Finding Out Fast: Investigative Skills for Policy and Development

Finding Out Fast provides readers with key skills and approaches for research designed to inform policies, particularly on development.

Recognizing that policy decisions are typically made under pressure of time and on the basis of incomplete data or with limited resources with which to obtain information, the authors provide guidance on how to locate, evaluate and use relevant information, fast.

They explain and critically review a variety of research methods for `finding out fast′, in the belief that these methods can still be rigorous. Finding Out Fast will assist readers to become competent investigators, to understand how to use research more effectively and how to commission and critically evaluate research done by others.

This book is essential reading for development managers in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and public sector agencies and students of development management and development studies more generally. However, the ideas and approaches will also appeal to anyone involved in policy making and research with developmental goals.

It is a course text for two courses in the Open University Global Programme in Development Management: Capacities for Managing Development (TU870) and the Development Management Project (TU874).

CONTRIBUTORS

Stephanie Barrientos University of Hertfordshire

Christine Blackmore Open University

Joseph Hanlon

Ray Ison Open University

Avril Joffe Labour Market Alternatives (Pty) Johannesburg

Hazel Johnson Open University

Geoff Jones Open University

Sue Mayer

Linda Mayoux

Bridget O′Laughlin Institute of Social Studies The Hague

Stephen Potter Open University

Chris Roche Oxfam

Ramya Subrahmanian Open University

Philip Woodhouse University of Manchester