Month: August 2022

Framing the evidence on sugar taxes in Germany: lessons for public health

evidencepolicyblogLeave a comment

Katharina Selda Moerschel, Peter von Philipsborn, Elizabeth McGill and Benjamin Hawkins

This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Evidence-related framing in the German debate on sugar taxation: a qualitative framing analysis and international comparison’.

Although sugar taxation is considered an important evidence-based intervention in the fight against obesity, some countries, such as Germany, have not yet implemented such a tax. While evidence does matter in policy processes, it does not speak for itself; it must be interpreted and used in specific contexts. What this context looks like, i.e. the framing of the underlying problem and the policy objectives, depends on the goals of the policy actor. To better understand how stakeholders in Germany argue for and against sugar taxation and how they utilised evidence, we examined how evidence was framed in 114 newspaper articles and compared our findings with similar studies from Mexico, the US and the UK.

German stakeholders demonstrated similar patterns of evidence use and evidence claims to those found in Mexico, the US and the UK. Tax supporters framed obesity as being (at least partly) attributable to sugar consumption and identified a reduction in sugar consumption as a key policy objective. They cited Mexico and the UK as main examples of successful reduction in sugar intake and framed sugar taxation as an effective means to tackle obesity in combination with other interventions.

Continue reading →

Engaging refugee women and girls as safeguarding experts, using creative and participatory methods

evidencepolicyblogLeave a comment

Alina Potts

This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Engaging refugee women and girls as experts: co-creating evidence on sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian crises using creative, participatory methods’, part of the Special Issue on Creativity and Co-production.

Efforts to build evidence on how best to deliver humanitarian assistance have grown over the past decade, at a time when the number of forcibly displaced people in the world has risen to over 84 million. Yet crisis-affected people are often left out of shaping the questions asked, and participating in answering them. Creative, participatory research methods can break down these silos and enable the co-production of evidence with displaced populations, and its uptake for practice and policy. The ‘Empowered Aid‘ study engages in participatory action research with refugee women and girls in Uganda and Lebanon to examine how to better prevent sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) in aid delivery. Co-producing knowledge about violence with those most affected by it creates actionable evidence to reduce risks.

In humanitarian settings, pre-existing power imbalances due to gender, age, and other factors can be exacerbated. While women and children account for a large share of the displaced, they are often left out of decision making, despite the impact aid delivery has on their lives and their heightened risk of gender-based violence, including sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA). While a system of reporting and response has been put in place over the last two decades, many survivors are discouraged from using it due to a lack of access, information, and trust in the process or the organisations leading it. Accountability mechanisms have also focused on responding to abuses already perpetrated, rather than working to prevent them.

Continue reading →