Category: Modules

En este módulo abordaremos a los think tanks como actores políticos, sus tipos y funciones, así como su variante partidaria.

En este módulo abordaremos a las políticas públicas como procesos complejos y multi-actorales y discutiremos el rol de la evidencia en los procesos de política pública.

En esta sección se presentan los hitos principales del Taller, junto con su fecha y duración. Se recomienda agendar todos los encuentros.

In Module 2, the focus is on designing a MEL strategy. The trainers share concrete insights and tools to enable participants to draft their MEL strategy, including considerations on objectives, outcomes, outputs and indicators. They go over what planning for change entails and how to assess the results.

In Module 1, the trainers discuss the complexities of MEL for policy influence, highlighting what is unique about it. Next, they help participants reflect on the key questions that need to be asked to establish a successful MEL strategy: Why should you carry out MEL? How will the information be used? How much agreement is there on the value of MEL? These questions help participants gain a clearer overall understanding of how to approach MEL.

The literature on how to monitor, evaluate and learn (MEL) about policy influence is abundant. However, instructions on specific practices, particularly in developing countries, are quite scarce. This short course helps participants to sift through the key frameworks and look at benefits and challenges, in a way that is practical for their own organisation, big or small.

This is also an opportunity to think, rethink or formalise current MEL practices. Organisations should avoid seeing these as a luxury; it is not a practice that only those with large budgets or with the specific support of a donor can afford. Each organisation can trace its own unique path. MEL is an intelligent and promising investment, which will no doubt bear fruit sooner rather than later.

The second module session focuses on implementing advocacy strategies in practice. It considers: insider versus outsider approaches, defining and mapping stakeholders, identifying policy windows, developing actionable policy recommendations, and commonly used tools. The session ends with trainer sharing examples of how things can go well, as well as some common pitfalls and mistakes.

Module 1 looks at the basics of advocacy, moving from theory to practice. It revisits the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to advocacy, provides guidance on advocacy aims, introduces the basic elements of an advocacy strategy, and gives participants an introduction to planning and budgeting for advocacy campaigns, in particular: positioning, goal setting, and issue analysis.

Most think tanks consciously seek to influence what powerful institutions do. A few years ago, a prominent American politician left Congress to lead a large think tank because, he explained, working for that think tank would give him greater power to influence US politics and policy. However, many other think tanks struggle to influence public debates and institutional actions for a very broad variety of reasons. In a context in which donors are demanding to see ‘impact’ and a growing number of competing groups (from lobbyists to campaigning charities) aggressively push their own policy prescriptions, think tanks need to learn to effectively advocate in order to survive.

Think tankers from a broad variety of backgrounds – research, communications, proposal development, grants management – can benefit from this course if they bring along a passion for using research to influence people, politics and policies.

The third module focuses on how to make interactive visualisations with Tableau Public, covering the basic concepts and elements of Tableau Public and an example of creating an interactive dashboard.