Policy Formulation Skills- Lead 2005

POLICY FORMULATION SKILLS PRESENTED BY WILFRED CHINTHOCHI- SENIOR MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANT - MALAWI INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

DEFINING POLICY • According to Concise Oxford Dictionary, Oxford University Press, a Policy is “an agreed

position, and/or a course of general plan of action to be followed by government, party or individual”. • A policy represents an agreed formula for meeting the needs and aspirations of a segment, group, company, government or individual and acknowledges the specific needs of these.

Definition continued • For example the Commonwealth Youth Programme defines a national youth policy as “a practical demonstration and declaration of the priority and directions that a country intends giving to the development of its young women and men. A national youth policy specifically represents a gender-inclusive statement that encapsulates the elements of vision, framework and realistic guidelines from which strategies and initiatives can be developed to facilitate meaningful youth participation and development within a country”.

Definition continued • Another example is an HIV/AIDS work policy which defines an organization’s position and practices for preventing HIV transmission and for handling HIV infection among employees. The policy in the workplace provides guidance to supervisors who deal with the day-to-day issues and problems that arise in the workplace. The policy also informs employees about their responsibilities, rights and expected behaviour on the job. • We can therefore talk of policies for several issues such as economic policy, monetary policy, social policy, agriculture policy, environmental policy,etc.

Policy making • Policy Making is a course of action dealing with a problem or matter of concern and occurs within a web of interacting forces • In government, policy making is the process by which governments translate their political vision into programs and actions to deliver outcomes

• Policy making has a number of features: is – Strategic – looking ahead and contributes to long-term goals – Outcome-focused- aims to deliver desired changes in the real world – Joined up- works across organizational boundaries – Inclusive – is fair and takes into account of the interests of all – Flexible and innovative – tackles causes and not symptoms and is not afraid of experimentation – Robust – stands the test of time and is practical from the start

• The process of developing, approving, and implementing policies differs from country to country and from issue to issue • However some underlying processes are common to most efforts • A better understanding of the processes will make us understand the skills that are required to facilitate policy formulation and achieve better policy outcomes

Sources of policy • There are several sources of policy. These are things that become issues and form the agenda and decision for policy formulation and they include: – Circumstances such as natural disasters, wars, depression, economic and industrial development, population increase, HIV/AIDS, industrial relations, technological or agricultural development – Research and intelligence- what should be done in the light of new evidence – Public opinions – Political agenda – Professional and political parties – Opinion polls – International trends

Policymaking process Understand the problem

Testing success and making it work

Putting solutions into effect

Developing solutions

Policy formulation skills • Strategic Management Skills – Vision focusing – there must always be orientation towards the future – Environmental analysis- there should be focus to the ever changing environmental situation including technology, politics, the economy, social dimension and the natural environment – Fitting the organization into the environment by looking at the internal weaknesses and strengths

• Stakeholder analysis- stakeholders: – Are people who are affected by the impact of an activity – Are people who can influence the impact of an activity – Include user groups, interest groups, beneficiaries, decision-makers and those people who are excluded from the decision-making process

• The policy formulator should be able to clearly distinguish PRIMARY STAKEHOLDERS from SECONDARY STAKEHOLDERS. • PRIMARY STAKEHOLDERS - are the ones who benefit from or are adversely affected by an activity. Describes people whose well-being may be dependent on a resource or service or area the policy addresses. – If it’s a project, these are the people who live in the area or very near the area of the resource in question – They are usually vulnerable – They are the reason for the policy or project – They often have few options when faced with change and have difficulties adapting

• SECONDARY STAKEHOLDERS are all the people and institutions with interest in the policy or in case of a project, the resources or area being considered – They are the means by which the policy/project objectives can be met rather than an end in themselves

• Stakeholder analysis is a useful tool for identifying the stakeholder and describing the nature of their stake, roles and interests

• Stake holder analysis helps to: – Improve the policy formulators’ understanding of the needs of those affected by the problem – Reveals how little the policy makers know as outsiders and encourages those who know to participate – Identify potential winners and losers as a result of the policy – Reduce or hopefully remove potential negative policy impact – Identify those who have the rights, interests, resources, skills and abilities to take part in and influence the course of the policy – Identify useful alliances which can be built upon – Identify and reduce risks which might involve identifying possible conflicts of interest and expectation among the stakeholders

• Through stakeholder analysis the policy maker will be able to undertake a forcefield analysis and understand how the encouraging forces and resisting forces can be dealt with

• SURVEYING SKILLS – good quality policy will depend on the quality of information that is available • Policy formulators should therefore have skills in both qualitative and quantitative research • In addition, the policy formulators should have skills in evaluation of previous policies, new research, existing statistics and getting information from several sources of information

• MODELLING SKILLS- POLICY models are designed to answer a number of “what if” questions relevant to the policy • The ‘what if’ refers to factors that can be changed or influenced by the policy • Models are commonly computerized when analysts need to see the likely results of two or more variables on the outcomes of the policy

• ADVOCACY SKILLS – This will start with identification of the stakeholders and doing the force-field analysis • Policies need political support and will and minimizing opposition • Policy formulators need to have clear knowledge of how the policy process work in each country so that they are able to mobilize resources needed for implementation of the policy

• Skills for Accessing Information On-line • Project Management Skills- the policy formulators need these skills so that they are able to understand the costs and benefits of the policy and that implementation of the policy is adequately monitored and evaluated

CHALLENGES FOR THE POLICY FORMULATOR • The challenge for the policy formulator is that it is not possible to have all these skills in one individual. Therefore the policy formulator needs to have skills in – working as a team to coordinate the different experts who are involved in the formulation process – Calling and conducting presentations to a variety of audiences in order to solicit views during the consultation stage

CONCLUSION • The policy formulator must have among others the following skills: – Understanding the context – Managing complex relationships and synthesizing and absorbing huge amounts of information quickly and accurately – Well developed presentation skills – Grounding in economics, statistics and relevant scientific disciplines so as to act as an intelligent customer for complex information – Familiarity with project planning management and evaluation – Willingness to experiment and take risks – Willingness to learn new skills and acquire new knowledge throughout their career in policy formulation

• I THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

Discussion Question • Suppose you are a policy formulator and analyst and you have observed that many companies are discharging their affluent directly into streams and rivers. You have also observed that the increasing use of agricultural chemicals including the leaching of fertilizers has been one of the greatest challenges for water pollution in your country. • As a policy formulator, who do you think will be your stakeholders and what will be the areas of interest. What problems would you expect. • What issues would you take into account as you formulate the policy?