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ODI Civil Society Partnerships Programme
Advisory Group Meeting, ODI 15th November 2006
Summary
This was the second CSPP Advisory Group Meeting, and as
with the first meeting (in
November 2005), overlapped with the Annual
Partners Meeting. During the first part of the meeting
CSPP staff presented a progress report to the Advisers. Partners
then joined in and made a series of presentations on the results
of the partners meeting. The partners left the meeting after
lunch (to travel to Oxford for the ODI/INASP
Research-Policy Seminar) leaving the CSPP staff and Advisers
to continue the discussions.
The key objectives of the second meeting were to review progress
over the last year, to provide advice for the remaining second
year of the Phase 2 plan developed at the last meeting, and
to discuss longer term issues for Phase 3 of the programme,
which will start in April 2008.
A presentation
(powerpoint 675kb) of progress by CSPP
staff, based on the Annual
Report, sketched the wide range of activities during the
year and highlighted the growing enthusiasm, industry and
ownership of the programme by the core partners as demonstrated
during the partners' meeting over the previous two days. Special
mention was made of the rapid growth of the Latin America
network (led by CIPPEC), which already has more members than
in the rest of the world, the two relatively successful Global
Projects (Food Security in Sub Saharan Africa and Aid Architecture),
and the dramatic improvement of ODI's own communication work.
The acceptance by DFID of the Phase 2 plan, new log frame
and M&E framework, wide range of publications and toolkits,
and growing interest in the programme by other programmes
and donors was also noted.
In the subsequent discussion the advisors welcomed this evidence
of progress, but raised a number of challenges: the relative
lack of south-south collaboration; the degree of involvement
of southern partners in overall programme management; the
tension between effort to build a network focusing on the
'art and science of bridging research and policy'and on collaborative
work on policy issues; the current range of partners - more
policy-activist NGOs than research-focused think tanks; and
how to balance effort between work on national, sectoral policy
issues and on global aid management and delivery issues.
Some of these came up again in a series of presentations
by participants of the conclusions of the Partners' Meeting,
which focused on five issues. How to increase interaction
and participation? Capacity development: how, and by whom?
How to run the network? Opportunities for global and regional
collaborations. How to bring in additional resources.
While many of the suggestions reinforced activities that
are already planned in phase 2, the presentations and subsequent
discussions helped to clarify the balance of effort over the
next year: more on collaborative projects with existing members;
more lesson learning and sharing; more south-south collaboration;
and more emphasis on the content of the programme - the use
of research-based evidence to inform policy. While there were
useful suggestions about how to formalise the network and
attract more resources, it was felt that it would be a mistake
to over-formalise the network at this stage, or to become
distracted from programme work by fundraising efforts.
Further discussion over lunch identified a number of specific
steps that could be taken over the next year to improve lesson
learning within the network. These included: resources for
partners to write up case studies; better mechanisms for partners
to share their own work with each other; more reflection and
sharing of experience throughout eg the action Research projects;
developing a common framework or template for case studies
and earlier and more southern involvement in planning for
next year's partners meeting.
The partners left the meeting after lunch, leaving the advisers
to continue their discussions on the programme, focusing on
the medium and longer term. Key points included the following:
- Focus of the programme - The purpose of the programme
is to strengthen the capacity of southern CSOs to use research-based
evidence to engage with development policy. Network members
should be organisations keen to learn how to do this, and
to pass on this knowledge to others. But they are all working
on specific policy issues, and the Action Research and Global
Policy projects provide opportunities to 'learn by doing'.
These (and other projects funded by other donors) will be
the core of the 'research' undertaken by the programme.
The main research challenge for the programme is how to
learn effectively from these diverse 'action-research' projects.
- Spectrum of activities - There is also a need for
some more theoretical research in the programme, and it
is important that the programme develops a broad spectrum
of work from research to action, and works with a wide range
of actors from researchers to activist NGOs, rather than
simply develops a programme 'in the middle of the spectrum'.
- Membership of the network - While the current core
partners may be more NGO/CSO-like than the sort of Think
Tanks envisaged by the programme, they are all interested
in the art and science of bridging research and policy,
are all keen to collaborate with the programme, and are
developing the sort of relationship necessary for a successful
network. While new more research-orientated TT-like organisations
should be gradually brought into the network through participation
in specific projects this must be done in a way which does
not undermine this evolving network.
- The degree of involvement of Advisers and Partners
in the internal objectives of the programme. This needs
to be clarified by ODI. While some Advisers and Partners
may be interested in how ODI reorganises itself to be more
effective, most are more interested in external elements
of the programme - the network, and collaborative projects.
There might be interest though in a small stream of work
within the programme on 'how to be an effective think tank'.
- Relationship of this network with other ODI networks
- The CSPP network should seek to include members of other
ODI networks both to learn from their work in specific policy
areas, and to facilitate the exchange of lessons from the
CSPP network about bridging research and policy.
- Management / Control - There should be more involvement
of southern partners in the management of the external elements
of the programme in Phase 3.
- Communicating the lessons - While the programme
has produced an impressive range of publications and toolkits,
they tend to be a) rather traditional web/print based and
b) dominated by material generated by ODI itself. As the
programme develops it should do more to incorporate other
(especially southern) knowledge in the publications and
other communication outputs, and should embrace a wider
range of communication channels including eg exchange visits,
and video.
- Structure and role of the Advisors - It is too
soon to develop more formalised structure for the network.
Until (and if) it is possible to establish a central fund
for project activities, there is no need for an additional
management mechanism. The Advisors would however welcome
a more substantial involvement in the programme than just
through the annual meeting.
Recommendations
A number of recommendations were made:
- More engagement of Advisers between annual meetings
- Eg through opportunistic meetings at other points in the
year, through involvement in project activities, through
requests to comment on research reports and publications
etc, and by linking the programme to their other networks
- The next meeting - Should be a 2-day meeting alongside
Partners meeting, with a greater emphasis on the content
of the programme.
- How to be a TT - A small amount of work should
be done before the next meeting to review the literature,
and existing knowledge on 'How to be an effective Think
Tank', and a paper should be prepared outlining what further
work the programme could do on this issue.
- Involving other organisations - Effort should be
made to draw in other organisations though their involvement
in the Global Projects and other projects (eg LATrade, IDRC
Globalisation project, C4C etc - if these bids are successful)
- Engagement of other ODI Partners and Networks -
Effort should also be made to interact more with other ODI
networks and programmes.
- Specific effort should be made to:
- Encourage more S:S collaboration between network
members
- Publish more work with /for Southern Partners
- Develop a wider spectrum of work: research to action,
and CSOs to TTs etc
Further information:
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