Making Better Decisions

The report examines the gap between evidence generation and its application in conservation and humanitarian sectors. It identifies that many decisions are driven by heuristics, cognitive biases, and organizational norms rather than rigorous data. The authors categorize decision-making levels (field, program, and strategic) and types of evidence (situational, indigenous, scientific, etc.), ultimately recommending five strategies to foster evidence-informed decisions: strengthening researcher-practitioner relationships, combining different knowledge types, supporting structured processes, increasing research accessibility, and influencing organizational norms.

• Decision-making in conservation and humanitarian sectors is often criticized for being based on personal opinion, past experience, or being 'informal, emergent, ad-hoc, and reactive' rather than scientific data.
• Organizational decisions are frequently driven by cognitive biases and heuristics. For example, 'pattern recognition biases' lead experienced managers to rely on anecdotal evidence, with one study showing 77% of land management actions were based on anecdotes rather than rigorous scientific data.
• Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are useful for determining causal relationships but are ill-suited for programs aiming to change complex systems characterized by non-linear relationships and feedbacks.
• Research accessibility is a major barrier; a World Bank analysis found that nearly one-third of its reports were never downloaded, and 75% of professionals in a Swiss study cited lack of time as the primary reason for not using relevant publications.
• To improve the quality of decisions, the report suggests five strategies: strengthening researcher-practitioner relationships, developing ways to combine different knowledge types, supporting structured decision-making, making research accessible, and influencing organizational norms.

APA

Tanner, L., Mahajan, S., Becker, H., DeMello, N., Komuhangi, C., Mills, M., Masuda, Y., Wilkie, D., & Glew, L. (2020). Making Better Decisions. WWF International. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/616/1hu0b9uwyk_Making_Better_Decisions_Report_2020.pdf

Chicago

Tanner, Lydia, Shauna Mahajan, Hannah Becker, Nicole DeMello, Catherine Komuhangi, Morena Mills, Yuta Masuda, David Wilkie, and Louise Glew. Making Better Decisions. WWF International, 2020. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/616/1hu0b9uwyk_Making_Better_Decisions_Report_2020.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{tanner2020making, author = {Tanner, Lydia and Mahajan, Shauna and Becker, Hannah and DeMello, Nicole and Komuhangi, Catherine and Mills, Morena and Masuda, Yuta and Wilkie, David and Glew, Louise}, title = {{Making Better Decisions}}, institution = {WWF International}, year = {2020}, url = {https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/616/1hu0b9uwyk_Making_Better_Decisions_Report_2020.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }