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A Workshop to Promote Evidence-based Policy
Making in the Small and Medium Enterprise Sector in Egypt,
27th Feb - 1st March 2005, Cairo
There is an increasing emphasis on, and better understanding
of the value and processes necessary for evidence-based policy
making and implementation in developed and developing countries
around the world. The CIDA/IDRC/GOE Small, Medium and Micro
Enterprises Policy Development (SMEPOL) Project aims to support
Egypt's transition towards a market economy, by assisting
the Government of Egypt (GoE) to improve the policy environment
for micro, small and medium enterprises (M/SME) development.
The project identified the need for a workshop to expose project
stakeholders to current theory and practice of evidence-based
policy making and asked ODI, which has been working on these
issues for the last five years, to run a workshop for key
Government of Egypt and SMEPOL staff. The objectives of the
course were to: 1) re-enforce the need for evidence-based
policy reform decision making; 2) introduce some of the latest
theories about evidence-based policy making; 3) outline some
of the best international approaches and practice to ensure
sustainable evidence-based policy making; 4) provide practical
tools; and 5) help staff to develop strategies to influence
policy in the SME sector in Egypt.
The first day explored some experiences of evidence-based
policy making in the UK and other countries. In the Tanzania
Essential Health Interventions Project (TEHIP), collaborative
research involving researchers, local health service policy
makers and the community informed a process of health service
reforms which contributed to over 40% reductions in infant
mortality between 2000 and 2003 in two districts. On the other
hand, the HIV/AIDS crisis has deepened in some countries because
of the reluctance of governments to implement effective control
programmes, despite clear evidence of what causes the disease
and how to prevent it spreading.
Evidence worldwide seems to suggest that research is most
likely to influence policy if researchers, policy makers and
practitioners: (a) understand why evidence is needed in the
policy making process; (b) understand where evidence is needed
in the policy making process; (c) have access to and participate
in national and international policy networks; (d) communicate
their different concerns in an effective and clear manner;
and (e) have the capacity to use evidence in policy processes.
In group work, participants identified a number of features
of policy and research processes in Egypt that make this difficult:
Many policies are developed "from the top down";
Ministers often play a key role; research-based data availability
and quality is very variable; both research and policy capacity
is limited; coordination between all the different stakeholders
is often poor; and the SMEs themselves often don't trust the
policy makers.
These factors are not uncommon in developing countries. Based
on research over the last few years, ODI's RAPID Programme
has developed a framework to help researchers to identify
the key factors influencing research-policy linkages in their
own situation. They seem to fall into four groups: the political
context (political and economic structures and processes,
culture, institutional pressures, incremental vs radical change
etc); the evidence (credibility, the degree it challenges
received wisdom, research approaches and methodology, simplicity
of the message, how it is packaged etc); the links between
policy and research communities (networks, relationships,
power, competing discourses, trust, knowledge etc); and external
Influences (socio-economic and cultural influences, donor
policies etc).
On the second day, participants used a simple mapping approach
to develop a policy process map for small and medium scale
enterprise policies in Egypt. The Economic Committee of the
National Democratic, the Council of Ministers, the Social
Development Fund, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministry of Investment are
all important for policy formulation, whereas the local bureaucracies
are important for implementation. The private sector and especially
the SMEs themselves, seem to play a very minor role in policy
development.
Participants also learned about how the RAPID Framework can
also be used as a practical tool to identify what they should
do to maximise the impact of their work. First, they need
to develop a detailed understanding of i) the policymaking
process - what are the key influencing factors, and how do
they relate to each other? ii) the nature of the evidence
they have, or hope to get - is it credible, practical and
operationally useful? and iii) all the other stakeholders
involved in the policy area - who else can help to get the
message across? Second, they need to develop an overall strategy
for their work - identify political supporters and opponents,
keep an eye out for, and be able to react to policy windows,
ensure the evidence is credible and practically useful, and
build coalitions with like-minded groups. Third, they need
to be entrepreneurial - get to know, and work with the policymakers,
build long term programmes of credible research, communicate
effectively, use participatory approaches, identify key networkers
and salesmen and use shadow networks. Although this looks
daunting, there are a lot of well developed tools researchers
can use for mapping policy processes, research, communication
and policy influence.
On the third day, participants used a number of these approaches
to develop strategies to achieve three specific policy objectives:
1) to operationalize the National SME Competitiveness Strategy
by October 2005; 2) to set up private credit bureaus by January
2007; and 3) to establish and operate 5 "Trading Houses"
in 1 year. A key feature of most of these was a recognition
that the project needs to engage more actively with a wider
range of stakeholders throughout the whole SME policy process
from policy formulation to policy implementation, and in particular
to work closely with the SMEs themselves to try out new ideas
on the ground.
In their evaluation of the workshop, most participants felt
the workshop was useful and relevant to their work, and they
particularly liked the RAPID framework, and policy process
tools. Many though, felt that more time was needed to really
learn how to use the tools and apply them in earnest to their
own work
Back to workshop introduction
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