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Policy Entreprenurship and Advocacy Workshop
for Education CSOs in Zambia
7th - 11th November 2005, Lusaka, Zambia
Summary Workshop Report
The Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) Policy
Entrepreneurship and Advocacy Skills Building workshop took
place 7th to 11th November 2005 at the Commonwealth Youth
Centre, University of Zambia Campus, Lusaka.
Commonwealth Education Fund, which supports ZANEC, took
the initiative to organise a workshop to expose ZANEC partners
to current theory and practice of evidence-based policymaking
and asked ODI, which has been working on this for the last
five years, to run a workshop in Lusaka for the education
civil society organisations (CSOs) in Zambia.
The organisational capacity assessment of ZANEC, conducted
in September 2004 with the support of PACT-Zambia, and the
capacity needs assessment, facilitated with the support of
the Commonwealth Education Fund in October 2004, revealed
that ZANEC needed to develop its capacity in advocacy, policy
analysis and evaluation, which are some of the critical factors
for reaching its goals and objectives. This was the rationale
behind the hosting of the training workshopzin advocacy and
policy entrepreneurship for ZANEC members.
The workshop aimed to enhance knowledge and skills in advocacy,
lobbying and policy entrepreneurship amongst ZANEC member
organisations. It was expected that with the knowledge gained
at the workshop the ZANEC members will be better placed to
understand and apply advocacy, lobbying and policy entrepreneurship
tools in influencing the attainment of the Education for All
goal.
The specific workshop objectives were to:
- Enhance advocacy knowledge and skills among ZANEC member
organisations.
- Enhance the awareness amongst member organisations of
the latest theories and practices about policies processes
and policy influence.
- Explore the types of policy/advocacy tools and frameworks
and their application.
- Identify opportunities and limitations for influence
in the education sector.
- Design and develop advocacy strategies and key messages,
with agreed work plans.
Naved Chowdhury, from ODI's Civil
Society Partnerships Programme (CSPP), facilitated the
policy entrepreneurship section of the workshop and local
consultant Kenny Simamuna facilitated the advocacy and action
planning components. CEF Global Coordinator Chike Anyanwu
and Emily Lungano, CEF Africa Coordinator also took part in
facilitation.
The workshop began with a presentation by Kenny Simamuna
on the historical perspective of CSOs engagement in the education
sector in Zambia to help workshop participants understand
the current role of CSOs in the sector. Various types and
characteristics of different CSOs were explored in great detail.
The presenter highlighted that policy advocacy is a response
to bring about a change on behalf of the affected constituency
and therefore strives to create awareness and also involves
an attempt to influence the political climate. The policy
entrepreneurship sessions discussed various theories on policy
formulation, analysis and influencing. This included the various
practical frameworks, tools and approaches to maximise policy
impact, various communication tools and key elements needed
when developing a communication/advocacy strategy. Finally
the education context was mapped and linked to advocacy and
policy influencing processes.
Key issues in Basic Education were identified as:
- an outdated Education Act (1966)
- fees versus free primary education
- provision of uniforms for children.
The thematic groups identified a number of policy actions
that need to be undertaken in order to address the identified
issues and these will be incorporated in the thematic activities
for ZANEC's 2006/07 work plan and budget. The key advocacy
message for ZANEC was agreed as 'Every child needs a quality
teacher'. ZANEC's overall goal for policy advocacy was
also agreed and will be the basis for developing ZANEC's advocacy
and policy action plan for 2006.
Participants discussed the issues in four thematic groups,
namely: Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD); Universal
Primary Education (UPE); Adult Literacy; and Livelihoods and
Education (life skills) and identified broad issues that impact
the uptake of research in policy making in Zambia. One issue
is the slow and unclear policy formulation processes, e.g.
in the case of the Early Childhood Care Education and Development
(ECCED) programme, this lack of policy meant there were no
funds allocated in the budget. In the case of Adult Education,
there is a total lack of appreciation of the vital role adult
education can play in the achievement of education for all.
Therefore, there is no national coordinating body for adult
education in Zambia, which makes it difficult for the CSOs
to provide information on issues around adult education. The
major policy issue in universal primary education is the government's
inability to recruitment and retain teachers. Whether ZANEC
can influence the review of the current syllabus to include
life skills at all levels of the education process in Zambia
is seen as the crucial policy challenge in the broader policy
debate on if and how to link livelihood issues to education
in Zambia.
The RAPID Framework provided both an analytical tool to help
participants understand the political context that CSOs are
working in and a practical approach to decide what needs to
be done to maximize impact. The framework also emphasised
the importance of evidence and how to link it to the policy
processes.
The participants learnt how the RAPID Framework can also
be used as a practical tool to identify what they should do
to maximize their chances of influencing the education policy
in Zambia. It was felt that there is an urgent need to improve
understanding around:
- ways to engage with policymakers to achieve objectives
collectively
- how to respond to policy windows and requests from government
to provide credible information
- the skills necessary to package messages which are simple
and straightforward and therefore have a better chance of
being used by the policymakers
- the need to develop long term programmes of credible
research and to develop an overall strategy for their work.
Several tools were introduced which the participants can
use for mapping policy processes, research, communication
and policy influence.
On the second day of the policy entrepreneurship section
of the workshop the participants used Force
field analysis and SWOT
analysis to identify strategies to improve policy impact
of the issues identified and discussed in the case study.
There is an immediate need to identify the forces acting against
any issues and deal with them before the government is approached.
For example, the issue of recruiting teachers is very controversial
in Zambia, thus ZANEC needs to identify those forces which
impact policies in education and come up with a strategy to
address them before recommendations can be presented to the
government. ZANEC also should come up with an advocacy statement
that is persuasive and reflects the overall objective of the
coalition.
In their evaluation the participants felt that the workshop
was of high quality and value as well as relevant to their
work. The challenge remains with the ZANEC secretariat and
its member organisations to follow through the issues raised
and develop an action plan that will yield desirable results
in influencing the attainment of Education for All in Zambia.
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