CSPP activities are implemented by CSPP staff, other research groups in ODI, and by northern and southern collaborators. Click on the links below for information about specific activities under each of the outcome areas and other CSPP related events.

Events

• CSPP Partners Meeting, November 2006: This meeting held in London from the 13th-15th November 2006 provided an opportunity for twenty CSPP partners from around the world to discuss progress and the future of the programme.
• CSPP Advisory Group Meeting 2006: The second CSPP Advisory Group Meeting was held in London in November 2006, overlapping with the Annual Partners Meeting. The key objectives of the 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.
• ODI/INASP Research-Policy Symposium: This symposium brought together 60 network members from INASP and ODI together with northern and southern partners from Oxfam, INTRAC, IIED, IDS and others, and the development and evidence-based policy community in Oxford to share experiences on how information professionals, scientists and policy makers can work together to promote evidence-informed policy, and learn new skills.
• Policy Analysis, Engagement and Advocacy - Concern Worldwide Workshop: This three day workshop for Concern Worldwide was held in Bangladesh with the objective of enabling participants to share experiences about CSO-policy context in Asia; learn about the latest worldwide research and practice in this area; share experiences about approaches to influence policy and what works; and start to develop strategies to improve policy impact.
  
• CSOs in Policy Processes - RAPID/CEF Workshops: These two Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF) / RAPID workshops in Mozambique and Bangladesh focused on how CEF and its partners in Africa and Asia can better use evidence to promote pro-poor policies.
  
• Civil Society as a Development Partner: Lessons learned and ways forward for donor engagement: This roundtable event brought together practitioners working to strengthen civic engagement in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
• Civil Society Organisations and Policy Entrepreneurship Workshop: A two-day workshop in Vietnam to share the learning on bridging research and policy with the Vietnamese research community and to discuss preliminary results from the CSPP project 'Understanding the Role of Civil Society and Evidence-based Policymaking in Vietnam'.
  
• Workshop at International Forum on the Social Science-Policy Nexus: a half day workshop, in conjunction with CIPPEC, on bridging research and policy, CSOs and Policy Entrepreneurship.
• UK-based NGOs Meeting: A half-day meeting to share the results of the CSPP so far, discuss what we plan to do next and explore opportunities for collaboration and / or synergy with other UK-based organisations involved in similar activities.
• Policy Entrepreneurs Workshops: Training workshops on Policy Entrepreneurship in Zambia and Bangladesh, facilitated by CSPP as part of the programme's capacity development support to southern CSOs.
  
• Collaborators Workshop: A workshop held at ODI on 16th-18th November 2005 for participants from think tanks, policy research institutes and non governmental organisations in Asia, Africa and Latin America with whom the programme has worked so far to review progress and develop plans for the next phase.
• Advisory Group Meeting: The first meeting of what we hope will evolve into a Project Advisory Group was held in November 2005 following the Collaborators Workshop.

Outcome 1: Understanding how CSOs use research-based evidence

• How civil society organisations use evidence to influence policy processes: A working paper and literature review by ODI's Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) Programme of over 100 documents on how civil society organisations use evidence to influence policy. The paper summarises key debates, findings and conclusions from the literature, and points both to gaps and to new directions for future work.
• Networks Study: Also undertaken by RAPID, this new research on networks focuses on how civil society organisations can communicate their evidence and experience into policy processes for international development
• CSOs External Case Studies: A collection of case studies (coordinated by RAPID) on the topic of Civil Society Organisations, Evidence and Policy Influence: simple stories, based on existing knowledge, which describe episodes where CSOs have engaged with policy processes, the nature of the impact they have had (if any), the reasons why and the relative role of research-based evidence in the process.
• CSOs contribution to PRSPs: A study by ODI's Poverty and Public Policy Group (PPPG) examining the Bolivian and Tanzania cases to assess the contribution made by CSOs to policy choices made in the full PRSP.
• The Role of CSOs in Pro-poor Budget Reforms: A synthesis study by the Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure (CAPE) looking at case studies on the role of southern CSOs in budget research and budget advocacy, to better understand how they utilise research-based evidence to influence budget policies and priorities in their own countries.
• 'Pro-poor policies' and 'pro-poor policy processes': A background note to define and illustrate what the CSPP means by 'Pro-poor policies' and 'pro-poor policy processes' - and what this means for the CSPP.
• Understanding the Role of Civil Society and Evidence-based Policymaking in Vietnam: A project which aims to provide an understanding of the role of research institutes and think-tanks in policymaking in Vietnam.

Click here for information about achievements in this outcome area.

Outcome 2: Strengthening regional capacity to support CSOs

• Regional Consultations: A series of consultations in different geographical regions of the developing world to learn more about the role that CSOs currently play in using evidence to promote development policy and practice, explore what they need to do it better, and to identify opportunities for small-scale collaborative work.
• Food security in Southern Africa: A project based on ODI's Rural Policy and Governance Group (RPPG)'s work with the Forum for Food Security, CISANET and Harvest Help partnership to capitalise on the research funded by the Forum for Food Security to promote better food security policies in Malawi and Zambia; and to understand more about how CSOs use research to promote policy.
• Collaboration with the Centre for People's Forestry in India: Also by RPGG this collaborative project aims to enable the Centre for People's Forestry (CPF) in India to better utilise its research based evidence in its policy reform activities and also to help it to exchange experiences and work with other CSOs in the field.
• Helping to establish a KM system in African Humanitarian Action: A RAPID-coordinated collaborative project with African Humanitarian Action to help to establish knowledge and learning practices, and to assist AHA to develop a framework for improving knowledge management and learning across its country offices.
• Collaboration with WaterAid to explore the CSO-PRSP relationship in the water sector: An RPGG project to improve understanding of how WaterAid and its CSO partners use evidence-based research to influence policy, to identify strengths and weaknesses and draw lessons of wider relevance to the CSPP. It also aims to build a firm foundation for future collaboration and joint learning on how CSOs can be supported to contribute better to policy processes.
• Work with the SATG on agriculture sector policies and interventions in Somalia: This Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) project with the Somalia Agriculture Technical Group (SATG) aims to strengthen its networking structure so that SATG can effectively catalyze policy processes relating to agricultural development and natural resource management in Somalia.
• Understanding civil society networks in Ghana: An RPGG collaborative project providing case-study material on how environmental CSOs in Ghana use research to promote policy and ways in which constraints that they face in doing so can be tackled.
• Policy influencing and Media Training with CPRC partners: This PPPG-coordinated project is working with the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) partners aims to build capacity of researchers in policy influencing techniques, including tools for media engagement and the development of practical media strategies.
• Partnership Brokering: Another PPPG/CPRC project exploring how to develop effective international research partnerships.
• Partnerships and Accountability: A study reviewing current thinking and literature on issues of accountability, partnership and capacity-building between Northern and Southern organisations.

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Outcome 3: Useful information easily accessible to CSOs

• Knowledge Management: Effective use of information, knowledge and learning is central to ODI's mission to lock together high-quality applied research, practical policy advice, and policy-focused dissemination and debate. ODI has recently developed, and started to implement a strategy to improve internal knowledge and learning processes and systems.
• ODI Information Products Review: A new range of information materials will be developed particularly oriented towards the needs of civil society organisations.
• Content Management for ODI Website and Intranet: Redesign of ODI's intranet and website to a Content Management System (CMS)
• The CSPP also contributed to a series of UK Meetings:
  • Voice and Choice in the Delivery of Public Services: ODI lunchtime meeting series to enhance understanding of the key concepts, and to inform the debate, drawing on experience from a wide range of settings, with a particular focus on the health and education sectors.
  • MDGs: ODI lunchtime meeting series on the Millenium Development Goals, where the debates about the MDGs were technical (Are these the right targets? Do we know how to reach them?) and also political (Can we raise the money? Will rich countries change their policies? Will they be accountable?).
  • Africa and the Developed World: Taking responsibility for our actions: ODI lunchtime meeting series to raise issues that will contribute to the work of the Africa Commission.

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Outcome 4: Southern CSOs participate in policy networks

• The future of the ACP-EU partnership: Led by ODI's International Economic Development Group (IEDG), this global project aims to identify challenges for the ACP-EU partnership and identify options for the future.
• Aid Architecture: A PPPG-coordinated poject engaging Southern CSO actors on the desirable future structure, instruments and major processes of international aid.
• Food Security in southern Africa: This RPGG-coordinated project works with civil society organisations in Southern Africa to push for results-based food security policy processes.

Click here for information about achievements in this outcome area.
Click here for information about achievements in general.

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