?Prof Babette Rabie from the School of Public Leadership in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at Stellenbosch 中国体育彩票 delivered her inaugural lecture on Tuesday 2 September 2025. The title of her lecture was 'Nudging evidence use practice in the public sector'.
Rabie spoke to the Corporate Communication and Marketing Division about the importance of using evidence to strengthen decision-making and contribute to more effective and accountable governance in the public sector.
Tell us more about your research and why you became interested in this specific field.
My research centres on strengthening evidence-informed policy and practice in the public sector, with a particular focus on institutionalising and improving the use of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems. Over the past decade, I have developed integrated models for evidence use and explored ways to encourage greater uptake of evidence by decision-makers. This research niche grows out of a broader interest in how policies and programmes are designed to achieve their intended outcomes, and how M&E can be applied to track performance, explain results and guide continuous improvement.
Early in my career, I observed that many policies are shaped more by intuition and political expediency than by evidence. Too often, the evidence required for informed decision-making is either unavailable, irrelevant, or simply ignored. My work seeks to bridge this persistent gap between the producers and users of evidence to strengthen decision-making and contribute to more effective and accountable governance.
How would you describe the relevance of your work?
Evidence use is central to improving public decision-making, particularly in resource-constrained environments where the consequences of poor decisions are especially severe. The relevance of my work lies in addressing both sides of the evidence ecosystem: improving the quality, credibility and accessibility of the evidence being produced, and enhancing the capacity and willingness of decision-makers to use that evidence meaningfully. My research helps to make evidence more practical, timely and usable. Beyond improving technical systems, my work also speaks to building a culture of learning in the public sector, where evidence is not seen as an additional requirement or compliance task, but as a natural part of decision-making. In this way, strengthening evidence use contributes not only to better policy outcomes, but also to greater accountability, resilience, and trust in public institutions.
Based on your research, how can monitoring and evaluation systems – and the use of evidence – be improved in the public sector?
In my experience, the most critical success factor for strengthening evidence use is committed leadership that actively champions an evidence-driven approach. Here, “evidence" should not be understood narrowly as academic or theoretical knowledge, but more broadly as the range of information needed to make informed decisions. This includes monitoring data, evaluations, stakeholder insights, and other credible sources.
A second success factor is the institutionalisation of evidence systems so that evidence use becomes part of organisational culture rather than a compliance exercise. Third, evidence must be readily available, clearly packaged, and tailored to the needs of different decision-makers to maximise its relevance and uptake.
To build strong monitoring and evaluation systems, we must also strengthen partnerships between government, academia, civil society and the private sector to foster a more resilient evidence ecosystem. Investment in information technology is essential to enable efficient data collection, analysis, and sense-making, and to ensure timely access to evidence. Finally, embedding evidence use into individual job descriptions and performance expectations can make it part of the everyday way of working, rather than an additional task.
Why is performance monitoring and evaluation considered essential for good governance?
Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) provide the critical information needed to assess whether policies and programmes are achieving their intended outcomes. Monitoring activities and outputs is important for accountability, but evaluation goes further by examining outcomes and the intended as well as unintended consequences of programmes. This helps us to learn. Public policy inevitably engages with complex and “wicked" problems, for which there are rarely simple or complete solutions. From the perspective of different stakeholders, any intervention is likely to fall short in some way. The value of M&E lies in helping us navigate this complexity: evidence, careful policy analysis, trend monitoring and value-sensitive evaluation enable us to make sense of what is happening. Ultimately, the purpose of performance monitoring and evaluation is to support learning – to ensure that we make new and better mistakes, and to understand the trade-offs inherent in the decisions we make.
Your recent work explores how nudging can be applied to evidence use. How do you see these softer approaches contributing to more effective policy and programme decisions?"
One of the lessons I have learnt from both research and practice is that compliance-driven approaches to evidence use often create resistance. Policymakers and public managers do not necessarily ignore evidence because they do not value it, but because it is often presented in complex formats, misaligned with their incentives, or competing with political priorities. By applying principles from behavioural economics, such as bounded rationality, framing, or incentives, we can simplify evidence, package it in more accessible ways and design small nudges that make it easier and more rewarding to use.
You have worked both as a researcher and as a consultant in public sector evaluation and evidence systems. How have these two roles influenced each other?"
My academic work and my consulting practice have always informed one another. As a researcher, I focus on developing models and frameworks that help us understand how evidence systems function at individual, organisational and systemic levels. As a consultant, I have had the opportunity to test and apply these insights in real-world settings, such as supporting the government of the Seychelles in developing a national M&E system or working with South African departments on institutionalising evaluation practices. These experiences enrich my teaching and research by grounding them in practice, while my research ensures that the advice I provide as a consultant is conceptually sound and informed by evidence. In many ways, the two roles reinforce each other and keep my work both academically rigorous and practically relevant.
How do you spend your free time?
I love getting outside whenever I can. A long run or walk in the sun is my perfect escape from the screens that always seem to demand so much of my attention. Music is another way I unwind – I enjoy everything from classical pieces to hard rock and often play the piano to process my thoughts and destress. I love reading and travelling, finding as much joy in hearing about other people's adventures as I do in my own. When time allows, I'll potter around in the garden, but my favourite way to spend free time is with family and friends: laughing, teasing and simply cherishing the moments we have together. ?
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