Put Final Touches on the Training in Policy and Political Cycle

Advent of the far reaching reforms era in Georgia surged a great demand in cross-sectoral collaboration between the government, civil society and the media to ensure production of high quality evidence and increased demand for evidence informed public policy formulation.

As a continuous effort to improving capacities of NGOs on providing evidence in policy making process, Curatio International Foundation organized the gathering of 20 executives from leading local non-governmental organizations on Bazaleti, Georgia.The meeting became possible in the framework of the “Strengthening Civil Society Capacity to Promote Research Evidence for Policy Development in Georgia” project aiming at building the skills of civil society organizations on improved provision of the evidence in policy making process. The project is implemented by the Curatio International Foundation with the financial support of Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR) and Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF).

It is said that to influence policy one needs to know how it is developed.

Therefore training course in Policy and Political Cycle has been designed to enhance capacity of participants in terms of employing evidence to engage effectively in policy making process. The main emphasis is placed on the understanding of agenda setting and policy formulation stages of the public policy formulation process.

The training module consists of the two following parts:The first part of the training that held in the mid summer provided training participants more theoretical knowledge in evidence informed public policy formulation; the role of the Media in advocating the policy issue; public policy and budget cycle and formal framework of decision-making. The trainings were provided through employing highly qualified experts.

While “fall” gathering -second part of the training further extended the topics related to health policy making in a more interactive mode. Group discussions and team presentations facilitated during this session provided a unique opportunity to participants to demonstrate that they are ready to apply gained knowledge in practice and have developed more specific skills to identify windows of opportunities to present evidence “just in time” and explain its policy implications that will allow them to be more effective participants in the policy process. Specifically:

The second part was dedicated to a) presenting results of the baseline survey findings to discuss whether the partner NGO coalitions have sufficient skills, knowledge and social network to influence the policy in Georgia; 2 ) making presentation on one of the critical health sector reforms in Georgia – “Hospital Sector Reforms; 3) facilitating group discussions to understand and compare policy making in different political environments (e.g. Dictatorship—Chile; Electoral Democracies: Mexico & Columbia; Democratic regimes – the USA; and in Georgia), 4) agreeing on future interventions, which could lead to improving NGO coalitions capacity in producing and employing high quality evidence in policy making.

In the framework of the project, two distinct networks of NGOs are gathered. At the ending part of the session alliance members shared their views and opinions on the health sector related topics that are of utmost importance and call for prompt civil society response.

The organizations engaged in the course are:

Georgian Young Lawyer’s Association (GYLA), Transparency International Georgia, Open Society Georgia Foundation (Soros Foundation national chapter), Association of Young Economists of Georgia (AYEG), Economic Policy Research Centre, Georgian Association for Mental Health (GAMH), Mental Health Coalition, Scientific Research Institute of Psychiatry, UK-Georgia Professional Network, Georgian Association for Psychosocial Aid “Ndoba”, Association of People in Need of Special Care (APNSC).

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