Vanessa Weyrauch

User organisation and contact details

CIPPEC, Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth
Av. Callao 25 - 1st floor
C1022AAA - Buenos Aires - Argentina
Tel: (+54-11) 4384-9009 - Fax: (+54-11) 4371-1221
e-mail: vweyrauch@cippec.org|

Project objectives

1. To further CIPPEC´s understanding on which type of networks, and strategies and activities that they develop, are most effective in bridging research and policy in global policymaking.
2. To help other CSOs and think tanks to better devise their participation in networks and global policies, providing them with concrete tools to assess where the best opportunities lie; which are the most relevant challenges they face (legitimacy, new forms of exclusion, accountability, etc.) and ways to overcome or mitigate these.
3. To nurture ongoing research with CIPPEC´s own experience in participating at global and regional policy networks and forums such as GDN, LACEA (Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association), Community of Democracies, World Business Forum, PREAL (Partnership for Educational Revitalization in the Americas), etc.

Contribution to the project

• CIPPEC will contribute with its own organisational lessons from its participation in transnational policy activities in a wide variety of topics (macroeconomics, democracy, access to public information, healthcare, access to education, nexus between research and policy, etc.), especially regarding its interactions with both CSOs and with policymakers.
• CIPPEC, in consultation with Diane Stone and ODI, will produce a Handbook on networks and global policy processes, that will become a concrete practical application tool. This handbook will draw lessons from the research and include specific tools and recommendations to help networks enhance their capacity to influence global policymaking processes. It will be used in the workshop planned in the project to be delivered in Budapest in 2007, as well as feed into ODI´s Civil Society Partnership Programme (CSPP, please see http://www.odi.org.uk/cspp/Index.html). Under CSPP, CIPPEC will conduct a "Training of trainers" with regional and national organisations, and create and sustain a CSO network in Latin America to exchange knowledge and experiences about how to bridge the gap between research and policymaking. The Handbook will become a very valuable tool for these activities. It will also contain a Latin American chapter (only for version in Spanish) to make it more useful to the CSO network in this region.

Contribution to the programme

• Activities within the fellowship will contribute to the objective of strengthening the co-production of knowledge by researchers and those being researched since it will combine project´s findings with the user organisation´s experiences as well as practical knowledge needs of a broader set of CSOs in developing countries based in interaction with them in the above mentioned network. By specifically addressing the implications of network participation for CSOs and policymakers, it will also contribute to the development of applied practice models which to be developed in the project South-North Non-governmental Networks, Policy Processes and Policy Outcomes (Richard Crook). Finally, by looking into threats and opportunities of operating under global governance regimes, it can potentially bring new information to the project "Civil Society and the Convention of the Rights of Children in Argentina (Jean Grugel).
• By fostering synergies between the University of Warwick, ODI, CIPPEC and CSOs in developing countries, the proposed fellowship will also help strengthen North-South research and practice partnerships. Collaboration will not be limited to the production of the handbook, but will also include joint partnerships to deliver trainings, as well as promote lessons from the NGPA program, specially those that emerge from strand C, among different communities of non governmental actors in order to promote their effective participation and enhance their impact in global processes.

Contribution to the user group

• CIPPEC will better understand how to devise its organisational strategy regarding network participation in diverse areas and thus be able to enhance the impact of its current partnerships. This will allow the organisation to install an internal process to assess and implement strategic network participation; and also to share this knowledge with peer organisations with which it is currently working.
• Due to its ongoing activities that aim at strengthening other CSOs´capacities to influence policymaking through the use of evidence and research, CIPPEC will be able to quickly transfer this knowledge to diverse CSOs in the country and region. It will also disseminate key findings and practical recommendations to peer organisations that are participating in the same global policy processes as CIPPEC is.

Associated NGPA research project

Stone, Non Governmental Public Action Networks and Global Policy Processes|

Planned activities and outputs

• Survey to CSOs of global and regional networks to detect their needs regarding impact on global policies
• Analysis of secondary sources and related training materials, including project´s papers and research
• Interviews with CIPPEC´s directors to systematize and evaluate network participation
• Production of adraft of the handbook, in consultation with Diane Stone and ODI
• Discussion of draft handbook with CSOs belonging to ODI´s networks, and other collaborators of the CSPP
• Final revision of handbook
• Dissemination of handbook (print and online versions to be disseminated and used in trainings provided by ODI and CIPPEC, as well as networks such as OSI, GDN, etc.)
• Output: 500 printed Handbooks on networks and global policy processes and online versions available from CIPPEC, ODI and University of Warwick´s web sites.