I'm apprehensive- what can I, an academic, write about the World Social Forum (WSF) January 2007? This WSF in Nairobi was the first I had attended. I was invited by the Eastern Africa Coalition on Economic social and cultural rights under the Human rights caucus to discuss how evidence from research supports civil society efforts. I met several groups of people from all walks of life, and from all over the world – farmers, people living in slums, refugees, gay people, those fighting for the rights of the poor, and others. After my talk, a Civil Society Organization (CSO) leader came to me and said: “Mugisha, thank for your talk. We in civil society have the guns, but we lack bullets”. For a moment, I did not understand. Was he talking about a guerilla war? Later I understood him to mean that civil society have the platform, but lack the evidence to inform and sharpen their messages for maximum impact. Let's take as an example the movement for abolishing user fees in health and education. This campaign is based on the assumption that removing fees will enable poor people to assess these vital services. There is evidence to show this, but there is also evidence that poor people still pay charges even where fees are officially abolished. In the urban slums of Kenya, Nigeria, and India, for example, parents pay school fees to poor quality informal schools that are off the radar of the ministries concerned. So civil society campaigns that push for one-size-fits-all policies are themselves pushed by researchers' evidence to go further, and make sure all members of society benefit. Evidence makes people listen to messages. Bill Clinton has been regarded as an effective communicator, and I think that one reason is because he uses evidence to deliver his messages. On the eve of World AIDS day in India, he pointed to the huge gap in access to treatment in children in developing countries with these hard facts: “1 in every 4 adults who need HIV treatment has access. That number is too low, but better than less than 1 in 10 children who need treatment to live”. My experience at the WSF reinforced my belief that there is an opportunity for civil society to benefit from what academia has to offer in terms of scientific evidence, as much as I benefited from my conversations with the huge range of people I met at the WSF. The challenge is that civil society and academia have not been traditional partners, yet we share the same aspiration: “improving the wellbeing of all populations equitably”. Our first step is to recognize that we need each other and can, together, provide more value to the world. I am looking forward to our ongoing dialogue! Dr. Frederick Mugisha is an Associate Research Scientist with African Population and Health Research Center. He is a Health Economist and his main research work centers around informing strategic decisions in health and education throughout the sub-Saharan African region with a focus on urban slums.