Vanesa Weyrauch
Transcript of video interview
I am the Director of Institutional Development at the Centre for
the Implementation of Public Policies promoting Equity and Growth
(CIPPEG) in Argentina.
What is your experience of using research-based evidence to
influence development policy?
We are a young organisation. We have five years' experience, but
fortunately this experience is across several different areas of
work so that it is very wide in terms of the topics of research
conducted, as well as in terms of the level of government that we
have tried to influence. We have done work at the local and regional
levels as well as at the national and international levels.
What do you think are the most important tricks of the trade?
Basically, it is important to conduct research which is embedded
in the policy-making processes. This means having a clear sense
of the stage that the policy process is at and what the purpose
of using research would be at that stage of the process, as well
as to whom you want to direct the research. If this can be set out
at the outset, there is a much better chance of being able to influence
the policy process.
Do you have any 'good news case studies'?
Yes, fortunately we do. For instance, we have done some extensive
research on education, assessing how the last big reform in education
policy was implemented at the provincial level. We went to twenty-four
provinces and studied the politics of the implementation of the
new legislation. Based on that research, we started to disseminate
the results and compare the provinces with each other. In one province
we built an alliance with the media and a local CSO. We were able
to open up a debate about the bad results which the province had
had in the last few years and people began to be concerned about
citizenship and about the results of the education policies. Luckily,
with elections about to be held, we had a window of opportunity
and when the new minister came in, he took our report and recommendations
and asked us to advise him in drawing up the new education policy.
We became advisers and were able to use a lot of the information
which we had gathered over the previous years.
Do you have any 'horror stories'?
We do have horror stories, but that is good because we are learning.
Our think-tank is more of an implementation think-tank. One of the
horror stories we had was after doing some research about unmet
legal needs. After making some policy recommendations about how
to address access to justice for disadvantaged groups, the Ministry
of Justice decided that they would create houses of justice to provide
free legal aid to poor people. They ran a contest for CSOs to coordinate
the work in these houses of justice. This was done in conjunction
with the municipality in which the house of justice would be located
and which was to pay the costs of the utilities. We won the contest
and had to hire the people who would be working in the house of
justice. The mayor of the municipality then told us that he would
select the people to work there and he would decide who was going
to do what. Of course, we thought this was not transparent so we
told him that we would be selecting the people through a transparent
and open process. They decided that if this was to be the way, they
would not open the house of justice. So unfortunately, despite pushing
the policy all the way through to the level of implementation, when
the implementation began, we had a corruption issue which impeded
the efforts to successfully launch the house of justice, leaving
people in that neighbourhood with no house of justice.
What three things could CSOs do to increase their policy impact?
First of all, I think that CSOs really need to understand the political
context and to plan which type of research they are going to conduct
and how they are going to conduct it, taking the political context
into account. Secondly, CSOs need to get to know the policy-makers,
their demands and their needs, and try to fit the research agenda
to this as far as possible, whilst at the same time having some
topics which are not part of that agenda in order to be independent.
I do not think that policy-makers should drive research, but to
really have an impact we have to understand what problems the policy-makers
are facing. Thirdly, we have to communicate throughout the policy
process from the very beginning, not only to the policy-makers but
to all affected or interested stakeholders in the topic which you
are researching, to capture their perceptions and needs and the
opportunities available. We need to work together throughout the
research and dissemination processes to ensure that the research
is embedded in the social needs of the different groups.
What three things could policy-makers do to increase their use
of research-based evidence?
I think that perhaps policy-makers could make more time to listen
to the research proposals that organisations bring forward. They
should also try to help us to understand what the obstacles are,
particularly in relation to implementation, because sometimes research
does not take the realities into account. So at some point, policy-makers
also need to be teachers and to show us and be honest about the
obstacles they see. In that way we can come up with solutions which
are both realistic and valuable. Finally, I think that a lot of
policy-makers have studied but have sometimes lost their links to
universities, so it is important that they think back to when they
were doing these types of activities and reconnect with that type
of thinking which they do not often have time to engage in due to
the need to solve problems quickly. If policy-makers do not have
the time themselves, they have partners who can spend time doing
that thinking for them and I think this is a good partnership. These
things would help to encourage more evidence-based policy.
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