South Asia Training of Trainers (ToT) Workshop on Bridging Research and Policy
Shimla, India, September 17-21, 2007
 

CUTS International and Overseas Development Institute (ODI), UK jointly organised a Training of Trainers Workshop on “Bridging Research and Policy” between 17th to 21st September 2007 in Shimla, India. The workshop was organised under the auspices of the Civil Society Partnership Programme (CSPP), being coordinated by ODI. This training workshop was targeted at senior/middle level representatives from select Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) of South Asia. Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in South Asia have been engaged quite actively in influencing development policy-making and implementation. Participants were familiarised with certain tools and techniques for bridging the gap between research (evidence gathering) and policy (process influencing) – and sensitised on how such tools would be applicable in specific cases (examples).

There was consensus that tools discussed in workshop would be quite useful in the region and that some of them were already being used ad hoc. So, there is a need for a more systematic approach to using such tools. It was resolved that the tools elucidated in the workshop would be contextualised (with appropriate illustrations) and collated into a ‘Training Manual’ – to be used for furthering the agenda in each of the counties more extensively. The manual would be a joint publication of the civil society representatives who were present in the workshop and finalised following a participatory process. A ‘South Asia’ network would also be constituted as a part of the ‘Evidence Based Policy for Development Network’ (www.ebpdn.org), which would spearhead the dissemination and outreach of the approach of evidence based policy advocacy using the tools and methodologies discussed in the workshop.

Workshop Proceedings

For more details, contact:
Rijit Sengupta
rsg@cuts.org, c-cier@cuts.org
(+91) 98 292 85928.