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Policy That Works (PTW) is an action-research approach for understanding and improving policies and institutions developed by IIED and its partners to address policy issues in forestry and agriculture. Alongside a research and analytical component, the PTW approach seeks to be strongly engaged in policy—to seize opportunities to influence policy, create political space and move policy debates forward. By engaging with many stakeholders, including powerholders and those marginalised from policy, the approach aims to broaden and energise the policy community and start installing some of the attributes of adaptive policy. It focuses in particular on improving policy processes, as opposed to policy instruments, and promoting learning between countries since key process challenges are often shared.⁶³

63 For further information and case studies see Policy That Works for Forests and People (http://www.iied.org/pubs/search.php?s=FPTW); and Policy That Works for Sustaining Agriculture and Regenerating Rural Economies (http://www.iied.org/pubs/search.php?s=SPTW).

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Based on the Policy That Works for Forests and People project, initial practical guidance for Doing Policy Work has been compiled, describing what can be involved, why it is worth doing, who should get involved and how to get started (Mayers, 2003). Policy work involves analysis and action on problems and opportunities. Progress is made when policy and institutional processes start learning from local solutions. This can be encouraged by people coming together to tackle local problems and by policymakers giving them the chance to experiment. Support can sometimes be provided to those who are currently marginalised from policy and institutional processes, so that they can present their views and experience and make their claims more effectively. This requires tools to identify the individual and organisational choices that are the hub of local issues and problems; tracing the rules, structures, markets and policy signals which affect them; and developing improvements. Policy work is also needed to stimulate and free-up some current policymakers and institutional leaders to learn, and be subject to checks and balances, from local levels (Mayers, 2003).

Examples of when policy work is needed include: re-thinking institutional systems and structures, negotiating roles and functions within and between institutions, fostering vision and momentum for change within or between organisations and working out how to scale-up and spread successful initiatives. Policy work can be done by a range of actors, including local groups wanting to tackle problems with wider political structures; practitioners concerned with understanding wider context and constraints and spreading local project success; and policymakers who want to ensure policy objectives are linked to on the ground practice so that both are continually improved (Mayers, 2003).

As a follow-up to Policy That Works for Forests and People, IIED initiated the Forest Governance Learning Group in 2003, which has established a number of Governance Learning Groups. These are ongoing processes of research and action (see below), rather than time bound projects.

Governance learning groups

Learning groups on natural resource governance can be important catalysts for understanding and improving governance, and can take various forms. Local learning groups can be useful as part of action research processes, to provide fora for communities to conduct their own analysis of policy issues that affect their lives; and to promote exchange of knowledge, practices and innovations between farmers to enrich local adaptive NRM processes (eg.

local resource management groups or platforms, and farmer field schools). They may entail small group discussions at household level, or larger inter-community workshops to share the results of community analysis and build a collective vision. Alternatively, local governance learning groups may be set up to carry out governance case studies, through facilitated “governance evaluation” processes involving the social actors most directly concerned about natural resources and affected by the quality of their governance. They may also serve to bring together different local actors, including communities, local government and NGOs.

National learning groups can be used to link local research and experience to national policy, and promote policy influence as well as local-local learning. The emphasis on ongoing learning processes distinguishes them from project steering groups, which engage decision-makers in particular projects to promote the uptake of research.

The composition, mandate and working methods should be tailored to the particular purpose of the learning group and the context in which it operates. Much will depend on the degree to which it is able to engage diverse actors and drive a process of informed debate with a view to influencing policy, and hence on the perceived legitimacy of the learning group. Learning groups can be difficult to manage and will usually require a talented convenor and facilitator willing to invest the time needed to foster a genuine process of learning.

IIED’s Forest Governance Learning Group, for example, connects different policy actors and conducts research on various forest governance issues. Through country teams in 10 countries it seeks to connect those marginalised from forest governance (eg. forest dwellers) to those controlling it (eg. forestry departments and finance ministries), and to help both do things better. Activities involve participatory analysis, learning and training events, network building, supported uptake of governance tools, and taking advantage of direct opportunities for governance reform. Country teams involve opinion-formers and decision-makers, plus individuals who can articulate the issues faced by those marginalised from governance, and other facilitators who work with them. Inter-country

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building and engagement with international policy are also involved (see http://www.iied.org/natural-resources/

key-issues/forestry/forest-governance-learning-group).

Some learning groups focus primarily on promoting learning at international level. For example, IIED’s Poverty and Conservation Learning Group brings together organisations that develop or influence conservation and poverty reduction policy and those that are affected by it. These include international conservation NGOs, Southern conservation NGOs, donor agencies and indigenous organisations. It fulfils two major functions through a website (www.povertyandconservation.info) and through learning events:

1) Promoting good practice through information provision and dissemination.

2) Influencing policy change through providing a programme of learning activities to organisations actively working on conservation-poverty linkages.

IIED’s project on Policy That Works for Biodiversity and Poverty Reduction envisages local action-research processes feeding into parallel national learning groups which would also conduct additional governance studies. This combines a focus on strengthening the capacity of local communities to influence policy, and encouraging governments to open up policy processes. The national learning groups will aim to engage a range of actors, including researchers, policymakers, conservation NGOs, sectoral ministries and representatives of affected communities, in order to connect different actors and steer the research process. They will also seek direct opportunities for biodiversity governance reform. However, their exact purpose and composition may need to be tailored according to the policy and political context in different countries. It is envisaged that at the end of the project, the learning groups will continue or be formalised in some other appropriate form, to provide an ongoing forum for linking policy and practice and facilitating broad stakeholder engagement.

Deliberative democracy tools

New experiments with deliberative and inclusive approaches that link voices from below with national and international policy processes also offer opportunities to democratise the governance of biodiversity. They involve the creation of new spaces which allow marginalised groups to participate directly in policy debates (rather than relying on government channels of representation, which often do not work, or on advocacy intermediaries).

Several procedures, techniques and methods are used to include diverse actors in deliberative processes. They include citizens’ juries, consensus conferences, citizens’ panels, scenario workshops, deliberative polling, focus groups, multi-criteria mapping, rapid and participatory learning and action, and visioning exercises. Citizens’ juries, for example, provide a means for local actors most affected by policies to participate in assessing different policy options. They involve ordinary citizens hearing evidence on a particular policy choice from different perspectives, in the presence of independent witnesses to ensure a fair process, and then deciding for themselves on the basis of the evidence provided.

For example, farmers in Andhra Pradesh held a citizens’ jury on the future of India’s agriculture policy (Vision 20:20) which was likely to have serious impacts on small farmers. More recently, farmers in Mali deliberated on the pros and cons of GM crops and sent a clear anti-GMO message to national policymakers, which appears to have been heard.⁶⁴ Similar citizens’ juries could be organised to enable local people to have an informed debate on different forms of biodiversity governance (eg. protected areas versus other approaches).

Policy instruments that improve the policy process

Finally, a number of natural resource policy studies have emphasised the importance of policy instruments that improve the policy process, for example policies and laws that:

64 http://www.iied.org/natural-resources/key-issues/food-and-agriculture/deliberative-democracy-citizens-juries#about

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Require participatory policy formulation, co-ordination between sectors, and transparent and accountable

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institutions.

Recognise the rights of indigenous and local communities to participate in policies that affect them (eg. ILO

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Convention 169).

Require public access to information.

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Focusing efforts on promoting these kinds of policy instruments and laws that improve the process of policymaking and implementation across the board can have far greater impact than focusing only on changing the contents of a single policy instrument (see Mayers and Bass, 1999; Roe et al., 2000; Borrini-Feyerabend et al., 2004a).