Building a strategy

TTI PEC Programme in Latin America and South Asia

By 06/08/2014

From August 2013 to August 2014, the Think Tank Initiative (TTI) has worked with the Institute of Development Studies and Practical Action Consulting (IDS-PAC) to design and deliver a bi-regional capacity development programme for 26 think tanks based in Latin America and South Asia.

The PEC programme aims to strengthen the policy engagement and communications (PEC) work of researchers and communications staff based in these think tanks, and to bring together the collective knowledge and expertise of technical facilitators based in the think tank’s local context as well as professional staff at IDS in the United Kingdom (UK).

To date, each think tank has benefited from the support of a facilitation coach who has worked closely with the organisation to design an individualized capacity development work-plan. Implemented over a nine month period, each work-plan enabled  think tanks to focus on building a unique portfolio of PEC-related capabilities that will:

  • Map to their institutional PEC goals;
  • Enrich their policy engagement activities;
  • Increase the impact of their research; and
  • Influence public-policy formulation and debates.

The PEC programme has been an insightful journey thus far. It has fostered peer to peer learning, regional knowledge exchanges and the production of several innovative strategic tools and approaches for PEC.

Over the next two weeks, R2A will showcase some of the PEC deliverables that have come out of the PEC capacity development programme. These deliverables were produced by contributing think tanks and their facilitators to demonstrate the learning coming out of the capacity development programme. They will appear in the form of videos, blogs, presentations and guidelines that either model approaches for PEC or demonstrate the institutional changes resulting from engagement with the programme.

IDS-PAC will be profiling these programme deliverables in two phases:

  • Latin America programme deliverables will launch on 7 August, 2014;
  • South Asian programme deliverables will launch on 14 August, 2014.

Latin America PEC Deliverables

R2A will be posting content on Latin American PEC deliverables in two languages – Spanish and English. Please note some of the content is currently available in Spanish only. A full list of PEC Latin American deliverables is provided below:

English

Spanish

  • CEDA: La radio como estrategia de comunicación
  • FOSDEH desarrolla su “teoría del cambio institucional” como nueva metodología de planificación estratégica
  • ARU Herramientas metodológicas para un taller de planificación estratégica
  • FUSADES “The Tipping Point” mejora el impacto de la investigación
  • GRUPO FARO Espacio virtual de comunicación interna
  • INESAD: Una guía práctica para la recaudación de fondos
  • Instituto Desarrollo: La cultura de comunicación e incidencia en ID
  • Metodología Auditoría de Imagen y Posicionamiento Organizacional (Y Talavera)
  • Metodología Mapeo de Actores¨The Tipping Point¨:  Generando Epidemias Comunicacionales (Y Talavera)

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the think tanks for their sustained engagement in PEC. Your contributions are testimony to your willingness to share and embrace new ideas and approaches. Sincere thanks also to the regional coordinator (Alicia Quezada / PAC) and the local facilitators (Diego Abente, Yolanda Talavera, Anaité Vargas, and Vanesa Weyrauch) for your dedication, valuable insights and support through-out the PEC programme. Finally, special thanks to IDRC and Think Tank Initiative, for giving IDS-PAC the opportunity to work with an accomplished portfolio of think tanks.

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This post has been produced as part of the Think Tank Initiative’s Policy Engagement and Communications (PEC) programme. However,  these are the author’s personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of TTI. You can find all ongoing outputs related to this project via the PEC mini-site on Research to Action. To get updates from the PEC programme and be part of the discussion sign-up to our RSS or email updates. You can also follow our progress via Twitter using the following hashtag #ttipec

Image courtesy of Center for Global Development.