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Some lessons learned by Latin American think tanks

August 16, 2011 by Zeinab Sabet Leave a comment

Think thanks and the challenges they face when influencing policy were addressed in the opening session of the workshop “Using knowledge to improve policy influence”, which was held in Lima, Peru, on August 11th and 12^th. Four Executive Directors and one Director of an Economic Program from Latin American institutes presented and discussed their experiences, organizational structures and lessons learned in the field of policy influence.

“Using knowledge to improve policy influence” Workshop

Moderated by the Peruvian journalist Mirko Lauer, the speakers of the session “Lessons learned by think tanks of the region” were: Leopoldo Font (Executive Director of CLAEH, Uruguay), Eugenio Rivera Urrutia (Director of the Economic Program of Chile XXI, Chile), Javier Portocarrero (Executive Director of CIES, Peru), Roberto Steiner (Executive Director of Fedesarrollo, Colombia) and Fernando Straface (Executive Director of CIPPEC, Argentina).

After presenting the work and experiences in their institutions, the speakers answered many questions of an audience that came from a great diversity of think tanks of Latin America.

‘Context is King’ in bridging research and policy

January 15, 2011 by meganll2011 1 Comment

Research Shaping Policy Session

The new buzzword around the world is ‘evidence-based policymaking’. But how effectively does research reach and inform policies in the real world, and what is the role of think tanks in bridging this divide? The Directors of three Think Tanks in Colombia, Chile and Equador shared tactical approaches in a session entitled Research Shaping Policy: Latin America’s Experience, and lived up to their reputation for ‘fierce debate’.

The GDNet-convened session highlighted how crucial the political context is in shaping the effectiveness of think tank interventions in a country. For Orazio Belletini, Executive Director of FARO in Equador, rapid turnover of politicians is a constant problem: Ministers of Finance last an average of only six months in his country. Information is scarce, dispersed, highly technical and difficult for policymakers to use. “The political landscape is characterised by ideological fragmentation and volatile coalitions”, he said. “By the time a researcher has finished his policy paper, the Minister interested in the results is no longer in office”.

Financing development in a post-conflict world: The new agenda

January 14, 2011 by meganll2011 Leave a comment

Panel plenary session 1 - Financing development in a post-crisis world: The new agenda

The panelists in the first Plenary Session of GDN’s 12^th Annual Conference agreed that financing has become widely available for developing countries in the past few years, and that the main issue has become how to allocate it.

Francois Bourguignon, Director of the Paris School of Economics, claimed that financing has increased significantly in the last years and the main issue has become finding the most suitable finance scheme to maximize social return and avoid a poverty trap. Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Chief Economist of the Financial and Private Sector Network in the World Bank, pointed out that there are some undesirable effects of having such a wide availability of financing, including the irresponsible expansion of access to credit. But at the same time, she acknowledged that financial systems, and financing in general, are still crucial to developing economies because they underpin economic development. She suggested that in order to attain sustainability, the State must play a clear and defined role and that regulations have to be well formulated and enforced.