What difference does a policy brief make?

3ie and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), in collaboration with Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), explored the effectiveness of a policy brief for influencing readers’ beliefs and prompting them to act.

A multi-armed randomised control design was used to find answers to three research questions:

• do policy briefs influence readers?
• does the presence of an op-ed type commentary within the brief lead to more or less influence?
• does it matter if the commentary is assigned to a well known name in the field?

Key findings:

• a policy brief is more effective in creating ‘evidence-accurate’ beliefs amongst those with no prior opinion
• messengers matter when it comes to readers’ intended actions
• gender and self-perceived levels of influence affect people’s intention to act after reading the policy brief

Implications for policy communication:

• ensure policy briefs have clear key messages
• include opinion and authority features as they may help to ensure briefs are shared and passed on
• consider whether a policy brief’s design or format is less appealing to women and/or makes them less inclined to take action
• target the ‘movers and shakers’