Influencing policy and practice
Understanding context
A desire to have greater impact in policy and practice
Strategy development
Improving advocacy/campaign management
Reflecting on and learning from influencing or advocacy work
What issues can I help with?
Team leadership
Research
Strategy development
Evaluation and learning
Capacity development and training,
Facilitation and mentoring
What do I offer?
What approach do I take?
My work draws on a range of approaches including problem driven iterative adaptation developed by Harvard University, Development Entrepreneurship developed by the Asia Foundation as well as the work done by the Overseas Development Institute on adaptive management and promoting (research) impact.
I undertake studies of the policy process, drawing on political economy and stakeholder analyses. Drawing on such studies as well as workshops and exercises (often using tools such as fishbone diagrams and force field analyses), I provide advice, support and training on how organisations and teams can best engage with and influence policy and practice in a wide variety of policy areas including climate change, the economy, social affairs and disaster risk reduction. I advise on strategy and direction, governance and management, outputs and activities, uptake and outcomes as well as impact. I also evaluate the impact of interventions on policy and practice using approaches such as Outcome Harvesting and Contribution Analysis.
2023-24: supporting the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to learn from their work to influence policy and practice
2022-23: led a team on behalf of Itad to undertake an evaluation of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)'s Global Fund Advocacy Portfolio (GFAP)
2022: led a team on behalf of Itad to evaluate the Lancet and Financial Times Commission on digital health for Fondation Botnar
Recent examples of my work
2020-21: led a team to undertake an evaluation of the Hewlett Foundation’s programme to improve Transparency, Participation and Accountability in sub-Saharan Africa and a related landscape scan, as part of a strategy refresh
2019-21: part of a team that evaluated the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)’s efforts to scale impact between 2015-20
Recent publications
2021: Transparency, Participation and Accountability Landscape Scan. This report assesses the state of the transparency, participation and accountability field and how it is changing to support the Hewlett Foundation’s to learn and respond to the new context in in its 2020-25 strategy
2021: Evaluation of the International Development Research Centre's Strategy to Scale Research Results. This report presents the findings, analysis and insights from an evaluation of the International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) 2015–2020 strategic objective to invest in ‘knowledge and innovation for large-scale positive change
2019: Continuity and change in Indonesia's social protection sector. This study set out to answer the following questions: 1. How has the social protection sector evolved historically? 2. What are the drivers of (or triggers for) change (and continuity) in the social protection sector? The answers fed into the World Bank’s strategy to improve social protection outcomes in Indonesia.
2018: The role of scientific evidence during the 2015 Nepal earthquake relief efforts. Focusing on the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal, this report explores the extent to which scientific information was used during the disaster response. It sets out to understand the key actors involved in the response effort, their information needs and how these were communicated to scientists and other knowledge providers, the scientific information that was produced, and how this information was shared
2017: Policy Engagement and Influence: A handbook for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Commissioned by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), this handbook supports their policy officers to engage with and influence policy more effectively. It does so by introducing an approach and a set of tools to help generate enough information to plan, monitor and learn more systematically from their policy work.
2023: Accounting for Advocacy. This article highlights key lessons from recent assignments reviewing work to influence policy and practice.
2023: Promoting impact through research and engagement. This article outlines five key questions funders ask themselves if they are considering funding research and engagement as a means to bringing about change.
2021: Governance and service delivery in sub-Saharan Africa: eight reflection from a recent landscape scan. This summarises a scan of the transparency, participation and accountability (TPA) landscape, which was used to inform the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation’s 2022-27 Inclusive Governance strategy
Recent writing
2021: Devising, revising, and evaluating strategies for funding organisations: 10 lessons from OTT’s work. This article outlines lessons from work supporting large funders to develop, refresh and evaluate influencing strategies in the areas of economic justice, scaling research impact and transparency, participation and accountability, targeting both organisations who are commissioning such as work as well as the consultants who have been selected to conduct it.
2018: Getting better at influencing policy is a social process. This article highlights key lessons from work with an international organisation supporting their policy officers to improve their policy influencing skills and abilities.
