Social development policies: new challenges for the social sciences

The International Forum on the Social Science – Policy Nexus (IFSP) is intended to highlight the importance of social science engagement in a number of today’s critical issues, especially as they relate to developing countries. Social scientists are inundated with exhortations to be relevant to the societies they live in. They are implored not to subject social science to the imperatives of analytical tools and methods. Policymakers bemoan the drift in the social sciences towards what they consider irrelevant abstractions.