Themes: Policy Development
Objectives
- To make participants develop policy recommendations by understanding the local, regional and international contexts
- To make participants experience on developing policy recommendations for lobbying and advocacy purposes
- To make participants understand about the social welfare system and its implications
Duration and Planning
- 5 minutes : Explanation of the method
- 10 minutes : Recognising the economic situations
- 10 minutes : Fitting in existing strategies
- 10 minutes : Using international examples
- 10 minutes : Remembering audience
- 20 minutes : Revising policy recommendations
- 20 minutes : Presentations of policy recommendations
- 5 minutes : Debriefing
Materials
- Flipcharts
- Board markers
- Post-its
- Pens
Recommended Method
After the development of the policy recommendations in the first stage, the facilitator tells about the next stage of the policy recommendations by providing the following flowchart referring to the previous session :
During this stage, the groups should work in same groups and revise the policies that they have developed in the previous stage by changing the policy recommendations according to the realities in the country that they work on.
The facilitator explains that, during this session, there is no limitation that the participants will work on the policies. In each stage, the participants will work on first 5 stage in the first session as :
- Recognise the economic situations
- Fit in existing strategies
- Use international examples
- Remember the audience
In the end of the session, the facilitator explains that they will present their policy recommendations and each group will give feedback to each other about the policy recommendations that they have developed.
Recognise the economic situations
The facilitator tells the participants that they have 15 minutes to understand the economic situation of the context that they provide the policy recommendation. As they have worked on the policy recommendations already, they should consider the economic resources needed for the implementation of their policy recommendations. Most of the time, the national or local governments are highly constrained in the amounts that can be spent. Thus, while research may identify suitable policy directions which could solve issues, if these policy directions incur significant costs, they are unlikely to be taken on board.
If possible, recommendations should be cost-neutral where possible, or demonstrate that they are economically feasible, i.e. while money needs to be spent now, it will save large amounts of public expenditure in the future. A policy recommendation that would bring benefits while reducing costs is likely to be very welcome.
After the facilitator explains these to the participants, gives 10 minutes to revise their policy recommendations by recognising the economic situations of the context.
Fitting in existing strategies
There are often already existing structures or strategies which do not require a huge change to deal with the situation. The facilitator gives examples in that can change while fitting the overall existing strategy or adopting the overall existing strategy. For example, if there is an already existing housing subsidy policy extending its scope or changing the restriction criteria might be easy to adopt than creating an overall specific housing policy.
Using international examples
We call that aspect as “There is no need to discover Mars which is already discovered”. The facilitator tells the participants to use the already existing and functioning examples which can be easily modified and adoptable for the another country. This is particularly true if the example used is from a similar country in terms of size, demographics and political system and the example is innovative, cost-effective and is a demonstrated success. Therefore, the participants should come up with examples with the research that their policy recommendation has a strong background and it can be implementable in the country context that they are working in.
Remembering audience
Most of the time, the policy recommendations are read not by academic and technical people firstly. Thus, the academic and technical language should never appear in policy recommendations. Therefore, the participants should adopt their policy recommendations which can be presented in clear, readable and simple language; easily understandable to any passing reader with no prior knowledge of the subject area. In general, the audience for policy recommendations will not be interested in methodology other than knowing that the findings are robust. The important thing is to prioritise information for policymakers and a link to the full report or research findings is sufficient.
Presentation Round :
The facilitator informs the participant that they have 5 minutes to prepare their presentations to the decision-makers and prepare their final policy recommendations by using the overall steps that they have worked on by referring :
- Policy Recommendation
- Impacted Group
- Financial Implications
- Target group ( local authority, national authority etc. )
Each group presents their policy recommendations during this stage and participants give each other feedback and ask questions. After the implementation of the policy recommendations presentations the facilitator closes the session by debriefing the overall process by using the following guiding questions :
- Do you think these policy recommendations are implementable?
- How was the process to adopt the policy recommendations to economic and local context?
- What do you think that your policy recommendations would be heard by politicians or not?
Additional Information and Readings
Cardi. (2020). 10 Guidelines for writing policy recommendations. In lenus.ie.
