the event.

Veredas, known for its work with the Brazilian Coalition for Evidence and the Latin America and Caribbean Evidence Hub (HubLAC), participated in strategic discussion groups and facilitated activities at the conference. The Institute’s active presence reinforces Latin America’s leadership in the international agenda for more transparent, data-driven policies that respond to the real needs of the population.

Spotlight on Brazil and Latin America

Representing Hub LAC were Daniel Patiño (UNED), Verónica Osorio (EPPI Centre), and Lucy Kühn Barrientos. Other Brazilian leaders also took part, including Frederik Dejongue from Insper; Luciane Cruz from the University of Sorocaba; Karla Soares from Cochrane; Tiago Siqueira from Hospital Albert Einstein; and Ana Carolina Paci from the Global Compact.

The Evidence Hub of Latin America and the Caribbean (Hub LAC) has launched a regional initiative to map individuals and organizations that are part of the Evidence-Informed Policymaking (EIPM) ecosystem across the region. The survey form is now available online and will remain open until June 30, 2025.

This mapping is the first step in a broader research effort that will result in a report expected by the end of this year. The goal is to better understand the people and institutions promoting the use of evidence in public policymaking, while also strengthening and updating Hub LAC’s collaborative network.

By keeping this community connected, Hub LAC aims to create tangible opportunities to:

• Share projects and research
  
• Participate in interdisciplinary regional initiatives
  
• Access funding opportunities
  
• Exchange knowledge and experiences among professionals and organizations
  

“We aim to present, by the end of 2025, an overview of how our community is distributed, the type of work we do, and the thematic areas we focus on. This will help us better understand who we are as a network and recognize our collective potential,” says Carolina Beidacki, Project Coordinator at Hub LAC.

Who can participate?
Both individuals and institutions working in or interested in the field of EIPM are invited to complete the form. If you represent an organization, please provide institutional information when applicable. If you’re responding in a personal capacity, use your individual information.

Your participation is essential to increasing the impact of EIPM across Latin America and the Caribbean and to strengthening collaboration among policymakers, academia, and civil society—joining forces to promote evidence use in public decision-making.

👉 Access the form here  (It will take less than 10 minutes to complete. All information will be treated with strict confidentiality.)

📅 Deadline: June 30, 2025
📧 More information: contato@hublac.org

This interview is part of the initiative “Resonating Voices: Listening to the Voices of Evidence Users in the LAC Region”. The project is a collaborative effort with the LAC Hub acting as the implementer and Overton as the funder. In this conversation, the LAC Hub engages with José Enrique Velasquez from Peru.

José Enrique Velasquez is a medical physician with a master’s degree in Public Health and Clinical Epidemiology. He currently works as a university professor and as the General Director of Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion (MIDIS) in Peru.

1. What are the priority issues or problems in your organization? 

In 2022, we approved the updated version of the National Policy for Development and Social Inclusion, a policy that gathers 14 sectors and identifies 81 services. This policy has five priority objectives, and we are currently working on three of them, which represent a significant social problem for our country.

The first one is related to food security. We are currently intensifying efforts to implement the most effective interventions to improve food security, especially among the poor and vulnerable populations.

The second issue is related to poverty. We are transitioning from measuring poverty monetarily to a multidimensional approach. Not only because of MIDIS’ own work but also because we believe that combining both measurements can provide a better understanding of poverty among the population.

And the third issue is related to the previous ones, which is childhood anemia. There is a need to improve the outcomes of anemia in children under three years old, particularly focusing on infants under 12 months old, as this is a period of intense neural connections formation.

2. What role has scientific evidence played in addressing these priority problems or issues, and what partnerships or synergies have supported or enabled this process?

I can take the example of the conditional cash transfer program in early childhood.

During the pandemic, there was uncertainty about how the closure of services and the absence of home visits would impact the immediate postnatal population.

We had to conduct an intense search for international evidence because we did not have national evidence to identify whether significant developmental outcomes could be expected in early childhood with a conditional cash transfer program. We found all kinds of evidence, categorized them, and created an evidence matrix.

Thanks to this initiative, we implemented an innovative pilot by adapting an existing program called “Juntos.” We expanded assistance to pregnant women and mothers of newborns, adding services such as screening for anemia, iron supplementation, and access to vaccination, coordinated with the Ministry of Health. By fulfilling these minimum responsibilities, a household transfer was immediately granted.

The evidence supported the design and implementation of the pilot program, facilitating support from the Ministry of Economy and Finance and subsequent approval by an emergency decree from the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion.

After a year of implementation, the initial evidence was complemented with new data, including an evaluation of malnutrition and access to services for early childhood. These results, together with international and locally generated evidence, supported the proposal to extend and scale the program nationally and in rural and urban sectors.

For this work, we received support from the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, an expert in conditional cash transfers, and academic institutions.

3. What are the main barriers and facilitators you identify for institutionalizing and systematically incorporating evidence into the decision-making process?

Barriers

The time between the political decision required and the technical work necessary to gather the best available evidence. The demand for evidence to make these political decisions can be as short as a week, while technically, it may take months to provide that evidence.

The second barrier is related to budget constraints. We would like to have sufficient budget to conduct all the evaluations and studies required to generate our own evidence, but resources are extremely limited.

The third barrier I would like to highlight is access to quality information sources and resources, which includes access to search engines. While there is increased investment in democratizing evidence, we still face difficulties in accessing certain types of evidence.

A fourth point I would like to highlight as a barrier is the need to always work on maintaining a culture of evidence at the institutional level, one that facilitates alliances with other institutions within the country, not only with academia but also with different organizations from the public and private sectors.

Finally, more of a challenge we have is to disseminate evidence and make it available to different target audiences and ensure they understand the real scope of the evidence. This means translating knowledge for different audiences.

Facilitators

Once evidence is used to make decisions, if a conducive context is maintained, a snowball effect can be generated. So, starting from something small, something increasingly significant can be achieved, generating a minimum culture of decision-making always supported by the best available evidence, and that is something that needs to be emphasized and reinforced.

We have achieved outstanding results by sharing our evidence on the MIDIS portal and involving international researchers in other spaces. These collaborations have allowed us to access new international evidence, strengthening our evaluations and results. Identifying and seizing similar opportunities can lead to more positive outcomes.

4. What advice would you give to researchers and decision-makers who want to improve the impact and use of scientific evidence in policy decisions?

Decision-makers need to understand that their decisions will have greater support, better outcomes (which can also be measured politically) as long as they are evidence-based. Decision-makers are subject to judgments, questioning, and internal control for the decisions they make, but these can clearly be satisfactorily defended if they are evidence-based.

It can also present a different image to the media, positioning them differently.

The needs of decision-makers in the political sphere may differ from those in academia. Therefore, for researchers to ensure that decision-makers use evidence, it is crucial to identify needs in the political sphere.

Researchers, especially in academia, because there are also researchers in other areas, need to understand that politicians have to make quick decisions.

Finally, once the best available evidence has been collected, it is essential to make it available in dissemination and reflection spaces when and with whom it is appropriate.

Interviewee contact: jvelasquez@midis.gob.pe

This interview is part of the initiative “Resonating Voices: Listening to the Voices of Evidence Users in the LAC Region”. The project is a collaborative effort with the LAC Hub acting as the implementer and Overton as the funder. In this conversation, the LAC Hub engages with John Edison from Colombia.

John Edison is a Health Administrator and Lawyer, with a Master’s degree in Epidemiology. Currently, he serves as an Advisor to the Vice Minister of Social Protection at the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Colombia.

1. What are the priority issues or problems in your organization?

The financial sustainability of the healthcare system is a pressing issue we have been working on. Particularly, issues related to the production of new health technologies. This has been a recurrent issue not only in our system but worldwide, as it has led to a rapid increase in costs in recent years, causing significant concerns about resources.

Another issue is related to the implementation of comprehensive and integrated service networks and primary healthcare strategies, especially involving the primary level of care.

Lastly, the main activity I am currently supporting is the reform project for the General System of Social Security. It is a reform project explicitly led by this Vice Ministry. We are generating everything related to the proposal of this project and all the progress currently being made in the Congress of the Republic.

2. What role has scientific evidence played in addressing these priority problems or issues, and what partnerships or synergies have supported or enabled this process? 

Evidence is crucial. Most of us involved in this reform process come from academia, and every decision and article being worked on and agreed upon is based on the best available evidence.

Regarding primary care strategies, specifically concerning basic health teams and reducing healthcare expenditure, different departments of the Ministry have been conducting literature reviews. Specifically, the Promotion and Prevention (PYP) department has focused exercises on defining which professionals should make up these basic health teams and estimating the expenditure on these strategies, based on what has been done in other healthcare systems. Likewise, literature reviews have focused on the activities that could be carried out in terms of extramural care.

We also create collaborative workspaces to define questions in the PICO (Patient, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome) structure and conduct a literature review. Particularly, an evidence map was created with support from BIREME (Latin American and the Caribbean Center for Information in Health Sciences) and the OPS. This led to a synthesis of evidence that guided the aforementioned expenditure estimation for PHC (Primary Health Care) teams and is now used as support to justify most of the requests made by senators, congressmen, and civil society, who demand this type of evidence.

Regarding partnerships, we have agreements with universities such as the University of Antioquia, the National University, the University of Los Andes, and the Javeriana University.

There are other types of agreements from previous governments, such as the one with Health Metrics to conduct economic burden studies of diseases.

In terms of international cooperation, once again, we have agreements with the OPS, USAID (United States of America Agency for International Development), IOM (International Organization for Migration), and the French Development Agency, among others, which include research centers and evidence-generating institutions.

3. What are the main barriers and facilitators you identify for institutionalizing and systematically incorporating evidence into the decision-making process?

Barriers:

The main barrier is time. Often, we receive requests for evidence within a short period, during which we must gather the best available evidence and support a decision that has been made or is about to be made.

Another barrier is the lack of continuous training or education in terms of new research techniques and strategies.

The definition of competencies and the job manual can also become a barrier, as sometimes the times or the specific profile for carrying out activities related to evidence production and use are not defined.

The current structure of the system, created more than 30 years ago, perhaps was not planned particularly with the urgent and immediate need to include evidence-generating groups within public institutions. This has led many institutions to undergo transformations.

Lastly, the economic resources available to each entity can be a barrier. Budgets are designed for specific functions, and rarely do they include specific functions for matters like evidence review. There is no explicit budget for that, nor are there people dedicated exclusively to it.

Facilitators:

The dynamism and modernization of the state, where we seek to review those functions well, and where we hope that there can be specific functions for supporting evidence use. When institutions have access to the best available evidence, they transform.

Support from international cooperation organizations, agreements developed with study centers, research centers, and institutions dedicated to working with evidence.

The precision of the evidence is a very important facilitator because every administrative act is subject to public scrutiny. In that sense, evidence is a very important supporting and defense mechanism that we have against oversight bodies.

The easy of access to evidence is also an important facilitator. Scientific literature is more accessible than it was a few years ago.

Another facilitator is that we currently have the Ministry of Science, which is also part of the decision-making bodies.

Lastly, thanks to agreements with universities and academic programs, opportunities have been created for certain officials to receive training, generating benefits in terms of capacity building.

4. What advice would you give to researchers and decision-makers who want to improve the impact and use of scientific evidence in policy decisions?

For researchers, the advice is to be very aware of the political reality of the system. Different research topics stem from there to guide decision-making. Often, researchers only focus on the context they can discern in study centers and rarely know the political and contextual reality of the system as a whole. If we manage to get academia into these political scenarios, I believe an important synergy can be generated.

And for those involved in decision-making, the main advice I would give them is that in practical terms, evidence reduces the uncertainty of decisions, and that can contribute to generating accurate public policies that fit the reality of the population. We always have oversight bodies watching and paying attention to the decisions we make, and evidence becomes a probative mechanism to defend the decision made. All of this helps ensure that the success of any decision can better translate into the framework of public policy.

Interviewee contact: edison.betancur@udea.edu.co

This interview is part of the initiative “Resonating Voices: Listening to the Voices of Evidence Users in the LAC Region”. The project is a collaborative effort with the LAC Hub acting as the implementer and Overton as the funder. In this conversation, the LAC Hub engages with Dayana Brunetto, from Brazil.

1. What are the priority issues or problems in your organization?

Working in the new National Secretariat for LGBTQIA+ Rights has been a challenging and rewarding experience at the same time. It is the first secretariat for LGBTQIA+ rights in the world, so it is very much in focus, both due to conservatism and from other parts of the world, for being the first structure in a second level of government to take care of these policies and these people, as well as transforming their lives.

In our secretariat, we face a series of priority issues that directly impact our work, our objectives, and mainly LGBTQIA+ people. One of them is the absence of data or the insufficiency and instability of available data. Although IBGE data addresses sexual orientation, usually it is the head of the family who responds, so if it is a lesphobic father or mother, for example, they will not say that their daughter is lesbian, contributing to an underreporting of this data.

Another priority problem is tackling the powerful effect of hate speech in society, especially regarding the LGBTQIA+ community. The spread of the so-called “gender ideology” has harmed the gender approach by teachers, researchers, leading to the devaluation of research and the persecution of professionals in the field.

2. What role has scientific evidence played in addressing these priority problems or issues, and what partnerships or synergies have supported or enabled this process?

One of our main efforts is the production of stable and reliable data. Together with ANPEd – National Association of Graduate Studies and Research in Education – and other organizations, we created a standard form that can be used by public bodies to collect relevant information about these groups. The form was approved by the National Human Rights for LGBTQIA+ Council, and we are working on a technical note with an opinion sent to all public bodies that collect data, with suggestions for questions, for its implementation. However, we face institutional obstacles and resistance from those who do not share our values and objectives.

In this process, we seek different sources of information and scientific evidence to support our decisions. We also have the support of the National Human Rights Observatory and ReneDH – National Network of Evidence in Human Rights, which was established within the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship – MDHC. One of the approaches we have adopted is to work in partnership with specialized consultancies. We believe that these partnerships can fill important gaps and provide us with valuable insights.

A significant example of research conducted by organized social movements is the National LesboCensus, a fundamental academic activist research to establish a concrete government agenda, culminating in the creation of the National Agenda for Combating Lesbofobia and Lesbo-Hate. An inter-ministerial partnership together with the Ministry of Racial Equality, Ministry of Women, and with the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples.

The census revealed impactful data, indicating that eight out of ten lesbians in Brazil have already experienced lesbophobia, with 21,050 responses nationwide. These results have driven debates and actions in areas such as health, education, and public safety. The next phase involves interviews to deepen the quantitative data and political training to promote evidence-informed public policies.

We also established the National Council for LGBTQIA+ Rights, with 38 representations, 19 from the government and 19 from social movements. We believe that public policy needs evidence from social participation, which is who is in the territory. Therefore, we establish a continuous dialogue between the social movement and the government, ensuring that the proposed policies are viable and effective.

3. What are the main barriers and facilitators you identify for institutionalizing and systematically incorporating evidence into the decision-making process?

Barriers

One of the main barriers we face is the effects of hate speech in society. This speech permeates various spaces, including public administration, university, and school, making it more difficult to implement evidence-based policies in this area. This reality is especially painful for those working with human rights, as we confront the denial of the right to equality and respect for human dignity daily.

Another significant challenge is the restricted budget and the lack of consensus on the importance of investing in evidence and research, which impact not only the obtaining of evidence but all our activities. However, even with limited resources, we seek to carry out training and initiatives that promote the fight against transphobia and other forms of discrimination.

The negotiation for data production also ends up being a barrier because we still have a lot of confusion with the main concepts that minimally systematize our subjectivity, as LGBTQIA+ subjects, in addition to our agenda not being agreed upon by a broad front of political actors. Therefore, this theoretical, epistemological, and political confusion adds to the issue of conservatism, which is moralism, which hinders many data collection stages.

Facilitators

Despite these barriers, I recognize that there are opportunities to advance in this process. One of them is strengthening partnerships with social movements, academia, and international organizations, which can provide support and expertise in the production and use of evidence. Additionally, we must seek creative alternatives to institutionalize evidence-informed practices, even in the face of a lack of legislative support.

There is still much work to be done to overcome these barriers and ensure that our policies are informed by solid evidence and directed to the real needs of the population. We believe that, with a collaborative and evidence-informed approach, we can make significant progress in promoting rights and addressing inequalities.

4. What advice would you give to researchers and decision-makers who want to improve the impact and use of scientific evidence in policy decisions?

Regarding researchers, it is important for them to establish effective dialogue with the people and communities affected by the research topic, even if they are not necessarily part of that group. It is not necessary to be a specific subject to research a certain topic, but it is essential to listen to and understand the experiences and perspectives of the people involved. Researchers must be open and receptive to changes and movements in society, adapting and learning from these continuous transformations.

There is also a need for collaboration between researchers and decision-makers at all levels, from federal to local levels, to ensure that policies and decisions are informed by robust and relevant evidence.

As for decision-makers, there needs to be an ethical-political commitment to providing quality services to everyone, regardless of their personal beliefs. Additionally, it is important to provide adequate training for professionals involved in public policies and the need to listen to and consider the evidence and experiences of users of public services to ensure equity. Decisions made should be informed by evidence and respect the human rights of all.

It is of paramount importance not to violate human rights and to consider the profound consequences of discriminatory acts, such as exclusions, offensive jokes, and disdainful looks, which can have serious impacts, including suicide. Therefore, it is crucial to promote and protect human rights in all actions and decisions.

As an advocate of “small revolutions,” I believe in the importance of transforming spaces and groups gradually and constantly. Our Secretariat is committed to leaving a positive legacy, and I firmly believe that investing in evidence and data is fundamental to achieving this goal. It is a challenging journey, but I am determined to move forward, fighting for a more just and equal future.

Interviewee contact: dayana.brunetto@mdh.gov.br

The Hub LAC was present at the first Seminar of the ImunizaSUS Project, whose theme was “Evidence-Informed policymaking (EIPM) to support immunization actions in municipalities.”

The event took place on May 17 in Brasília (DF) and was organized by the National Council of Municipal Health Secretariats (CONASEMS) with support from the Ministry of Health of Brazil, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), and the Collective Health Education Center of the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (NESCON/UFMG).

The activity featured speakers from Brazil and other Latin American countries to share their experiences and knowledge regarding the institutionalization of evidence use and the implementation of effective vaccination policies in Brazilian municipalities.

Duber Osorio, coordinator and researcher of the Hub LAC, contributed to the event by sharing the experience in research on the institutionalization of evidence use for decision-making in Colombia. He presented the research results conducted at the Hub LAC and also the results from the RESSA Colombia team.

The seminar aimed to discuss the state of the art of Evidence-Informed policymaking, focusing on two main aspects:

(a) The systematic and transparent use of the best available data and scientific evidence, through the synthesis of the best global and national evidence, presenting the problems related to low vaccination coverage, the possible options to address these problems, and the identification of barriers and facilitators to implement these evidence-informed policies, and

(b) Emphasis on social participation and debate through deliberative dialogues in the situation where the evidence will be used. The situation where the evidence will be used in a context of political, cultural, and institutional constraints, pressure from local anti-vaccine groups, and resource availability.

The event also featured a presentation by Lucy Barrientos Kühn, Project Coordinator of the Evidence Unit of the Ministry of Health of Chile and a member of the Hub LAC directive team. In addition to Lucy, former partners and inspirers for the formation of the Hub were also present, such as Cristián Mansilla, Jorge Barreto, and Ulysses Panisset.

Find out more about the event here.