Thanks for the prompt @Faith @Henry Magoba\'s pitch on youth unemployment really resonates with me.Drawing on my nutrition background, I would pitch that my 60 seconds go to the double burden of malnutrition among adolescents, a group too often missed…

My 60-second policy pitch: Invest in young people\'s skills, livelihoods and future.If I had 60 seconds with a policymaker, I would ask them to address youth unemployment by investing in practical skills development, paid internships, mentorship and accessible opportunities for…

Let\'s get talking! 

Imagine you have just 60 seconds with a policymaker who can change ONE thing affecting young people in your community.

What issue would you raise, and what would you say to convince them to act?

Let\'s hear your best pitches! 

Charles and Fortunate, this is the conversation I have been waiting to see in this group. Let me try to add something on each of your three questions, because I think the hardest one is the second.On proxy indicators, I…

Fortunate, thank you for this thoughtful and methodologically grounded response — you have captured the core tension perfectly.I agree — we must not confuse linearity in logframes with linearity in healing. Psychosocial recovery is non-linear, yet our accountability systems demand…

I suggest that the challenge extends beyond establishing measurable endpoints. It also involves deciding whose understanding of success informs those endpoints.For example, in a community-based adolescent mental health programme, researchers may define success through improved psychological assessment scores, while young…

I particularly appreciate the emphasis on recognising frontline observations as legitimate evidence and developing formal mechanisms through which such observations can inform model governance.I would like to extend the discussion by considering the institutional power relations that determine whose knowledge…

Thank you, for raising an important issue that speaks directly to how we conceptualise evidence, progress and accountability in mental health programming.I believe one of the challenges is that our monitoring and evaluation systems sometimes assume that meaningful change follows…

Hello EIDM colleagues,

@Charles Bawate Bawate thank you for this generous synthesis. Your sharpened line is one I\'d sign: A retired model is not failure. A revalidated model answering the wrong question is not success. Failure is keeping a blind algorithm alive because…

Thank you Rhoda and Nonvicks for this rich pushback — you both moved my thinking forward.Rhoda, thank you for naming the fault line so clearly. I agree: frontline observation becomes evidence the moment we design it to be traceable —…

@Charles Frontline observations must be treated as formal sentinel data, not mere anecdote. Lived experience legitimately triggers revalidation when field teams see recurring patterns across districts, when workers must rely on operational workarounds, or when structural conditions like cash-transfer policies or…

@Charles Bawate you\'ve put your finger on the fault line that runs through most evidence systems: frontline observation is treated as anecdote precisely because it arrives informally, not because it\'s weak. My view is that lived experience should count as…

Colleagues,

Hello, I am Alphoncina Kagaigai, working with Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Tanzania. My research interest revolves around health economics, especially in health financing and economic evaluation.